Fox News contributor Sarah Palin headlined tonight’s National Tea Party Convention in Nashville with most of her 40-minute speech taking direct aim at democrats in congress and in particular at Pres. Obama.

“We need a commander-in-chief not a professor of law standing at a lectern,” said Palin. Later, Palin told the tea partiers politics needed more people like them and “not some charismatic guy with a telepromter.”

Anchoring a two-hour “Geraldo at Large”, Geraldo Rivera talked with Joe “the plumber” Wurzelbacher in the run-up to Palin’s speech, while on MSNBC, host Ed Schultz talked with democratic strategist Bob Shrum.

Fox News, MSNBC and C-SPAN announced earlier this week they would carry the speech. CNN was planning to air a documentary on Martin Luther King, but aired Palin’s speech instead.

“Welcome to those C-SPAN viewers, you may not be welcome at the health care debates but you are here at the tea party,” said the one-time GOP VP nominee referring to C-SPAN’s request to broadcast congressional health care negotiations.

After speaking, Palin took questions submitted by the Tea Party Nation. One asked, “in the instance that there were ever to be a conservative that were harrased in the media, what would you say to them?”

“Plow right on through it,” said Palin. “Really, at the end of the day who cares what an irrelevant, lamestream media is gonna say about you? Who cares?”

In thanking the crowd for the invitation, Palin aid, “I have to apologize if I had anything to do with any of the controversy that some of the media spun up.” She also reiterated that with her reported $100,000 speaking fee, she would “Turn it right back around and give it to the cause.”

> Correction: CNN did not pre-empt the MLK documentary. Instead, the network aired the special earlier while Don Lemon anchored coverage of Palin’s speech and analysis into the 10pmET hour.