Republicans Drink the Tea and Embrace the Hatred and Ignorance

I don’t have to write much tonight. The images and sound bites speak for themselves. The House Minority Leader stands in front of the latest Tea Party gathering in Washington and tacitly gives his support for distasteful and hateful messages. This was no ordinary Tea Party. This one was not instigated by right-wing think tanks or Glenn Beck. This one was organized by an elected official, a woman with whom we trust the important task of governing our nation, Michele Bachmann. Ms. Bachmann has gone from a punch line to a dangerous instigator as she encourages the crowd to walk the halls of Congress and confront supporters of health care reform, to look at them “in the whites of their eyes” in her words. Fighting words. Fighting words coming from an elected official who is sworn to uphold our Constitution and protect the citizens of this country. Instead, she instigates discontent and discord.

Usually, my focus on this movement centers around its sheer stupidity and ignorance. This was on full display as John Boehner, the House Minority Leader waved what he called the Constitution and then quoted from the Declaration of Independence:

Then as the “press conference” neared its end, Representative Bachmann gave the crowd its marching orders, inciting disruption within the Capitol:

But ignorance wasn’t the only thing on display today. Once again, we had a full dose of hatred, the most jarring example of which was this protest sign, which read:

“National Socialist Health Care, Dachau Germany 1945″.

This is your Republican Party, ladies and gentlemen. This is what John Boehner condones by his presence at this rally. This is what your Congressmen and women celebrate while people die from lack of health care, die defending our country overseas, and lose their homes because they can’t find a job. While we twist in the wind, this is what your Congress is spending their time on. Standing in front of the Capitol egging on a hate rally.

To paraphrase the attorney at the McCarthy hearings of the 1950’s, at long last have we lost all sense of decency?

Respectfully,
Rutherford

WordPress.com Political Blogger Alliance

 

Lessons Learned from Election Night 2009

With 20/20 hindsight, nothing that transpired last night at the polls should have surprised anyone. Let’s look at some of the lessons learned:

It’s the Economy, Stupid

None of us can forget that day in late September of 2008 when John McCain said he would suspend his campaign until the economic crisis had passed. In particular, he was suggesting that his upcoming debate with Barack Obama be cancelled. Obama responded that a President needed to be able to do more than one thing at one time. Well, ten months into his first term, one has to wonder if Obama has taken on too much at one time. Last night’s election of Chris Christie in New Jersey and Bob McDonnell in Virginia signal that there is one overwhelming concern among average Americans and that is jobs, jobs, jobs. McDonnell ran with the moniker “Bob’s for jobs” and Christie promised to lower taxes. I think it’s fair to say that most people aren’t connecting health care reform with improving the economy. Unless we escalate our war on terror on a par with one of our old World Wars, we won’t see the “war industry” employing lots of people the way it did in the 30’s and 40’s. The push to go green has not yet produced substantial employment opportunities. So with Obama focused on health care, Afghanistan and climate change, many Americans are left scratching their heads on where the jobs are coming from. These gubernatorial elections should send a message to the White House that some economy/job focus needs to happen fast … and show results fast.

Don’t Take Moves from the Republican Playbook

2008 was the year of campaign silly season, led by the Republicans who threw every ridiculous charge at Obama that they could (charges that persist ten months after his inauguration). Sadly, neither the Corzine nor the Deeds campaigns learned that, particularly in serious times, you don’t run trivial campaigns. Corzine made fun of Christie’s weight and ran nasty ads about supposed criminal wrong doing gone unpunished. Deeds made a big stink about some paper McDonnell had written over 20 years ago. If you can’t battle your opponent on current issues, you ought not to be running.

Wash off the Wall Street Stink

This one is easy. Americans hate fat cat wall street veterans with a passion right now. Corzine’s history as head of Goldman Sachs might not have hurt him in his first run, but now it is virtually the kiss of death unless you have a very good story to tell in the “now”. With a very low approval rating, Corzine’s current story couldn’t wash away the Wall Street stink.

