Tea Party Schadenfreude
First, a truck was to dump a million bags of tea onto tarps in Lafayette Square. But it ran into permit trouble and was turned away.
Then rally organizers showed up outside the Treasury Department. But authorities told them they lacked proper permission and could not set up a stage there.
Then it started to rain.
Next, somebody threw a box of tea over the White House fence, and the police evacuated the park.
Finally, the truck’s driver, who had been wandering around town for hours after an overnight drive from Georgia, found a place to unload the cargo: 12 floors up in a downtown advocacy group. Without much of an audience.
I think maybe it’s time to admit that this whole thing has been blown out of proportion, probably in large part by the people picking on the tea partiers. They were such a slow-moving target, it was hard not to jump on them. But it’s kind of a stretch to say that they represented mainstream conservatives.
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Not if you consider mainstream conservatives “batshit crazy.”
Looks like the Tea Party got stung by the laws that have made meaningful public protest in Washington, DC almost impossible, unless your definition of meaningful protest is marching up and down the abandoned boulevards of Washington, DC on a Saturday morning when John Q. Senior Administration Official is barbecuing sausages in his backyard way out in Virginia. Maybe now that they’ve been prevented from conducting meaningful protest of their rights not to be taxed, they’ll be more concerned with their rights under the First Amendment.
Where in the Constitution does it specify that as Americans, we are guaranteed the right to dump garbage (A million tea bags? That’s a lot of tea bags) in the middle of a public park?
I’d agree that the Tea Parties were not meaningful, but not for the same reasons you’re arguing.
In response to another comment. See in context »Hmmm. Matt has stated that picturing the originator of commentary with testicles in their mouth will make them seem more readable. And entertaining.
Yet, when I picture Matt – and all of you other crazies who somehow believe that protesting expansive government is sinful – with nutsacks in your pie holes, I just get an icky feeling inside, and your comments remain just as vapid and illogical as before.
Very frustrating. Perhaps I’m not doing it right? Should I picture Matt actually making SLURPING sounds?? That DOES make it funnier. But it doesn’t help clarify the awkward and inane writing, nor does it mitigate the glaring hypocrisy of his opinions.
Oh well, I’ll keep trying!
In response to another comment. See in context »Why didn’t they get permits like everyone else?
In response to another comment. See in context »It’s a desperate GOP that is trying to exploit these racist and wackos, we of the left were given a gift when these people decided to call themselves “teabaggers”. Of course the fact that these peoples taxes are going down really didn’t help their cause either (what is their cause btw?), a basic lack of the fundamentals of American history is unforgivable when trying to get a political movement off the ground.
Hey Matt when you doing Bill Maher’s show next? Always look forward to seeing you on the show.
I don’t think it’s been blown out of proportion. You had it right with your peasant mentality piece. As long as people are losing their jobs at the current rate, there will anger and desperation. Never underestimate the power of Lee Atwater-types to manipulate the masses. I live in Tulsa, Oklahoma — so, I know about pissed off rednecks blindly voting against their own self-interest.
Michael, if by “protest of their rights not to be taxed” you mean “without representation,” I would agree. But then that makes the whole protest meaningless. So maybe you believe that we have the right not to be taxed even with representation?
My my, Mr. Taibbi, seems this tea party has had quite the effect on your peripheral.
Maybe you should refrain from watching the propaganda tube for a while.
As long as you are consumed with the left/right issue and the rodeo clown, you are clay in their hands.
His Royal Highness Prince Alwaleed will mold you into the cup from which he will drink his favorite tea!
He also appreciates your patronage to Fox News. Fisehatak!
I believe it was Jon Stewart who said, “Nothing says ‘Let’s Protest Wasteful Spending’ like buying a million bags of tea just so you can throw them out.”
And don’t forget the report on the recent spike in security spending to scan all the teabags being sent to Congress that need to be checked for hazardous materials.
These guys are going in circles.
As Josh Marshall said… “Conservatives are so incensed by warnings about the threat of right wing radicalism that they’re considering overthrowing the federal government.”
In response to another comment. See in context »If these are not “mainstream” conservatives can you provide some details on who this animal is these days? When my wife’s uncle, an octogenarian bigot who has delighted in scandalizing his nieces and nephews with N-word jokes for forty years, votes for Obama — as he did — who is left? I cannot think of a single former-Republican acquaintance who was willing even to admit voting for McCain-Palin, and I grew up in the Heartland.
