Sir you do a great disservice to mad hatters everywhere...

The so called Low Information voters only seem as such because YOUR information is even lower!!!!

You silly liberals don't understand Freedom. Baracillac Oshama will lead us to ruin, in fact, he is in the process already.

You are so lucky that beautiful god and country loving men like Sir John Boehner and Ronaldus Paulus are here to backstop this glorious nation from a slide into irrelevance.

All of the gains we made under George Bush are now in peril.

Huffington Post is reporting that a protester in DC threw a package over the fence surrounding the White House. The protest was subsequently shut down while a robot examined the package.

And Newt thinks the DHS report on Right-Wing Extremists is wrong?

"Obviously, it's not fair to suggest all of the far-right activists attending Tea Parties were as confused as the strange folks CNN talked to in Chicago . . ."

Not all, but certainly a majority of the followers of the movement are both ignorant and confused. In my former life as a political consultant, I ran into these people constantly. They are incapable of reasoning beyond the level of a parrot--someone (like Rush) told them Obama's a communist Nazi fascist. Therefore he is. Never mind that the terms contradict one another---Obama's a communist Nazi fascist. Because he is. See?

I despair of my country whenever I run into these people.

The other thing on these tea partiess is that most of these folks will be getting a tax cut in the Obama budget

Obviously, it's not fair to suggest all of the far-right activists attending Tea Parties were as confused as the strange folks CNN talked to in Chicago

But sadly, watching CNN wouldn't cure their ills.

Now I understand why the organizers discouraged Richard Steele's attendance. Since all black people look the same, the "patriots" at the tea bagging party would have probably confused him with President Obama, and tried to lynch him. Not realizing that Richard Steele is the second coming of Clayton Bigsby.

Wow, Limbaught dittoheads in the flesh.

Reminds me a lot of the 'Palin rallies' held this past fall.

Cheer up. These guys all own high-powered guns...

Why didn't she ask: If he is Hitler do you think he should be assassinated?

I mean really, play the dummies for dummies please...

Perceived problem: Runaway government spending

Real problem: A nonwhite Democrat was elected US President

Yikes! I saw that clip -- scary stuff. The ignorance is just mind-blowing. It's almost enough to make you believe in making the right to vote contingent on passing some kind of rudimentary civics test.

Oh Sweet Jeebus, PLEASE let there have been someone out taking pictures of all their ridiculous signs! I've already seen the "Obama between Nazism and Communism" (which isn't so bad a place to be really ;) one...but I want more!

There HAS to be a "Use Your Brain Morans!" out there...tonight, the internets is gonna be FUN!

To be fair, that was terrible and antagonistic reporting and interviewing.

And all these people are heavily armed.

And bought all the ammunition.

Hey "Free Lover of Freedom and Free Liberty", I can't really tell if you're a parody or not but the age of free love is over.. And "Winkandanod", it's Michael Steele, but your point wasn't missed.

So now the true colors are on display. CNN is certainly having a hard time calling these people what they are! Of course when you're in the middle of a retarded neanderthal mob it pays not to be too wordy. They get upset when you're a thinker! The press is a fucking joke and each member of "the press" at FOX should be forced to teabag Richard Simmons for at least 5 minutes each.

You don't need to know jack to Teabag FOX News

dk, you say that like these folks should be taken seriously. the reporting on this should be highly skeptical.

the Des Moines Register website currently has among its rotating front page photos one of a Des Moines tea party today where a tantrum-thrower is holding a sign that says "What Would Reagan Say?" Presumably, not much that the ignorant sign-holder would want to hear since the top marginal tax rate under Reagan was higher - in many years, much higher - than 39.6%.

But why let facts get in the way of a good ol' uninformed, propaganda-driven lashing out at imaginary bogeymen?

It's truly astonishing. These people stretch to the breaking point the capacity of human language to describe just how stupid and uninformed they are. Tensor calculus may be required.

zeitgeist, I just feel that they would have looked even more ridiculous without the snarky lead-in and on-site reporting.

All joking aside, know what I could never understand? The Right Wing's never-ending love affair with the empty symbolic totem. If it's not yellow ribbons it's purple thumbs (remember that one? From the Iraqi elections?), or it's tire gauges, or it's purple hearted band-aids (odious that one was) or it's tea bags apparently.

(actually can anybody else think of any? I know there's literally 100s)

Why is it a prerequisite for the Right to have some empty gesture or trinket in order to make a point? It's kind of weird.

You're bound to find dim bulbs anytime you point a camera at any given person at a mass demonstration. I remember the Penn & Teller Bullshit where they examined environmentalists, and they showed plenty of people who could barely define the word "environment," let alone discuss policy coherently. Did Penn & Teller choose only the dumbest protesters? Maybe, but the fact is they were there.

5 years ago the message from the asshole disc jockeys promoting this event was "Freedom is not free" when faced with supporting an illegal war of aggression. Now that the bill has come up for the swinging dick operation they supported, backed, and propogandized for for the last 7 years they want to cry about government spending and taxation.

The meltdown of the US economy will always be about the Iraq war and its true costs yet these people are brainwashed and or just plain racist that they'll never connect the dots.

I feel bad for most of these people. They are the product of a broken system and their laziness and ignorance elicits only pity from me.

GT: ... each member of "the press" at FOX should be forced to teabag Richard Simmons for at least 5 minutes each.