Don’t Embrace Endorsements from Ass Hats

In the NY-23 race, the minute Doug Hoffman got his Facebook endorsement from Sarah Palin, he should have known it was over before it started. Then Glenn Beck jumped on the band wagon. Before you know it, Hoffman was being lauded as the Tea Party Candidate. When Republican Dede Scozzafava got pushed out of the race, she had the good sense (and the courage) to back the Democratic candidate, Bill Owens. Hoffman didn’t understand that when people are hurting they want a serious representative to take up their cause in Washington. They don’t want a perceived wingnut. Of course, it is no surprise that Hoffman eagerly accepted the support of Palin. He was essentially a male version of Palin: totally ignorant about the local issues important to his potential constituents. Of course it didn’t help that he was a carpet-bagger. But even carpet-baggers like Hillary Clinton could succeed with hard work, learning about their adopted home, as she did with New York. Hoffman was not that smart.

The RINO You Have is Better than the Wingnut You Don’t

The fact is Newt Gingrich was right this time. Sure Scozzafava was not chosen in the ideal way (i.e. by primary) but the bottom line is no matter how liberal she was, she was unlikely to buck the Republican caucus in the House all that often. She would have been a reasonably reliable vote. Now thanks to the interference of Palin, Beck, Pawlenty, Armey and others, the 23rd district will send a Democrat to the House for the first time since 1873. This should be a wake up call to the GOP that moderation is not a bad thing.

Liberals are Lazy

Without the galvanizing motivation of putting a ground breaking President in the White House, liberals sat on their asses last night. You can’t win if you don’t play.

The Age of the Referen-dumb

If we had decided civil rights for blacks and women by referendum, we would probably still have a Jim Crow south  and women not voting today. Why in the world are the equal rights of homosexuals being decided by “popular” vote? The gay activist groups need to get this issue before the courts quickly so that eventually the Supreme Court can rule marriage discrimination unconstitutional and be done with it.

The overall lesson learned this year is that voters are not interested in right-wing or left-wing extremism or trivia. They are looking to people to solve problems and the biggest problem right now is finding employment and keeping your home. It’s a bi-partisan lesson that better be learned by both parties as we move into 2010.

Respectfully,
Rutherford

WordPress.com Political Blogger Alliance

Liz Cheney: The Chick of the Chicken-Hawk Should Just Go Away

First Obama is evil for wanting to send a positive message to our school children. Then he is evil for wanting to try to get the Olympics held here. Then he is evil for not outright rejecting the admittedly odd honor of the Nobel Peace Prize. Well, none of that should be too surprising since none of those issues reside in the sweet spot of conservatives. You would think though, that Obama honoring our war dead would be something that even our right-wing brethren could get behind.

Apparently not. On the radio, the former Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter, whom MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell called Dick’s “pet attack dog”, found fault with the President’s recent visit to Dover Air Force Base to honor the war dead on their final trip home. She seemed to find it unseemly that the President be there “with the White House press pool”. This stupid excuse for a “patriot” neglected to mention that unlike during her father’s time, families of war dead can now request that cameras be present at their deceased loved ones homecoming. She also neglected to mention that the families who gave and did not give permission for the televised homecoming were unaware that the President would be there.

But Lawrence O’Donnell, who subbed for Keith Olbermann on MSNBC’s “Countdown” can tell the story much better than I can:

That’s right. Not only could Bush not be seen at Dover since he didn’t allow cameras there, but he was NEVER there himself to honor the war dead. Vice President Cheney, no doubt afraid to leave his undisclosed location, was also never seen at Dover in the seven years that he promoted the suicide mission that was the Iraq war. Liz says of the war dead that there is no greater sacrifice that someone can make to the nation. How would she know? Her father dodged military service not once but five times.

As I’ve suffered through the increasingly frequent appearances of Liz Cheney in the media, I got to wondering why we don’t ever see Cheney’s other daughter Mary. As you know, Mary is a lesbian. So I did some digging and found what I consider to be a very conflicted woman. With apologies to everyone who finds David Letterman’s recent behavior disgusting, I offer an unusually politically astute interview he did with Mary back in 2006.

