Hey Kids! It's National Tea Bagging Day!
By Brian Lambert
Perhaps you've heard of the hapless Denver TV executive who, in a spasm of misbegotten hipness, re-branded his station "The Deuce" without bothering to consult The Urban Dictionary .
. . or, I'm guessing, listen to anyone who had. Presented with the
street-reality definition of "the deuce," the GM—yet another balding
white guy running a teenage girl-targeted CW affiliate—insisted he
couldn't care less. He was, like, down with it, dude.
For all the smirking, punning, and entendre-laced fun the bratty, smart kids at MSNBC and the liberal blogosphere are having with the Republicans' "tea bagging" initiative, which is supposed to turn out "millions" of tax protestors all over the country tomorrow, April 15, I kinda hope Newt Gingrich or Dick Armey or one of the FoxNews "personalities" will step up and insist that, you know, they're "personally cool with tea bagging" because "that's how we roll in our cribs" and how "anyone who doesn't tea bag with us tomorrow is a socialist."
If you missed Rachel Maddow and Ana Marie "Wonkette" Cox and Teabag Take One, click here.
If you missed Rachel Maddow and Ana Marie "Wonkette" Cox and Teabag Take Two, cllick here.
If you missed David Shuster filling in for Keith Olbermann, click here.
If you missed Keith Olbermann as himself, click here.
Sure it's all shamelessly puerile, the sort of cruel mockery cool kids are forever laying on the class nerds and prigs, but, I ask you, what else can you do? When the victim has so obviously abandoned all interest in and contact with logic and decorum, are you still required to exercise Christian compassion?
Never mind not knowing the "in" dirty jargon and, by extension, implying you have had no exposure at all to an industry—pornography—with annual revenues estimated to be greater than ABC, NBC, and CBS combined. Everything about this "here come the socialists" attention-pleading, tea bag tax revolt screams, "Stone cold clueless and proud of it."
Just take this anti-tax campaign—a variation on tax cut rallies staged by talk jocks such as KTLK's Jason Lewis every spring—(Lewis apparently has enough sense not to be caught live or even live on tape promoting "tea bagging" to his listeners, many of whom are still living with their parents). Despite weeks of onion-peeling that has exposed the usual big money arch-conservative suspects pouring serious dough into organizing and publicity, Gingrich and others—and never mind Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity—continue to insist, no, not that they're hip to "tea bagging," but rather that this anti-tax "tea party" thing tomorrow is a bona fide grassroots movement that they've merely hitched their wagon to for a fun ride.
Come on!
What bothers me is that there is no art left at all to Republican polemics. Where once in his heyday you'd watch Karl Rove slither around and think, "The ruthless, lying, f***er. He's actually got a majority to believe this bulls**t." This "tea bagging" thing, in conjunction with the daily cartoon that is Michele Bachmann . . . and Beck . . . and Hannity . . . is like watching The Further and Lesser Adventures of Dumb and Dumber, only without Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels, and a script.
Seriously, it is difficult to imagine a major American political party—controlled by adults—resorting to material this desperately lame, and I say that after eight years of George W. Bush. The "excess taxes" argument makes no sense at all. The supposedly aggrieved crowds we see on TV waving their "Don't Tread on Me" flags while covered (pointed) head to toe with "Obama The Tax-Crazed Muslim" buttons don't appear to be exactly overflowing with anyone in Beck or Hannity or Lewis' tax bracket, which is to say most of the raging "roots" are looking at a tax cut next year, albeit one they will immediately lose to the next 15 percent increase in health insurance (if they have any).
Wait for Republican-financed, anti-Control the Cost of Health Care rallies in trailer parks near you.
(As far as the original Boston Tea Party goes—another well-planned, "spontaneous" event—I'm forever fascinated by the role of John Hancock, a tea smuggler and deep-pocketed member of The Sons of Liberty, who had significant self-interest in destroying the stock of the rival East India Tea Company.)
If nothing else, this "tea bagging" charade should establish a permanent, qualitative distinction between "the partisan cable news channels." With FoxNews's relentless promotion of "tea bagging" (amid constant insistence that it was doing no such thing), only the most lazy-minded and indifferent would ever again regard MSNBC and FoxNews as two peas in the same pod. There's partisan, sure, but then there's a complete disregard for even minimal standards of journalistic probity.
