Pawlenty takes the stage at big conservative confab

Gov. Tim Pawlenty delivered a red-meat message Friday morning to the nation's pre-eminent conservative organization, which is hosting most of the Republicans -- including Pawlenty -- considering a presidential run in 2012.

Warmly received by participants at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., Pawlenty delivered a string of applause lines and laugh lines to a group that is a key part of the GOP base.

He talked up his bona fides as a tax-cutter and budget-slasher and repeatedly directly lambasted President Obama for budget deficits and what he called "appeasement" in foreign affairs.

"I have a message for President Obama," he said. "Mr. President: No more apology tours and no more giving Miranda rights to terrorists in our country."

On the federal government's current spending levels, he said, "if government spending were an Olympic sport, he'd be a repeat gold medalist."

Pawlenty also cast a broader rhetorical net in an attempt to transcend the GOP, casting himself and his listeners as standard-bearers for conservatism.

"A lot has changed" since he spoke to the group a year ago, Pawlenty said. "The pundits and smart alecks were saying the sun was setting on the conservative movement, that we were entering an era of hope and change and teleprompters."

Pawlenty said he stands by the values of "limited government, the rule of law, free markets, the sanctity of life and traditional marriage and families."

And he made an overt religious pitch: "God's in charge," invoking the "Creator" cited in the Declaration of Independence.

"People say, aw, Pawlenty, don't bring that up. It's politically incorrect -- hogwash," he said, dismissing "the naysayers who try to crowd out God."

He even teed off on Tiger Woods' first public appearance in nearly three months, saying Woods' wife "said I've had enough -- no more.

"We should take a lesson from her playbook and take a nine-iron and smash the window out of big government. We've had enough."