Fascinating that Mary put her concern for national security above her own self-interest. Let’s face it, she supported an administration that wanted to amend the Constitution to outlaw same-sex privileges, not just marriage, but any legal protection for same-sex couples. In 2006, with her dad a lame duck VP, she then felt emboldened to write an autobiography calling for equal rights for gays and lesbians, when it was too late to really make a difference. I can’t criticize Mary because her dilemma was understandable. Just look at the brilliant defense her father gave her a year later when she announced she was expecting her first child:

While the Dick was delighted to be getting a new grandchild (who wouldn’t be?), he stopped short of denouncing his supporters who consider Mary Cheney an abomination. He accused Wolf Blitzer of dealing a low blow. Why couldn’t he have said Focus on the Family was full of crap? The organization insulted his daughter and he felt insulted by Wolf Blitzer! After several seconds of receiving the Darth Vader death stare, Wolf sheepishly backed off. I would have persisted. I would have asked Cheney why he was a lousy hypocrite. He cared so much for his grandchild that he would have supported legislation that made that grandchild an orphan upon the death of his daughter.
This is the twisted world of the Cheneys. Why haven’t we seen much of Mary lately? Has she wised up that her father is a disgrace to this country? Or perhaps, in her typically self-sacrificing way, she’s willing to let her “normal” sister do all the talking?  When it comes to talking, most ex-Vice Presidents, unless they are pursuing the Presidency, fade into the woodwork and certainly don’t disparage the current President on a regular basis. This goes double for Vice  President’s children.

Liz, take a cue from the former Vice President’s children whose names we don’t even know, and just fade away.

Respectfully,
Rutherford

WordPress.com Political Blogger Alliance

Clinton Tells Pakistan What They Need to Hear

Back in May, I wrote about my distrust of Asif Zardari, the President of Pakistan, who at the time was complaining that Americans let Osama bin Laden get away. While I have criticized the Bush administration for their ham-fisted handling of Afghanistan, I found Zardari arrogant, bitter, ungrateful and no friend of the United States.

With that as a backdrop,  I was thrilled to see Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tell the Pakistanis what’s what this week. Referring to high level Al Qaeda, such as Bin Laden, she said:

“I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn’t get them if they really wanted to”

via Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Has Intense Exchange With Students in Pakistan.

Then in an exchange with Pakistani students, Ms. Clinton added that the government has a choice on whether to be aggressive against terrorists or be apathetic:

“If you want to see your territory shrink, that’s your choice”

When criticized for the terms of money transfers from the US to Pakistan, Clinton told her audience they don’t have to accept our money.

During the campaign I was quite critical of Clinton based on what I felt were some underhanded moves on her part, but I must say I love Secretary of State Hillary ten times more than I loved candidate Hillary. As we send young men and women to die in Afghanistan, it is partly to keep the crazies from getting hold of Pakistani nukes. Pakistan better have some real skin in the game real fast and figure out who their friends are.

I doubt, from what I’ve seen of Zardari that we can trust Pakistan any further than we can throw them. It complicates our mission in Afghanistan greatly and makes the President’s imminent decision about our strategy there the most difficult one he has faced in his first year, and perhaps the most difficult one he will face in his first term.

Respectfully,
Rutherford

WordPress.com Political Blogger Alliance

HCR: When is the Fight Worth It?

One of the roles of government is to make the country run efficiently and effectively. Unfortunately, government cannot be separated from politics. Politics, more often than not interferes with effective government. Such is the source of my dismay with the current health care reform (HCR) debate. There is much chatter about Obama needing a “win”. The suggestion is that any health care bill is better than none. With Joe Lieberman now endangering the prospects for passing the bill and with talk of an end run involving reconciliation, isn’t it time for us to take a sober look at what we’re fighting for?

A few nights ago, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow did a good job of articulating the various choices before us:

1. Robust public option: A government run reimbursement system similar to Medicare that forces private insurance companies to compete for customers.
2. The opt-out: Every state adopts the public option at first but gets a chance to opt out at a later time. (This creates the interesting scenario of seeing which states would have the balls to opt out after their residents have gotten a taste of the public option.)
3. The opt-in: Only states that want to use the public option have to. Does this go far enough to make affordable health care available to everyone?
4. The “trigger”: The public option gets enforced only after the insurance companies have had time to clean up their act and have failed to do so. Does anyone really believe the legislation could be written strictly enough for the trigger to ever get pulled?
5. No public option under any circumstances.