See, they've even stopped pretending.
Mainly, though, what bothers me is the lack of competition. By encouraging (or failing to stifle) the likes of Bachmann and Palin and by hitching their party wagon to large-ish-scale mass events as fundamentally and factually impaired as National Tea Bagging Day, it's like the Republicans have decided to withdraw from an intense chess match for a game of Chutes and Ladders.
Maybe we need to recruit a few British Tories. You know how they are with tea bags.
For all the smirking, punning, and entendre-laced fun the bratty, smart kids at MSNBC and the liberal blogosphere are having with the Republicans' "tea bagging" initiative, which is supposed to turn out "millions" of tax protestors all over the country tomorrow, April 15, I kinda hope Newt Gingrich or Dick Armey or one of the FoxNews "personalities" will step up and insist that, you know, they're "personally cool with tea bagging" because "that's how we roll in our cribs" and how "anyone who doesn't tea bag with us tomorrow is a socialist."
If you missed Rachel Maddow and Ana Marie "Wonkette" Cox and Teabag Take One, click here.
If you missed Rachel Maddow and Ana Marie "Wonkette" Cox and Teabag Take Two, cllick here.
If you missed David Shuster filling in for Keith Olbermann, click here.
If you missed Keith Olbermann as himself, click here.
Sure it's all shamelessly puerile, the sort of cruel mockery cool kids are forever laying on the class nerds and prigs, but, I ask you, what else can you do? When the victim has so obviously abandoned all interest in and contact with logic and decorum, are you still required to exercise Christian compassion?
Never mind not knowing the "in" dirty jargon and, by extension, implying you have had no exposure at all to an industry—pornography—with annual revenues estimated to be greater than ABC, NBC, and CBS combined. Everything about this "here come the socialists" attention-pleading, tea bag tax revolt screams, "Stone cold clueless and proud of it."
Just take this anti-tax campaign—a variation on tax cut rallies staged by talk jocks such as KTLK's Jason Lewis every spring—(Lewis apparently has enough sense not to be caught live or even live on tape promoting "tea bagging" to his listeners, many of whom are still living with their parents). Despite weeks of onion-peeling that has exposed the usual big money arch-conservative suspects pouring serious dough into organizing and publicity, Gingrich and others—and never mind Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity—continue to insist, no, not that they're hip to "tea bagging," but rather that this anti-tax "tea party" thing tomorrow is a bona fide grassroots movement that they've merely hitched their wagon to for a fun ride.
Come on!
What bothers me is that there is no art left at all to Republican polemics. Where once in his heyday you'd watch Karl Rove slither around and think, "The ruthless, lying, f***er. He's actually got a majority to believe this bulls**t." This "tea bagging" thing, in conjunction with the daily cartoon that is Michele Bachmann . . . and Beck . . . and Hannity . . . is like watching The Further and Lesser Adventures of Dumb and Dumber, only without Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels, and a script.
Seriously, it is difficult to imagine a major American political party—controlled by adults—resorting to material this desperately lame, and I say that after eight years of George W. Bush. The "excess taxes" argument makes no sense at all. The supposedly aggrieved crowds we see on TV waving their "Don't Tread on Me" flags while covered (pointed) head to toe with "Obama The Tax-Crazed Muslim" buttons don't appear to be exactly overflowing with anyone in Beck or Hannity or Lewis' tax bracket, which is to say most of the raging "roots" are looking at a tax cut next year, albeit one they will immediately lose to the next 15 percent increase in health insurance (if they have any).
Wait for Republican-financed, anti-Control the Cost of Health Care rallies in trailer parks near you.
(As far as the original Boston Tea Party goes—another well-planned, "spontaneous" event—I'm forever fascinated by the role of John Hancock, a tea smuggler and deep-pocketed member of The Sons of Liberty, who had significant self-interest in destroying the stock of the rival East India Tea Company.)
If nothing else, this "tea bagging" charade should establish a permanent, qualitative distinction between "the partisan cable news channels." With FoxNews's relentless promotion of "tea bagging" (amid constant insistence that it was doing no such thing), only the most lazy-minded and indifferent would ever again regard MSNBC and FoxNews as two peas in the same pod. There's partisan, sure, but then there's a complete disregard for even minimal standards of journalistic probity.
