How Dare You Redneck, Religious Idiots Think You Can Run Things!

That's a paraphrase of Darleen Click's take on this liberal snobbery disguised as a thoughtful article on the rise of the Tea Party movement.

The President Bush who emerged after September 11 took his party and the country back to the divisive politics of earlier decades, giving us seven years of ideological recrimination. By the time of the last presidential campaign, millions were transfixed not by the wisdom or folly of Barack Obama’s policy agenda, but by absurd rumors about his birth certificate and his “socialism.” Now he has been elected president by a healthy majority and is grappling with a wounded economy and two foreign wars he inherited—and what are we talking about? A makeshift Tea Party movement whose activists rage against “government” and “the media,” while the hotheads of talk radio and cable news declare that the conservative counterrevolution has begun.

You can go read the whole thing if you really want to be looked down upon, but the gist is that those stupid Americans have the audacity not to accept the ideas and beliefs of the elites to run everything. No, they think they have the right to criticize the government and be skeptical of its methods and reasons for trying to control more and more. Moreover, these idiots actually think they are capable of educating their own children and changing society to reflect their views. That's a style reserved for liberals, you see.

The whole thing shows exactly why the elites don't get it. If it were possible, they'd disenfranchise the masses (well, except for the ones who vote as they like). It's too bad for them that the masses aren't willing to cede their independence so easily.

Violence at Protest Must've Been Tea Partiers

Oh, wait. It wasn't.
As Ed Morrissey notes,

After months of warning that Tea Party protests would erupt into violence, a wave of vandalism and violence crested in Santa Cruz this weekend. Masked protesters wielding torches swarmed through the business district, smashing windows and chanting “the streets are on fire!” and “Revolution!” It’s exactly the kind of armed uprising that Tea Party critics predicted … except that it didn’t erupt at a Tea Party(.)

Projection from the left, which, I'm sure, will be condemning the violence any minute now...

And maybe guys like this should rethink their rethinking of the GOP, the party that protects his individual rights and doesn't resort to violence when they protest.

IOKIYAL

It's OK if you're a liberal.

Imagine a group of angry demonstrators toting swastika-festooned protest signs calling politicians Nazis, shouting obscenities and racial remarks and throwing rocks and bottles at police officers sent to keep order. No, these are not Tea Partiers. They are the mob that turned out last week to protest Arizona's new immigration-enforcement law. This group of liberal rowdies has been dubbed the Tequila Party.

For the most part, liberal media coverage overlooked all the leftist violence. Typical headlines described the protest as "mostly peaceful," with media outlets avoiding details about why they had to use the qualifier "mostly." Reporting a near-riot by the opponents of the Arizona law doesn't fit the dominant media storyline.

Some of the editorial bias is blatant. An Associated Press story about the Arizona immigration law quoted a 13-year-old Hispanic boy saying, "We can't be in the streets anymore without the pigs thinking we're illegal immigrants." The Washington Post sanitized the boy's views towards law enforcement by replacing the word "pigs" with "[police]." If a Tea Partier used a slur of any kind, it's doubtful it would be given the square-bracket treatment. It would probably be a banner headline.

I'm still trying to figure out why showing ID is racist. I have to show my ID to get Sudafed from CVS, for crying out loud.

Media Bias: How Newsweek Embraces the "Coffee Party Movement"

You gotta love when the media objectively covers a movement. In this case, the objective coverage is of the astroturf known as the Coffee Party movement, which brings in 250 protesters to its events. Yeah, that's much better than the tiny number of Tea Party protesters.

The Coffee Party Heats Up
Tired of all the Tea Party talk, Annabel Park decided to throw a Coffee Party — and 200,000 people showed up.

Emphasis mine.

So, where were these 200,000 Coffee Partiers? In Washington, D.C.? Nope. New York City? Nope. Los Angeles? Nope. Austin, Texas perhaps? Nope.

It's on Facebook.

Within days, thousands of people signed up on Facebook...the group now has more than 200,000 members.

Get it? It doesn't matter that a tiny number of actual people show up in person to "protest." Just get some people on Facebook to friend you and that counts just like hauling your spouse and kids halfway across the country!

Well, I hate to report this to the Coffee Party lovin' folks at Newsweek, but the just one Tea Party page on Facebook has more than 185,000 fans, and there are many different Tea Party pages. Somehow, I don't think having Facebook friends counts as a protest...if the group is critical of Teh One.

Would You Want To Hire Such a Stupid Employee?

Geico voice actor fired after insulting tea parties

Sometimes you have a headline that makes the rest of the story superfluous, but here's the background. Actor Lance Baxter, otherwise known as "D.C. Douglas," currently known as the man who informs you how much Geico can save you on car insurance, left a message last month with FreedomWorks in which he asked the group how many "mentally retarded" people it had on staff and what it would do when a tea partyer "killed someone." On April 14, FreedomWorks put his voicemail online.

Today, Douglas reports he's been dropped from Geico's campaign. His dramatic news release is here; he claims to have been motivated by "the recent gay and racial slurs slung by Tea Party members at Congressman Barney Frank and Representative John Lewis during the Health Care Reform Weekend," and says he's "open to any attorneys taking on this case pro bono."