If the goal is to make insurance available to more people and at lower cost, then option 1 is really the only one that achieves this. Options 2 through 4 provide too much wiggle room to be effective. Option 5 is essentially the Baucus bill out of the Senate that simply puts more customers into the hands of a malicious insurance industry.

Has anyone noticed that all the debate is centered around expanding care to all at an affordable price but little debate revolves around reforming insurance “worst practices” such as exclusions based on pre-existing conditions.  Of course, this gets mentioned in Obama’s speeches and we hear story after story of insurance company abuses against their customers. But no one is fighting over that point. Maybe because only a callous fool would defend not insuring a baby because he was “too fat” or not insuring a woman because her pregnancy was considered a pre-existing condition.

What I fear is that while Washington fights over the money, we may lose important reforms that don’t cost us a dime (other than lowering insurance company profits a bit). I am no longer sure that I agree that any bill will do. I am not sure that the result we are awaiting is a flashy bill signing ceremony at the White House, another notch in Obama’s belt. Finally I am not sure that if reconciliation cannot get us option 1 (the only real option for availability and affordability) that it is worth it to go that route. To run an endgame around the system to get a sad compromise just increases the polarization in our government for no good reason, not to mention the fact that all these options don’t kick in for years to come.

I say if we don’t have the votes for option 1, then let’s strip out all of the affordability/availability legislation and draft a bill that simply regulates the insurance industry to stop abuses. Let’s make the regulatory legislation effective within 12 months. That will be a major step forward. With that done, we can build on that victory and get everything else we want down the line.

Respectfully,
Rutherford

WordPress.com Political Blogger Alliance

Welcome to Socialist Capitalism and Palin Parts the Red Sea

This week, the Obama “pay czar”, Kenneth Feinberg announced that he would be cutting the cash salaries of TARP company executives by 90% and total compensation by 50%. My first reaction to this was utter elation. The part of me that is fed up with arrogant corporate CEO’s who are oblivious to the economic suffering of this country, and their contribution to it, raised his fist in a defiant “screw the fat cats!” It’s about damn time!

Then I paused a moment and thought, wow, I’m no expert on socialism but isn’t this the government controlling the detailed operations of what used to be free enterprise? Well, yes it is. So should we all be wringing our hands saying that Limbaugh, Beck and Malkin were all correct? Is it socialism today and communism tomorrow?

No, I don’t think so. What we’ve got here is an odd mix of socialism and capitalism tossed together and only for the time being. The government doesn’t own a huge stake in these TARP companies, we do! We, the taxpayers own a large chunk of these companies and we should be very pleased that the government, our proxy, is making these companies accountable for their behavior. Once these companies (AIG, Bank of America, Citigroup, GM, Chrysler and the two car company financing divisions) pay us back our money, then we will get out of their business. Until then, they should at least partially answer to us.

I call this socialist capitalism. It’s a free market system which when it breaks down based on abuses, stops being totally free and gets a good government slap on the wrist. It’s the answer to capitalism on steroids, which is what I believe got us into our current mess. As long as the government knows when to back off, I see no problem with this approach.

Let’s see what you think:

Republican Schism and the Palin Factor (or How Sarah Parted the Red Sea)

In a recent post, I warned of the imminent demise of the Republican party but I was wrong about how Sarah Palin could be instrumental in it. I’ve always seen Palin as pulling the party so far to the right that they fall off the edge of the Earth. What I didn’t count on was that our darling maverick would go completely rogue on the GOP and back a candidate opposing the Republican Party. But yes friends, that is indeed what has happened. In the 23rd congressional district House race in New York, Sarah Palin has endorsed Conservative Party candidate, Doug Hoffman over Republican Party candidate Deirde “Dede” Scozzafava. By helping to dilute the conservative vote, Sarah may hand the traditionally Republican district over to Democrat Bill Owens on a silver platter.

Wonder how much the GOP loves Sarah now?

Respectfully,
Rutherford

WordPress.com Political Blogger Alliance

“Rogue” and “Rouge”: A Tale of Two Sarah’s

As if one needed any more proof of the media’s disdain for Sarah Palin, the editors of The Nation magazine have planned to release a book of essays, critical of the former Alaska Governor on the same date as her much anticipated auto-biography. For more details, check out the NPR article.

As a service to Palin lovers everywhere, here are the two book covers. Careful shopping folks. You wouldn’t want to end up buying the book that has the truth about Sarah Palin, now would you?

