Largely set in motion by conservatives outside the Republican core and organized over the Web, the tea parties have been embraced by conservative leaders as the GOP's own version of a grassroots uprising. Full Story »
Posted by Derek Hawkins
Faux news ballyhooing for a protest with all the prime time available to it is not grassroots, nor even astroturf. I credit those people who did not turn out for recognizing a false big lie campaign looking for a valid issue.
Like the tea bagging it describes, this article is an almost, but not quite. According to AlterNet it was organized by: "experienced Republican operatives with deep connections to FreedomWorks and other fake grassroots campaigns pushing pro-big-business interests and phony roots." Not by Republicans outside the core. Even with old Fair & Balanced's hype it was: "we held a party and no one showed up."
There's a huge undercurrent out there about business corruption and government malfeasance. Tea bagging ain't it.
the point of this piece is that there was not a coherent, plausible message of the protests and that the gop, instead of using their newly found web organizing to focus to build their party, it was given over to fox news and others for to give chances to pundits their own protest messages . the points here seem rather scattered.
rather than a true 'protest', with, say, thousands who had lost jobs, or pension funds, etc., it appears that this was a chance to scapegoat someone for much of what's been wrong here for years, urged by propaganda from the right.
media “couldn’t resist pointing out” a comparison to a much larger protest seems to miss the point of what journalism should be doing More »
This is a well-written opinion piece which describes the perceived failure of one conservative strategy. Its strongest attibute is its description of how the Obama team used modern technologies in conjunction with a grass-roots movement to successfully forward its agenda and, in contrast, how the lack of clear goals and organization doomed the Tea Party gatherings to be loud useless gripe sessions, thus further marginalizing the most conservative elements of the party.
Another article on the Tea Party that utterly missed the point. Falty analysis throughout hampered by static thinking on just what was going on.
If the Media would stop Politicizing and trying to pigeon hole the motivations and composition of these gatherings they MIGHT get it. As an aside...folks like Oberman and Mathews NEVER will understand this, their personal prejudices and own agendas preclude it.
When the far-right throws a party, and nobody comes, does that mean they are now irrelevant? The GOP is looking bad these days. When the head of your party is Rush and Sarah, you got problems. And when Gingrich have to tie a pork chop around his neck to get the dogs to play with him, I'd say they have major problem.
The story fails to dig below the obvious. Takes opinions without questioning them. concentrates on the numbers not the reality
The elephant in the room is that practically all the people protesting are going to get a tax cut if theu make less than $250,000,not a hike. The reporter fails to note that fact. Second, it is fairly well known that this was not grass roots, but organized by the people who will be taxed.
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