More Media Coverage of the Tea Parties

The annual New York Times ball

"Excellent article, Paul. What is wrong with those commoners, anyway?"


What does it say about our media when that once-in-a-blue-moon event comes along in which ordinary law-abiding, tax-paying citizens get angry enough to hold protests against the government and the media gives it a big thumbs down? That's exactly what is happening today as thousands of ordinary citizens are holding "tea parties" to protest the outrageous taxes and profligate spending being hoisted on us by our government.

Take for example, the clowns at MSNBC who call themselves journalists and commentators (I am referring to Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, David Shuster and the guy who wants to have President Obama's baby, Chris Matthews). I already wrote on the high-brow dismissal of the tea parties by Shuster and Lawrence O'Donnell a couple of nights ago. Last night, Maddow (the one who closely resembles our Secretary of the Treasury) used her nightly show to make repeated joking references to "tea-bagging". I must confess that I was not previously aware of the sexual connotation of "tea bagging"- but I am now (you'll have to look it up yourself.)
Seriously, is this what a professional political talk-show host is supposed to blabber about on TV?

Then there is the New York Times editorial by that Nobel Prize-winning idiot, Paul (the worm) Krugman this week. He writes about how the tea parties have been the subject of "considerable mockery, and rightly so." He also attempts to imply that the tea parties are a creation of the GOP and talks about how attendees at tea parties claim Obama is a Muslim, the Clintons are murderers, and so on and so forth. In other words, Mr Krugman is telling his readers that they should ignore the protests because they are all just a bunch of crazies. He then goes on to link the whole thing to Rush Limbaugh, Tom Delay and any other conservative target he can think of.

Mr Krugman should come out to California and attend one of the tea parties. He would see that the GOP is just as much the object of anger as the Democrats since they are perceived to have sold the tax-payers out on the recent state tax hikes. Similarly, though there may be several Republicans in Congress who want lower taxes, the general perception is that the whole lot of the politicians in Washington are corrupt and should be thrown out-Republicans included.

Mr Krugman even referred back (as I did this week) to that Florida incident in the 2000 recount-the "spontaneous riot actually orchestrated by GOP activists that shut down the presidential vote recount in Florida's Miami-Dade County". Krugman, who spends his life running between the New York Times and the Halls of Ivy, wouldn't know a riot if one ran right over him.

So far, the reports I hear from various demonstrations all over the country describe scenes of hundreds or thousands of peaceful demonstrators lobbying their government for redress. In one account, a demonstrator phoned in to a radio talk show describing a sullen news camera crew standing silently by, apparently frustrated that no one was throwing rocks at police or having to be arrested.

I would suggest that these arrogant media-types climb down off their perches and ask themselves what is so objectionable about ordinary citizens peacefully protesting high taxes and wild government spending. I would submit that people like Maddow, Shuster, Krugman and all the rest are sadly out of touch with mainstream America. Maybe if they got out of New York, Boston and Washington a bit, they might get a clue as to what every-day people are feeling.

But that is much too much to expect.