Going Rogue -- Harper Collins Books

Going Rouge -- OR Books

Happy reading!

Respectfully,
Rutherford

WordPress.com Political Blogger Alliance

Republicans Today, Whigs Tomorrow

It’s kind of a shame. I’m a nice liberal. I feel for my conservative brethren and I’ve warned them repeatedly that their behavior will get them nowhere fast. Yet they persist in childish obstructionism, total lack of original thought and at times downright nasty rhetoric. The Whigs managed to get two Presidents elected in the mid 19th century. They actually got four for their trouble since both elected Presidents (Harrison and Taylor) died in office leaving two VP’s to step into the Oval Office. When Millard Fillmore finished his term, that was the last we heard of the Whigs. In 1860, the Republicans got their first electoral victory and a fine victory it was too, none other than Abraham Lincoln. The Republican track record has been considerably better than the Whigs. Alas, I think the show is almost over. Look what happens, conservative ladies and gentlemen when you ignore my advice.

Who Would You Vote for Today?

The Washington Post and ABC News asked a random sample of about 1000 adults which party they would put in the House of Representatives if the election was today. The GOP gets whupped by a whopping 12 points. The news doesn’t get much better with the next question.

Who do you have confidence in? Obama, Democratic Congressmen or Republican Congressmen?

Who Inspires Your Confidence?

Congress as a whole doesn’t come out looking too good here. Obama does not crack 50 but even among the sad Congressional numbers, the GOP is pathetic. The GOP’s decision making ability inspires the confidence of not even 20% of those polled.

You might suspect from these numbers that not too many people even want to be called Republicans anymore. You would be right.

Folks who call themselves GOP'ers

As Keith Olbermann correctly pointed out tonight on MSNBC’s “Countdown”, this is worse than a five percent drop since August (at the peak of Tea Party mania). It actually says that one in five folks since August have disassociated themselves from the Republican party.

So what happens when a party becomes irrelevant? One thing that happens is that serious people start to simply ignore them. Since they now have no one outside the party with which to engage, they are left to talk amongst themselves and this can get pretty ugly. I wrote a short time ago that the Republican party was starting to eat itself as town hall rowdy’s attacked one of their own, Lindsay Graham. Yet another example occurred a few days ago at the Western Conservative Political Action Conference. John Ziegler, a radio talk show host with a major hard-on for Sarah Palin (he made a documentary about how she was abused by the media) interviewed the head of the CPAC, David Keene. Keene had made the grave mistake of accusing Palin of “whining” and other behavior unbecoming of a Presidential hopeful.

Now, if you haven’t noticed, you have to search far and wide to find any leading conservative who will call out Ms. Palin for her amateur hour audition for a place in national politics. Keene violated this rule. (Steve Schmidt, McCain’s campaign adviser violated it also but backed off his comments a few days later.) So Sarah’s valiant defender, Mr. Ziegler went up one side of Keene and down the other. The following two part video is long but instructive to Republicans who might want to stop internal bickering and start providing real leadership. For liberals, it’s just a hoot to watch! In part 1, the “interview” between Ziegler and Keene starts out well enough, but soon deteriorates.

As part 2 gets underway, Keene is now thoroughly irritated and suggests that Ziegler is deserving of physical violence.

Democrats fight among themselves all the time. That is one reason health care reform is so long in coming this year. The Democrats can’t get out of each other’s way (can you spell bluedogs?). Usually Republicans are an efficient single minded by the book voting machine. That is why these bursting seams are so unexpected and so symptomatic of a party in self destruct mode.

OK, let me try this one more time. My Republican friends, please follow my prescription:

1. Kick Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Jim DeMint and various other loony tunes to the side.
2. Try coming up with some original ideas, some alternatives that people can get behind. Right now we have a one party system.
3. Turn the other cheek and show Obama more respect than your man Bush got during his terms. This will buy you truck loads of good will.

If you don’t heed my warning this time, I can assure you that your grandchildren’s history books will read:

The first great Republican President was Abraham Lincoln and the last one was Ronald Reagan. After the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush, the GOP never won another election and ceased to exist altogether  in 2011.

