We've been puzzling over this tea party concept ever since we've heard about it. From what we can figure Conservatives across the country are holding parties to protest being "Taxed Enough Already" (get it?) among other things. This despite the fact that President Obama has just passed the largest middle class tax cut in history. Remember during the campaign how the GOP was telling everyone that Obama would raise your taxes? Makes you wonder if Republicans 1) ever read Obama's proposed tax policy and 2) ever read the news.
The tea baggers are also protesting other things like the government spending, immigration, bank bailouts, the new design on the Tropicana orange juice carton, the Burger King Sponge Bob commercial, and the best way to send tea bags to Somali pirates. (Hint: By ship! Preferably ships also carrying oil, tanks, or weapons.) Because if you can't decide on what to protest about just protest everything, goshdarnit! (Oh, and I may have made some of that protesty stuff up.)
Is this a sign that the GOP is officially dead? When I read things like this, I really think so. Can't you just feel the passion? Isn't it stirring? Don't you feel like getting out there and DOING SOMETHING?! Sigh. That's their activism strategy? It's just how the Obama campaign did it. Not. If that's how the conservative revolution will be won, folks--we don't have anything to worry about. When they start listening to Meghan McCain (on the 12th of never) that's when we should be a little concerned.
Andrew Sullivan refers to the tea parties as tea tantrums, and we (and others) whole-heartedly agree. It makes us giggle and picture wrinkled, swinging scrota. Or at least I do.
Stefania Pomponi Butler wonders if the conservative immigration protest will be called the Dirty Sanchez movement. Yeah, I went there, but after tea bagging, where else is there to go, really?
I guess it's not as interesting if Washington insiders Dick Armey, Jack Kemp, and former White House counsel C. Boyden Gray put on some hose, white powdery wigs, and breeches to dump tea into a poor defenseless body of water. Because that's who's behind all this astroturfing of a so-called "grass-roots" movement: Freedomworks, a non-profit 501c3 but ALSO a 527 fundraising committee and a PAC.
More here: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Freedom_Works
Posted by: cynematic | April 14, 2009 at 12:25 AM
I was watching one of those teabaggers on Hardball yesterday insist that this is non-partisan. When Matthews said he might be more inclined to believe that if Limbaugh, Malkin and FOX News weren't all over it, the teabagger laughed and said "Oh no. We love those guys, but this isn't partisan."
Uh...right.
Posted by: Lawyer Mama | April 14, 2009 at 07:39 AM
Yesterday Vivian tweeted me (okay just the general roller rink of twitterers) about a bumper sticker she saw on a car driving down the street. the bumper sticker said, "Only liberal idiots would pay for roadways," and I sent a snort and LOL back to her about presumably that "not a liberal" was driving on that road that he/she clearly also paid for through taxes.
That's what this reminds me of.
Burn, Guy, Burn.
It's pure idiocy.
Thanks for making that crystal clear here.
Posted by: Julie Pippert | April 14, 2009 at 07:44 AM
Gee, who knew your garden-variety asphalt freeway was the outcome of a commie-pinko conspiracy?
Ya know, if the teabaggers don't like the Obama tax cuts that 95% of the people who make less than $250,000 a year received, they can just GIVE IT BACK. Instead of protesting.
Posted by: cynematic | April 14, 2009 at 02:22 PM
As sad as their little tea parties are, all I can do is laugh. These people are delusional.
Posted by: Caffeinatrix | April 14, 2009 at 07:50 PM
Now the GOP lets you select the style of "virtual tea bag" you send from triangular to square to traditional, even though it's just a postcard in reality that's sent.
Posted by: Christine | April 15, 2009 at 07:50 AM