See, they've even stopped pretending.
Mainly, though, what bothers me is the lack of competition. By encouraging (or failing to stifle) the likes of Bachmann and Palin and by hitching their party wagon to large-ish-scale mass events as fundamentally and factually impaired as National Tea Bagging Day, it's like the Republicans have decided to withdraw from an intense chess match for a game of Chutes and Ladders.
Maybe we need to recruit a few British Tories. You know how they are with tea bags.
© 2008 MSP Communications, Inc. All rights reserved
Snicker, snicker, Bri.
But this event is just the beginning.
LAMBERT: The beginning of an ignominious end.
Posted by: bertram jr. on April 15, 2009 at 8:53 AM
Do you have a bachelors degree? My irony sensor goes off whenever you deploy a 'smart kids' meme.
LAMBERT: Never confuse me with actual smart people.
Posted by: 108 on April 15, 2009 at 9:00 AM
Besides being personally responsible for Pirate attacks, Conservaties are known or suspected now to be kicking old ladies, shooting small animals and scaring school children in parks.
LAMBERT: This is your first-hand observation? I mean children, old ladies and small animals, of course. But scaring school kids. That's going too far.
Posted by: Namzso on April 15, 2009 at 9:55 AM
bertram jr., oh yes, we know this is just the beginning for you of very a slippery slope. The next thing is when Rush, Newt, or Sean Hannity walk through your door and you go down on your knees...
Yeap, it's only just the beginning!
And you worry about gay marriage.
LAMBERT: If you're nice bertram will show you his autographed "Withering Glance" photo.
Posted by: Richard on April 15, 2009 at 2:36 PM
I wish this tea party movement was an April fool’s joke, unfortunately it's not. It's unbelievable to me how many people believe the FoxNews crazies and the like’s propaganda. Some of my coworkers actually believe they are fighting the good fight against the crazy liberals by supporting these ridiculous and purposely veiled events, when in fact they are being duped into standing up for the upper end of the conservative tax bracket.
LAMBERT: I usually feel sorry for people who are played for chumps. But this crowd seems positively eager for it.
Posted by: dude323 on April 15, 2009 at 4:37 PM
I'm not sure what to make of Maddow's persistent fascination with Wonkette. Is it at odds with her no Cox rule?
LAMBERT: You may have a future on MSNBC.
Posted by: 108 on April 15, 2009 at 10:51 PM
From a media standpoint, all of this was positively fascinating. Fox's sponsoring of these, trying to create the appearance that this is a big "grass roots" movement, to Cavuto insisting they covered the Million Man March ("though there wasn't a million people there but they called it that anyway") - even though Fox didn't exist back then - I got to believe that college media course will have a field day with this. The live reports and their reporters at these events were funny and very well scripted.
Everything was so...manufactured. And a very small minority in 50 states BOUGHT IT!
Funny how there were no wide shots, huh?
I wish I watched the daily show last night.
LAMBERT: Mainstream coverage dutifully reported the turnout, with secondary attention paid to what exactly the protesters were protesting (damned near everything) and what they understood about their issues. (Not too much.)
Posted by: Essar1 on April 16, 2009 at 10:14 AM
Promoters of the tax protests call them Tea Parties.
Detractors call it Teabagging.
The comparison to the Denver TV executive is inapt.
You don't call yourself "Lamebert," right?
LAMBERT: I believe quite a few "promoters" used the "teabag" reference -- hence the sniggering jokes. Denver TV & "teabag" protestors ... neither is aware of urban slang until things are waay post-facto. What's not apt?
Posted by: Robert on April 16, 2009 at 11:22 AM
It appears catchers no longer wear the 'tools of ignorance'...teabaggers do.
I no longer underestimate the ability of people to act out against their own best interest...but that doesn't mean I've stopped shaking my head at it.
Think people! Don't be tools for the elitist fools! Taxes are not the problem, where it is spent is the problem. Just like credit is not the problem, but where you spend it is.
Aaaccckkkk, why bother...followers, like zombies, seek brains because they can't use their own anymore.