Respectfully,
Rutherford

WordPress.com Political Blogger Alliance

When to Turn the Cameras Off and Obama Tone Deaf in New Orleans

When to Turn the Cameras Off

One of the big stories in the past 24 hour news cycle has been that of “balloon boy”, the six year old son of an inventor who was thought to be floating in a helium balloon lost in the skies of Colorado. The boy turned out to have been safely hiding in his parent’s attic the entire time that various Colorado rescue officials were trying  to find him. Now attention has turned to his parents and particularly his father with a suspicion that the entire event was a hoax to get him publicity.

I’m not going to jump on the bandwagon of those criticizing the young boy’s family. There is a far more odious culprit to talk about this evening. That is the bottom feeding hypocritical media that covered this story. On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”, Mika Brzezinski was practically apoplectic over what she considered to be child abuse. To prove her point she and her co-hosts played video tape of the family’s appearances on “Good Morning America” and “The Today Show”, expressing all sorts of outrage that the parents would exploit their child on TV even when he was so sick that he vomited on both shows.

The point that they missed entirely was that the producers and “journalists” involved in both morning interviews couldn’t figure out when enough was enough. On “Good Morning America”, the child named Falcon, excused himself to go to the bathroom and vomit. Diane Sawyer essentially gave the mother “permission” to go see how the boy was.  It didn’t occur to anyone at ABC, ok folks, interview over? On NBC’s “Today”, the situation was even worse. Falcon could not even get to the bathroom on time and vomited on camera. As he left the room, Meredith Vieira announced she still had a couple of questions she’d like to ask. No, Meredith, the kid just tossed his breakfast, time for the interview to be over!

One has to wonder if the child started choking on a pretzel on live TV, would the cameras have kept rolling or would some anchor or producer have had the decency to stop the tape. The only solace I got out of watching this episode was seeing the reaction of Newsweek Editor and “Morning Joe” guest Jon Meacham, who called Mika and her crew “meta-enablers”. He basically told them, they make the story worse by covering it.

They’re angry that the father might want media attention but to get ratings, they give him all the attention he craves. Hypocrites and bottom feeders, plain and simple.

Obama Tone Deaf in New Orleans

The optics were bad enough with President Barack Obama doing a quick stop in still devastated New Orleans on his way to a San Francisco fund raiser. But things got worse than just bad optics when a young New Orleans resident, Gabriel Bordenave, asked the President why help to the region was still only trickling in four years after Katrina and nine months into what was supposed to be a fresh perspective administration. (The following video is poor quality but the audio is clear.)

When Bordenave says that the foot dragging he would have expected under Bush was still going on now, Obama responded with a defensive posture, going as far as to say if he could write a check now he would. Not to be put off, Bordenave asked “why not?” Obama’s surprisingly snide response was that there was this little thing called the Constitution that needed to be accounted for.

Excuse me? We are pouring trillions of dollars into current and contemplated programs, most of which I support. So, why is it so hard to get money down to the people who need it in New Orleans? When Obama could have said that he was sorry for the suffering still going on down there, he took a totally defensive stance, going as far as to say folks oppose spending except when the money is spent on them. True, of course. The right place and time to say it? Hell no. To make matters worse, Obama’s next stop was San Francisco where couples would be paying $34,000.00 each for a lousy dinner to raise funds for the DNC to get Democrats elected to various offices. Why don’t we do some campaign finance reform and funnel all that wasted money down to New Orleans so hospitals can get rebuilt?

There is no doubt that some retraction of Obama’s comments is on the way. He so misread the time and place to be defensive and sarcastic that it is mind boggling. My prescription for the President is to take a break from health care and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He needs to find a quiet place in the White House, put his headphones on, and listen to this warning call from The Who:

I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

Respectfully,
Rutherford

WordPress.com Political Blogger Alliance

Two Tea Party Witnesses for the Prosecution

Of all the positions I’ve taken on this blog, probably none has attracted so much vitriol as my attitude toward the Tea Party participants. I have called a good number of them uninformed and ignorant and a small minority of them outright racist. In return I have been told I don’t respect the first amendment and that I am un-American because I don’t support the common man in his effort to redress perceived wrongs. Perhaps if I saw a Tea Party participant present himself convincingly, I might be persuaded that the Tea Party movement is something more than misdirected rage and amorphous social anxiety.