Which makes sense in an angry and dangerous kind of way, except that there's no proof any gay or racial slurs were slung. How stupid must one be to do this?

For the far left version, there's this story on PR Newswire (shouldn't it be more objective? Never mind):

FreedomWorks Bullies GEICO To Axe Voice Over Actor
GEICO voice over actor targeted by Tea Party members after expressing opinion on FreedomWorks voicemail.

Los Angeles actor, D.C. Douglas, says he was dropped from the upcoming GEICO "Shocking News" campaign after a group of Tea Party members harassed him and the insurance giant over a private voicemail the actor left for FreedomWorks. Matt Kibbe, President and CEO of FreedomWorks, posted Mr. Douglas' cell phone number in a blog post on biggovernment.com, instructing readers to "Feel free to contact (him)… call his employer too. Let them know that you…are now in the market for car insurance." The next day, GEICO held auditions to replace Mr. Douglas' voice on the campaign.

Mr. Douglas' message hardly warranted the mobilization of the Tea Party Movement. Upset by the recent gay and racial slurs slung by Tea Party members at Congressman Barney Frank and Representative John Lewis during the Health Care Reform Weekend, Mr. Douglas left his opinion of FreedomWorks' staff and followers on their company voicemail and included his phone number.

Emphasis mine.

Hardly warranted? Douglas called the staffers at FreedomWorks "retarded." Now, I'm not gonna go all Sarah Palin about the use of a grade school taunt, but it's hard to feel sympathy for a grown man acting, well, retarded about people with whom he disagrees politically, especially when he's so badly informed.

Faux-Populism

That's what Moe Lane is calling the anti-TEA Party movement. Erick Erickson points out that the White House's Cass Sunstein has suggested "creating fake websites and using outside 501(c)(3) interest groups to act as alleged independent champions of government policy and to 'cognitively infiltrate' opposition websites, etc." and that it looks suspiciously like The Other 95% and other anti-TEA Party groups.

This is an administration bent on controlling not only the political arm of government but the communications arm, as well, and discrediting critics is a major step in that direction.

The Only Bias Comes From Fox News...

A friend of mine got really excited when Jon Stewart told Fox News to go f*ck themselves, in a monologue that supposedly showed the most popular cable news network's hypocrisy when it comes to generalizing.

The video he sent me came about when I called out the hypocrisy of many of my lefty friends who are scared of the "racism and hatred" they think characterizes all TEA Partiers. I asked one person, who claimed to have witnessed this first hand at a 9/12 protest locally, to explain how he concluded that the smattering of bad behavior he'd seen was a reflection of the protests en toto. His response was that he was "driving by" one and saw two or three signs, such as the infamous Obama witchdoctor poster (which I denounced here,) and therefore concluded that there was so much vile racism around that we should mock and deride everyone protesting the expansion of government. Once I pointed out the obvious stupidity of this smear, the friend didn't want to talk about it anymore.

The Jon Stewart piece begins well enough, poking fun at lefties generalizing about TEA Partiers, but then goes off the rails cherry-picking individual sentences from various programs to point out the supposed hypocrisy of anyone who dislikes the generalizations made by the left about TEA Party supporters.

I love a good generalization, particularly when it stirs up the ire of the left, and so generalizing in general wasn't the point of the argument. Indeed, from my own archives, I can pull out some great and true generalizations about liberals, complete with factual support, but there's a big difference between arguing that conservatives think liberals are misinformed while liberals think conservatives are evil and liberals arguing that TEA Partiers are racists and dangerous.

More to the specific accusation from Jon Stewart, a big lefty in his own right, there are more than a few examples of generalizations made against conservatives with little or no rebuttal than anything said on Fox News. And I don't even have to grab a single sentence to make the point.

Discrediting the Tea Parties

It's been the goal of Democrats and their liberal minions on TV to discredit the Tea Party movement as just a bunch of racists, homophobes and morons. Well, now they are getting organized in their attempts. Can't find any racists, homophobes or morons at the local Tea Party event? Make your own!

What Happens When the Media Cover Protests

Shannon Travis decided that, instead of believing the leftwing rants that Tea Partiers are racists, he would go on the road with them, instead. What he found was not what's been reported.

But here's what you don't often see in the coverage of Tea Party rallies: Patriotic signs professing a love for country; mothers and fathers with their children; African-Americans proudly participating; and senior citizens bopping to a hip-hop rapper...

Together, we beamed out images of the anger and the optimism, profiled African-Americans who are proud to be in the Tea Party's minority and showed activists stirred by "God Bless America" or amused by a young rapper who strung together rhymes against the president and Democrats.

The CNN Express traveled with the Tea Party Express buses for hundreds of miles, from rally to rally to rally.

Being at a Tea Party rally is not quite like seeing it on TV, in newspapers or online. That's the reason CNN is covering this political movement -- and doing so in ways few others can or choose to do.