LAMBERT: I does kinda do something to your faith in the essential something or other of human nature, doesn't it? Or, to paraphrase Kurtz, "The stupidity ... the stupidity."
Posted by: The Other Mike on April 16, 2009 at 1:23 PM
You need to check out MinnPost. Somebody must be using your name because it's just not sarcastic enough to really be you.
LAMBERT: I'm multi-lingual.
Posted by: cpa1946 on April 16, 2009 at 5:25 PM
Ironically many of those trying to teabag Obama yesterday spent way too much of the last eight years teabagging, in a different sense, Bush.
Conservatives seem to be doubling down on dumb and dishonest. It's like their role in life is to provide easy jokes for Jon Stewart. Remember when Obama was elected, there were all those deep thinkers worrying about whether Stewart and Colbert would have any material?
What is it with 108 and the presence and or absence of your bachelor's degree? If it becomes important, I've got three degrees that I'm not using, and I'll lend you one.
LAMBERT: 108 seems concerned with my bona fides ... as though pedigree has anything to do with this.
Posted by: john sherman on April 16, 2009 at 10:18 PM
Come on? Actually, you come on. I honestly thought you were smarter than this. Sadly, you are nothing more than the stereotypical liberal hypocrite. You rip on Rush and Hannity and Beck for the crap they produce yet, some how, you forget to throw Olbermann or that idiot Mathews into your rant. Dont get me wrong, I love your points regarding the tea party. But clearly you have forgotten that only a few months ago your side of the fence pulled their own crap with all their protesting and rioting at the RNC. The RNC crap was equally (if not more) spurred by your liberal talkies and blogger friends. Make fun of the tea party but please stop pretending that it is a one way street. Your argument is similar to the idiots that rip on the Norm Coleman's character yet are perfectly happy to accept the character of Franken. Either character matters or it doesnt. Either you are against all the crappy political TV and radio shows or you are not. Pick a side.
One last issue - If the clowns you refer to holding the anti obama signs represent the republicans and the tea party, then your friends at the RNC that were throwing the balloons full of urine represent all democrats. At least the tea parties were civil. Kind of funny when you think about it. When conservatives dont like something, they protest by making silly anti Obama signs. The Liberals throw urine balloons and make pipe bombs or they even throw eggs at houses.
A side note to dude323. There is a reason you have no problem with taxes being raised on the "upper end". A guy who calls himself "dude" isnt achieving a lot in life. Jealousy is an ugly trait "dude". Try working harder tomorrow, you might like it.
LAMBERT: I like this. But let me take it point by point:
A: On the equivalency of Olbermann/Matthews to Hannity/Beck/et al I really am arguing that there is a qualitative difference. Matthews spends WAY too much time on the air for a guy whose real love is the "game" of politics, and Olbermann, as I have often said, would be more appealing if he took on the likes of Tom DeLay face-to-face and dialed back ever so much on the constant Republican/FoxNews boogie men business. After a point, it's just corny. But ... if we're talking factual accuracy here, what those torture memos represented, Rovian machinations, everything Dick Cheney, Olbermann is not WRONG, and regularly corrects himself when he is. The same can not be said for Hannity/Beck, etc. who routinely traffic is not just half-truths but un-truths ... too numerous to mention here. Bottom line: A significant qualitative difference.
B: The key point of the tea-bagging "organizing" was the big, established money guys of the Republican right wing working with FoxNews, yet implausibly pretending this thing generated itself out of thin air. So I say again ... come on! Moreover, what we saw out protesting has become the face of the base of the Republican party circa 2009. This is the crowd, with all its inchoate rage, that Republican candidates hope to ride to electoral victory in the near future. Again ... come on!
C: Unless you've got some similar linkage between the established money guys of the the Democratic party -- George Soros, Barbra Streisand, etc. -- funding urine bag throwers and the like, I really don't see any similarity, and by no means is the current Democratic party building its future on RNC rioters, none of whom, as far as I remember were encouraged by either Olbermann or Matthews or any of the vast network of liberal talk show hosts.
Other than that, good comment.
Posted by: Felix Garcia on April 17, 2009 at 1:45 AM
In your writing you include a lot of academic elements of public affairs, and this is done fairly capably. I would find it ironic if you didn’t have a degree, perhaps just because of the great interest you show.
