Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Who You Calling a Tea Bagger?

Apparently President Obama is quoted in a book referring to the supporters of the Tea Party Movement as "tea baggers" and the right is having an absolute fit, claiming the term is disgusting and inappropriate. The feigned outrage is simply amazing.

Please. Let's be honest here. The reason the term has become so popular is that it is demonstrative of the complete lack of understanding. The joke has always been on Fox News - where anchor after anchor used the term "tea bagger" in supportive pieces, and never had a clue what the term meant. The mocking was directed at Fox News, and reporters and anchors who were so eager to support anything that was anti-Obama and so out of touch, that they had no idea that the term referred to a sexual act.

It wasn't only Fox News who used the term, the tea baggers themselves used it to identify themselves well before any "liberal" used the term. If you doubt this, search the news archives at Google for the term "tea bagger" and just scan the headlines. The term has been used by the movement itself, and by the "right" wing news media. Witness the "Proud to Be a Tea Bagger pins."

That is what made the term so appropriate. Clueless news anchors using the term to report about clueless protesters sitting in worn out lawn chairs waiving little American flags proudly referring to themselves as tea baggers, without a clue what they were protesting about, or that they were saying. Check out Teabaggers, You Named YourselvesRise of an Epithet at the National Review, The Slur That Must Not Be Named, for more,

Sort of like the protests over the Czars that the President was appointing, and the woman who wanted to know who they were going to rule over, and how much land the government was giving them.

But the real issue here is the feigned uproar. The press needs some honesty, politicians on both sides need to stop the feigned outrage, and the Tea Party Movement needs to focus on its core mission and getting the nut jobs off the stage.

A New American Tea Party: The Counterrevolution Against Bailouts, Handouts, Reckless Spending, and More Taxes

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