You may have grown up the “Heartland”, but you must not still live here. That whole Texas and Oklahoma seceding from the union thing. There are lots of those crazies down here. And if Obama does not turn the economy around, I don’t think that it will be that difficult to turn lots of other dummies (across the nation) back around to the Republicans. Uneducated people with no job or a crappy job are always looking for someone to blame for how bad their life sucks ass. I think that the teabaggers could be just the beginning.
In response to another comment. See in context »Hold on there Matt. Those tea-baggers are the hardcore base of the Republican party that has wrecked America. And we’re supposed to not relish our long-delayed moment of Schadenfreude as they embarrass themselves in their pitiable, impotent state, after watching them robotically follow the orders of their masters at FoxNews and the right-wing noise machine?
Come on, it’s past time for the rest of us to enjoy seeing them wallowing in their own Dirty-Sanchez lip-paste.
This whole teabagging sideshow is just the latest dog-whistle tocsin inviting Reagan Democrats, and everybody on their Right, to vent their spleens about the government daring to help poor people who might have dark skin. Tea bag contretemps is a yet another new alternative to donning hoods and firing up crosses.
The brigade that won’t bitch about taxpayers’s money going to rich white folks (even at the cost of their pensions, health insurance, jobs, etc.) sure as hell wouldn’t mind giving some money to poor white folks. It’s the prospect of “the others” getting a slice that has them riled up so.
It is clear to me that long-simmering Anglo resentment and well-fertilized racial hysteria (“BHO is, you know, after all, a . . . ah, ah, you know, a . . . a Negro”) is the thread connecting the gun nuts to teabaggers to Malkin to Faux News to Boehner and McConnell. I note that RNC Chairman Michael Steele was conspicuously not invited to any tea parties. Quod erat demonstrandum.
It’s time to admit it?
Oh I thought it was perfectly clear to everyone that this was about two dozen complete dupes being led around like cardboard clowns by FOX News and that it was the progressive blogosphere that was making it into a spectacle, well very much on purpose. As you say, it’s an easy target, like shooting at a harpoon with a whales.
Also of course pumped up by the usual media Skinner boxes of CNN and so on, who when FOX says “jump!” say “How high?”
Of course, that’s the same question that many of us feel like asking when seeing any Fox anchor foaming at the mouth, but that’s another story.
Matt,
if youre ever around ft hood again you should look me up. i know no one cares about wasteful war spending, but i have some good stories. i wish i could have crossed paths with you in baghdad. i just wanted to comment(as an educator) on those awesome parallels in your new RS piece. your witty writing and that steadman put this image in my head that i cant shake. you are the only thing that seems to be funny right now outside of john stewart. Could i trouble you to recommend any writers that are consistently funny besides yourself? If you wish, i would be honored to play your piano request and post it up on youtube.
Thanks for the great articles Matt. You really can’t make this stuff up.
I wonder if anyone caught this amazing tidbit of irony from the Washington Times:
“Michelle Poland, 33, a project manager from Southern Maryland who subcontracts map-making projects for the federal government, stood on the fringes of the rally with a large hand-painted sign that read, “Tax slavery sucks.”
“I’m completely against the way my money is being spent,” Ms. Poland said. “If we already have an extreme debt, we shouldn’t spend more money.”"
These people belong in a circus sideshow.
By the way Matt, you should sell RS on letting you do a piece called “Bonzo Goes to Mt. Olympus” about how the right has deified Ronald Reagan, even though so many of the things he did then, would buy him a one-way ticket to Effigyville today with the same group of people that have sainted him. You know, little things like Cuban amnesty, and the top tax rate. I’m sure you could probably find a books worth.
Imagine the illustration possibilities alone.
Keep making me laugh Matt. Thanks.
When teabaggers and a Portuguese Water Dog get as much coverage as the release of the torture memos I can hear the thundering hooves of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the distance. This is going to be one rough motherfucker if the wingnuts are this exorcised three months into Obama’s administration. Anyone got any shiny objects to distract them?
Hey Mattie! I am again picturing you with a hairy pair in your mouth, per your recommendation that doing so will transform unreadable nonsense into enjoyable prose. But it didn’t work. Any advice? Does it matter if the nutsack stuffed down your gullet is that of a white man, a black man, an asian?? Perhaps I should have pictured them shaven??
Please clue me in. I am desperately trying to glean intelligent thought from your musings, but NOTHING is working. Help!
Hi wingnut whackjob,
I was wondering if your friends over at Michelle Malkin’s house of horrors know about your obsession with scrotums?
Are you able to type with your nose buried in taint?
Inquiring minds want to know.
In response to another comment. See in context »