There were several Tea Parties on April 15, and rightbloggers who
normally have nothing good to say about the "main stream media" (whom
they consider biased and/or corrupt) were surprised by relatively
flattering coverage from the New York Times, CBS and other agents of the evil MSM.
Perhaps because they are unaccustomed to such treatment, they could not
take it with good grace. "The Times tells us what we already
knew," scoffed Tom Maguire -- namely, that TP people are popular
and great. "Even the New York Waste of Times is no longer
buying the meme that Tea Partiers are dumb and uneducated," said Moonbattery. The Times' finding that TP
people are well-educated "is glossed over" by the Times,
claimed Don Surber. "And the New York Times could
have said Tea Partiers are more likely to go to church, be married and
work" if they really wanted to tell the whole, wonderful truth.
It may be that the MSM doesn't try harder to satisfy these people
because there is obviously no satisfying them.
Surber took the Times' survey
results to mean "an overwhelming majority of Americans prefer a smaller
government. Again, Obama rides the wrong unicorn." The survey results actually show that, while 92 percent
of TP people demand smaller gummint, among all respondents the
proposition only pulls 50 percent -- a less "overwhelming majority" than
that which the tyrant Obama received in the 2008 Presidential election. And all good Tea People
know that doesn't count!
Surber didn't mention that the Times
and CBS also found only 41 percent of the TP people think Obama was born
in the United States. Other rightbloggers had an answer for that,
though: 24Ahead said, "The use of 'myth' implies that their
beliefs are false ... there's the possibility that those beliefs (or at
least some of them) aren't false, and in that case they wouldn't be
'myths.'" This airtight logic is hard to answer, at least in standard
debate format.
Also, while several of their gatherings drew a
nice crowd, some citizen
journalists yet succumbed to the time-honored rightblogger tradition of helping the
TP attendance numbers along. W.C. Varones told us the Midway event in San
Diego
drew "hundreds of patriots and supportive honks and waves..." You may
see her linked photo stream, and judge from the
sparsely-populated group shots whether the "hundreds" applies to
"patriots" or to "supportive honks and waves."
Varones also
complained of a "fake Tea Partier," which phenomenon had
before the event been a matter of very grave concern for the brethren,
who believed a vast left-wing conspiracy of "false flag" operations was
seeking to bring down their Parties.
These counter-demonstrators
-- particularly the most famous ones, who announced their
intention to misbehave beforehand, which would defeat the whole
purpose of a false flag -- seem to have mainly intended satire. This, as
you may imagine, did not go over big with rightbloggers who, in
addition to being averse to satire and humor in general, had been
trained to look for sneaky liberals pretending to be of the Elect, and
were unwilling to accept other explanations of events.
"The
results sent in so far," said a puzzled Bob Owens at Pajamas Media, "indicate that tea
party crasher efforts range from uninspired to unintentionally ironic."
Rather than consider the possibility that the jokes were intentionally
ironic, Owens asserted that it was "lost upon the mostly college-aged
protesters" that "for their false flag operation to work, they must
blend in to the group..."
As an example of this failure of the
counter-demonstrators to live up to
his preconception of them, Owens showed a girl carrying a sign that
said "I Know Nothing About What I'm Protesting" -- a time-honored demo prank. "No one doubted her sign,"
said Owens, presumably with one eyebrow raised and a pause for laughs
afterwards. Other such counter-protesters he accused of a "generic
failure to be ironic."
Irony may not be Owens' strong suit: At yet another page, he complained of a man "in full
Confederate regalia attempting to enter a tea party with the Stars and
Bars." Owens operates a site called Confederate
Yankee and refers to the armed conflict of 1861-1865 in the United
States as the War of Northern Aggression. Oh, and he accused the counter-demonstrators
of racism. Either he has no idea what irony is or else he is steeped in
it -- let's not dismiss the possibility that Owens is a clever
invention, like Andy Kaufman's Tony
Clifton, rather than what he pretends to be, at least for charity's
sake.