This week the Tea Party movement took a far right turn and started to eat its own at a town hall with Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham. Graham, one of the Senators most critical of President Obama, was called a traitor by folks in the crowd.

This odd turn of events demanded an explanation so once again, two “witnesses for the defense” of the Tea Party movement got paraded on national television and wound up simply winning the case for the prosecution. In fact, I challenge anyone to watch the following video and not cringe with discomfort:

Let’s start with some reasonable objections that Tea Party sympathizers might have with the above interview.

1. Chris Matthews is a bully. That is why the show is called “Hardball”. Chris reserves the right to be tough and often rude to his guests in what he believes is a quest for the truth.
2. The two men are relatively ordinary private citizens with no preparation for a TV interview, much less with a tough interviewer with Matthews’ experience.
3. In a corollary to point 1, Chris does not play fair, asking questions far afield from the main topic of why the sudden turn on Lindsay Graham.

With those objections out of the way, let’s look at how our defenders of the Tea Party movement fared:

1. Everett Wilkinson of Florida Tea Party Patriots starts off with the total foolishness that nearly 2 million marched on Washington on 9/12, when reliable estimates place the crowd at no more than 500,000 tops (more conservative estimates come in at about 75,000).
2. Wilkinson could not answer the question that I have repeatedly asked in the comments section of this blog, namely why the sudden need for protest when all of our fiscal problems, e.g. out of control spending, started in the Bush administration?
3. Next comes the old stuff about Iraq being responsible for 9/11 (and some odd comment about Iran thrown in there also).
4. Wilkinson ends up looking like a good natured guy who spouts Republican talking points without much underlying knowledge. He supports my supposition that a lot of Tea Party members are vague, to be kind, about what is really bothering them. Wilkinson’s finest moment, and I say this sincerely, is when he reminds Matthews that he is basically off topic. Wilkinson looks like a pro compared to what comes next.
5. Next up is Allen Olson, a self described South Carolina Tea Party organizer. His first “gripe” is that Lindsay Graham is willing to “meet the Democrats more than halfway” about social security.  OK, good specific gripe there. What about this social security debate has Olson upset? “Well, I’m not exactly sure exactly what the issue was but Senator Graham said he was willing to talk to the Democrats on the issue of social security.” In impolite circles, this is known as not having the foggiest idea what you’re talking about. Matthews exercises incredibly empathetic restraint with this fellow who on the very first question makes it clear he has no business being interviewed about politics. Maybe about the Clemson Tigers, but not about politics.
6. Matthews pours a bit of salt in the wound by suggesting Graham is a “Richard Russell conservative”, a reference to a Georgia Senator who led a conservative movement from the late 30’s to the early 60’s. I had to look Russell up to find out who he was. Olson, as he literally bobbed and weaved in his chair, was as clueless as I. Matthews has studied politics and Olson clearly has not. Unfair fight but again evidence that this representative of the “movement” is in way over his head.
7. Chris then explores climate change and evolution in an attempt to make the guy look like a real neanderthal. Olson handles this pretty well actually, saying he doesn’t believe in climate change (lots of folks agree with him) and that he supports science and religion.
8. While Olson distances himself from those calling Graham a traitor (Olson stops at RINO), he then caps off the interview by proposing a Sarah Palin/Jim DeMint President/VP ticket in 2012. We won’t discuss Sarah, whom I’ve opined on extensively but Jim DeMint? DeMint, the Senator whose only reason to block health care reform is to destroy Obama’s presidency? DeMint, who visited the foreign government of Honduras, not recognized by our government? The same DeMint who compared Obama’s administration to Nazi Germany? Yeah Olson sure does know how to pick ‘em.
9. Like Wilkinson, Olson ended his part of the interview on a sympathetic note, comparing Palin’s bomb of an interview with Katie Couric, to his own nervousness talking to Chris Matthews. An ordinary guy defending an ordinary gal.

Bottom line, these two gentlemen are the best the Tea Party movement has to offer as public spokespeople. In their cringe-worthy testimony, they prove my supposition that the Tea Party waters are rough but don’t run very deep.

The prosecution rests its case.

Respectfully,
Rutherford

WordPress.com Political Blogger Alliance