One of the twin pillars of your inescapable bigotry is that conservatives are dumb and stupid. I would find it ironic if you didn’t have a degree, or more specifically, dropped out and didn’t finish it. Most people who drop out don’t have the chops. The ‘smarts’.
You’re a liberal, and you have a great admiration for the wonks. You ascribe to modern liberalism an attribute of superior intelligence. Whatever this is, it includes some obvious self-ratification behavior. I’d find it ironic if you didn’t have a degree. Or maybe I wouldn’t find it ironic. On some level it’s entirely explainable.
You have a well thought analysis of newspaper management functions, which I don’t believe you’ve ever bothered to implement anywhere (even for a couple years as a manager, editor, or team lead). I’d find it ironic if you were effectively barred from these jobs because you didn’t have a degree. I’m more at risk of being off base here than anywhere else – I have no idea, and wouldn’t second guess you. In any event I think young people who break into professional ranks without a degree show more moxie than most of us.
I’m not “concerned”. When I discover hypocrisy or irony I don’t mistake that for some broad truth, but it does tell me who’s merely engaging in a lot of poseur self-affirmation. ie, who’s full of crap.
This blog is interesting, and you’re an excellent, professional writer. But inasmuch as you express ideas in terms of who’s ‘smart’, and who’s not, there’s nothing at all smart that’s related here at this piece of web real estate.
Pedigree is the wrong word.
LAMBERT: I gotta say you have a fascination here beyond anything even my mother was ever concerned about. But in the issue of full transparency I won't do a Norm Coleman and insist I can't comment because an on-going legal process. I did leave college without getting a diploma. Frankly, neither my parents or I could afford it. My people are not wealthy. When I left I intended to go back as soon as I worked long enough to pay down student loans. But -- after a year or so of odd-jobbing my way around Europe and the Middle East -- (the most educational period of my young life) -- I was hired for a job I liked -- writing for newspapers, and that, as they say was that. And no, I've never been refused employment for lack of a certificate of graduation.
Now, if I may, I suspect this assertion of "inescapable bigotry" on my part toward ... is it ALL conservatives? ... may be caught up in some issues of your own. Usually I'm trying to draw a line between conservatives, mainly traditional Republicans, concerned with limited government involvement in private matters, fiscal prudence, avoidance of foreign folly and the like and the crowd that has taken over the Republican "brand", which is very much mirrored in what I think of as the "talk radio ethic". I make no apologies for regularly asserting that THIS CROWD is reckless and dishonest ... and in fundamental ways not very smart at all.
My pet phrase stuff about "the smart kids" is a variation on "the smartest guys in the room" (Enron, etc.), and has nothing to do with diploma envy. Rather it is more an affinity for black irony. (I am a big movie fan, and these characters -- the cocksure slicksters royally screwing everything up and everyone over in their self-serving machinations -- are reliable theatrical standards.)
Finally, as for my jaundiced view of modern media managers, I believe this almost always comes up in the context of dumbed down content in pursuit of protecting revenues, and my argument has long been that it is a serious mistake to regard smart radio/TV/newspapers as a commercial liability.
Now, if you need blood tests and my last three years of tax forms, drop me another line.
Basically though, I write what I think and think based on what I know or need to know. You are free to decide if it has any merit.
Posted by: 108 on April 17, 2009 at 9:59 AM
Why do you choose a qualitative analysis, by the way? Why not quantitative?
LAMBERT: This is discussion about merit.
Posted by: 108 on April 17, 2009 at 11:29 AM
Fair enough. Someone asked, that’s my answer. Me, issues? You must be noticing that giant chip on my shoulder. It’s like weight training though, I hardly notice it now.
I don’t think contempt and snark serve you well – at least not the contempt (and I think you’re assumptions are WAY wrong). I’m sure it doesn’t serve me well.
LAMBERT: For the record, YOU asked.
Posted by: 108 on April 17, 2009 at 12:31 PM
I am so disappointed in "ClaudeNRick" (TM).
If ever they had an opening for "Withering Glance", it was last week's "tea-bagging" fascination.
And we got a column about...haircuts!
LAMBERT: Send them your iPhone pix. I bet they'll be shocked.
Posted by: bertram jr. on April 20, 2009 at 10:31 AM