It is important to show the colorful anger Americans might have against elected leaders and Washington. But people should also see the orange-vested Tea Party hospitality handlers who welcome you with colorful smiles.

There were a few signs that could be seen as offensive to African-Americans. But by and large, no one I spoke with or I heard from on stage said anything that was approaching racist.

Almost everyone I met was welcoming to this African-American television news producer.

It sounds like it's a reflection of much of America: well-meaning people with a few nuts and embarrassments mixed in.

Compare and contrast that reporters experience with this protest, which didn't receive much media coverage.

A Tale of Two Protests

Pajamas Media has the tale of two protests held just 250 miles and one week apart. The one in Los Angeles was left-leaning and the one in Searchlight, Nevada was right-leaning. But that's about where the similarities end.

We've been told by the MSM how racist, homophobic and violent the Tea Party movement is, yet I can guarantee you that it is leftwing nutjobs who have set off more bombs and tried harder to overthrown the government.

Produce the Evidence

Liberals are claiming Tea Party Protests: 'Ni**er,' 'Fa**ot' Shouted At Members Of Congress. But apparently, they can't produce the video showing this. We do have video that doesn't show what they claim:



If they were shouting the N-word all over the place, there should be plenty of video to back up the claim that the Tea Party protesters are a bunch of racists. But there isn't.

Pot-Smoking, 9/11 Truth Lovin' Registered Democrat Pentagon Shooter...Must've Been a "Rightwing Extremist"

If there was ever any doubt about the current meme regarding violence, the story of John Patrick Bedell should lay them to rest.

John Patrick Bedell: Did right-wing extremism lead to shooting? screams the Christian Science Monitor. Pentagon Shooter Was Right-Wing, Anti-Government Terrorist soberly reports Think Progress. And both links talk about Bedell as an anti-government guy who was a 9/11 Truther.

Of course, as Newsbusters notes, 9/11 Truthers are leftwingers, not rightwingers. And given that Bedell was a registered Democrat, the liberal bullshit about rightwing extremism looks even more self-serving.

But that doesn't stop nuts like Jesse Taylor from blaming Tea Partiers and trying to equate Debra Medina with John Patrick Bedell. Taylor must be a yoga master to twist around to draw that comparison.

Who Are the Tea Partiers?

Contrary to liberal popular opinion, Tea Partiers aren't extremists wanting to blow up the government, which, sadly, we can't say about much of the Left.

The information we now are getting on the Tea Partiers is reassuring, at least to me. It comes from Eric O'Keefe, the head of a Chicago-based organization devoted to free markets and limited government, the Sam Adams Alliance. O'Keefe has surveyed 49 Tea Party leaders in 38 states and found that what angers these Tea Partiers' harbor is mostly benign. "They want to make a difference," as good-government types are wont to say. Seventy percent of them told O'Keefe they hope to "have a positive impact on the country." According to O'Keefe, they are neither "political junkies nor crusty right-wing extremists." Nearly half never have been involved in politics before. What angers them is the reckless federal spending of the Democrats in 2009.

Don't tell the leftwing media, the moonbatosphere or any of the liberals you know. To them, Tea Party goers are racist, violent crackpots who want to assassinate President Obama and overthrow the peaceful government. Or something.

Shocking! Many Tea Party Activists Are Also--*Gasp*--Republicans

Bud Kennedy of my hometown Fort Worth Star-Telegram is really concerned about the Tea Party movement (see here for his latest column). Apparently, it's a scandal that many Tea Party activists/supporters/organizers also are Republicans.

When you sign up for e-mail from the supposedly nonpartisan Common Sense Texans network of Tea Party members, you’re giving your address to a Dallas Republican lawyer and social-networking-campaign expert who has been an activist for private-school vouchers...

For example, the Web site commonsensetexans.net, a sign-up and information site for 34 Tea Party and 912 Project groups in Texas, is registered to Dallas lawyer and Tea Party coordinator Ken Emanuelson, a Fred Thompson campaigner and veteran Republican organizer.

Wow! How bizarre that an umbrella website for Tea Party groups in Texas would be run by someone both interested in conservative politics and has experience organizing political groups? Must be a conspiracy!

Apparently, Kennedy, along with many on the left, is most concerned that Tea Partiers aren't all rubes with pitchforks and without political savvy. The idea that Republicans might also agree with many of the 9 principles and 12 values of the 912 project is too difficult to accept as anything other than a hoax for some people.

Kennedy's column also leaves some big unanswered questions. If one of the four Tea Party groups serving the Grapevine-Keller-Southlake area (a cluster of posh suburbs in Tarrant County) is run by a "veteran Republican organizer," who runs the other groups? Is there a reason being a Republican precludes one from also supporting the Tea Parties? And if 1/3 of Tea Partiers "claim libertarian views," what does that say about the other 2/3?

It's obvious that the Tea Party movement, with its call for less government spending and more limited government, chafes against those who support Democrats and their principles of off-the-charts spending and government encroachment on private citizens. It would make more sense for those Democrat supporters to spend their time arguing why spending trillions of dollars we don't have for programs we don't want is a good thing, rather than attacking their opponents as illegitimate.