Speaking of racism, there was also a strong interest among
rightbloggers
in disproving an alleged slander that the Tea Parties are very, very
white. They've been on the case a while: the well-known Instapundit makes a
habit of finding the few black attendees at any given tea party and
running pictures of them expressly for that purpose. And as those of us
who have attended such events know, even Tea Party crowds as
white as a new snowfall will often be regaled by a black speaker or
two, who will talk about how diverse the event actually is. As we have observed elsewhere, Tea Parties are the greatest
affirmative action program for black conservatives of all time (which
should greatly please Megan McArdle).
This time out the
same people followed the same strategy, and got
bent out of shape when a black Times columnist, Charles Blow, noticed that the "diversity" on
stage
didn't quite match that of the crowd.
Oh yeah, said Big
Journalism's Larry O'Connor, well, "the majority of the
readers
of Mr. Blow's newspaper are male, educated and have an above average
income, just like the Tea Party members; unlike the Tea Party members,
an inordinate number of Times readers live on Manhattan's Upper
West Side."
We figured we knew where O'Connor was going with
this, but wondered what
new and exciting route he'd take to get there. We were not
disappointed: "The Times's Media Kit does not provide a racial
profile of its readers (apparently it was only relevant to the Times
poll of the Tea Party members). But I used to live in New York and I
know which people read which paper on the subway. I'm sure the readers
of the Times appreciate Mr. Blow confirming all of the
pre-conceived notions they had about the Tea Party."
There you
go: Since everyone (or at least Larry O'Connor) knows black
people don't read the Times, Charles Blow and the Times
are racist. Or something.
"I suspect 'Zo is going to hit back
pretty hard," said Jammie Wearing Fool, referring to the black guy working for Pajamas Media. We're sure
he will, and how that will hearten Pajamas Media's audience -- the
diversity stats for which, come to think of it, would make an
interesting point of comparison with those for the Times. Alas, like the
Times, PJM doesn't provide such information; maybe Larry
O'Connor can go spelunking for more observational data wherever PJM
readers congregate (real estate investment seminars?).
Speaking
of tolerance, another watershed was reached with the April 15
Tea Parties: Some of the brethren decided to own with pride the once
despised "teabagger" label.
They had previously flipped out when called by that name, disgusted to
learn (from whom, we wonder) that it "refers to a sexual act involving
part of the male genitalia and a second person's face or mouth." And
some of them are still outraged by it. But a few rightbloggers --
perhaps flushed with what they considered a big April 15 victory --
decided, hell yeah, they were teabaggers.
"This is for you Ducky,
laugh up that silly little name but I wear that
label with pride," said Mind of a Misfit. "I am a tea-bagger, and this
November you liberals are going to be washing the warm brown liquids
from your foreheads... Open Your mouth up and say ahhhhhh!!!... it's ok
if you choose to scream a little." Apparently rightbloggers don't mind a
little sexual fantasy, so long as it's non-consensual.
And the
top rightblogger Instapundit
posted a bizarre video of actors who also proclaimed themselves proud
to be teabaggers, and pelted a caricature of Nancy Pelosi's face
with
wet teabags. Get it? "Better than a teabaggee, I guess," said
Instapundit -- because, you know, that would make you gay. Or a woman. You
know what they mean. Not that there's anything -- hey, look, they've
got black people!
Roy Edroso's Rightbloggers: Exploring the right Wing Blogosphere
appears courtesy of our sister paper in New York City, Village Voice.
Showing 1-2 of 2
Rob is a counter-protester, right? Someone here to make the Tea Party look insipid?
All you liberals can do when faced with common sense is yell RAAAAACIST. And because we Americans are nice people we have allowed you to get away with it for a long time. But now the Obamanation and his regime have pushed socialism so far forward that we are going to have to stop being nice. If you want to call us racists or AstroTurf or whatever else you think can stop the juggernaut of freedom, go ahead. I for one am ignoring you and moving forward. Take that as you will...I no longer care.
Remember, November.
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