Surely, you mean by Richard Simmons. :) Still, it does remind me of Asimov's (?) observation that when stupidity is considered patriotic, it's unwise to appear intelligent.

I stopped by the Chicago Tea Party. Mostly it didnt seem that bad. I mean, lots of people had signs like "SOCIALISM SUCKS" and whatnot, but generally the discourse was fair game (silly, but not dangerous).

However, I did see a few really bad things (as you often do at any protest, regardles sof the politics). I saw the Hitler/Obama guy, some birth certificate trutherism, some "Obama is a Muslim" stuff, a sign that said "Hear my Voice or Hear my Gun"...

And there was one sign puzzled me b/c I couldnt figure out whether the holder was simply misinformed or if it was worse. The sign said:

MAJORITY
RULED BY
MINORITY
IS WRONG!

Now does this person think that Republicans are in the Majority? If so, that's preposterously easy to disprove. (then again, taxdayteaparty.com has the slogan "Silent Majority No More!" on their front page, apparently unaware that the reason they are no more a silent majority isnt because they're speaking up, but because they arent a majority)

Or is this person referring to racial minorities, complaining that a majority white country shouldnt be led by a member of a racial minority?

Anyway, as I said before, there were random kooks, but overall it was just another protest. Better attended than the recent No Games Chicago rally; not as well attended as anti-war or pro-immigration rallies.

it's called "marketing". we could use a little.

dk, you're right. No matter how much your subject belongs in the Special Olympics, you don't walk up and say "Hey Retard, I think your sign is disrespectful"! It could have been done with a little more neutrality or finesse by a real reporter.

"Obviously, it's not fair to suggest all of the far-right activists attending Tea Parties were as confused as the strange folks CNN talked to in Chicago . . ."

Wrong. This is your Republican base. Get used to it.

Look, I live in a nice neighborhood a few miles from Focus on the Family and New Life Church. My little old precinct voted 75% for Palin (I'm sure that almost every one was hoping McCain would croak in office). These are well-off people -- not rich, but top quartile are for sure.

If you hang around these people and talk about fire mitigation strategies (we're in a forest) or local sports they seem perfectly normal. Let the discussion touch on politics however, and every one is as ranting and nutty as the people on this video.

And forget the notion that "we can disagree and still be polite and friendly". I've been careful to avoid political discussions since we arrived here, but during the campaign I volunteered, canvassed locally (boy that was fun -- I'm not sure that the Obama volunteers who went into the slums had as scary a time as we did) and put up signs. I finally figured, "to hell with it, this is a democracy and I'm not hiding who I support". Well, we DID meet a bunch of great people through the process -- other Obama supporters who had similarly hidden their views. Including, funnily enough, the people next door. (Wow -- two Obama signs on adjacent houses -- I'm sure we caused at least one heart attack.) But most of our neighborhood stopped talking to us and continues to do so.

These people are nuts. When I lived on a mostly-Democratic block in California we had one lone Bush the elder and Dole supporter. We all joked with him about it but there were no hard feelings and we still socialized and helped each other out.

But in wingnut country its different. These people are like the rightwing version of those loony lefties you knew in college from the Sparticus Youth League.

I'm not sure that many of the tea partiers regard Abe Lincoln as a hero. One important strain of American conservatism, found primarily in the South but with pockets throughout the country, contends that Lincoln fought an illegal war that perverted the Founders' intended relationship between the federal government and the states. To many conservatives, Lincoln is part of the rogues' gallery that also includes Alexander Hamilton, John Marshall, and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Concentrate on the majority of Americans who can still be reasoned with, and cut these people loose.

Term limits, not WWII, stopped Hitler. It's a historical fact.

No DH Walker, can you honestly think of a more disgusting person to be forced to teabag (and I'm gay)??!! I couldn't think of anyone more disgusting.. I'll try though. I think it's a fitting punishment for Faux teabaggers.

"Why is it a prerequisite for the Right to have some empty gesture or trinket in order to make a point? It's kind of weird."
Posted by: neilt on April 15, 2009 at 4:45

I believe it's because the Right = U.S Mega Corp., and their first instinct is always symbolism/packaging.

I was wondering when the right would rediscover the "term limits" con. Leading up to the 1994 take over by Gingrich and co. there was a constant drumbeat about term limits and many of the candidates supposedly were going to adhere to them. Of course once they were in power conservatives suddenly lost all interest in the issue and as I recall most of the candidates who ran on the issue quietly abandoned their pledges. These guys don't seem to have a lot of fresh ideas so I suspect we'll start hearing a lot more about term limits...I mean consistency isn't exactly their thing.

Maybe it's just me, but this CNN reporter really seemed to be catering to liberals by picking fights with these nuts, pointing out that the "parties" were organized by major conservative groups and referring to the "right-wing Fox News" (maybe the media is starting to see where the country is moving). I guess this is better than catering to the right, but personally, I prefer objective journalism. If reporters would just stick to facts, we'd all be better off. I was unimpressed by this CNN reporter.

Trollop:

Bill-O and his magic loofah?

I'm just sayin'. :)

Mad Cracker Hatters hosting White Rabbits who are very very late for an appointment with the 19th century.

CJ: If reporters would just stick to facts, we'd all be better off.

You don't think it's a fact that that "fascist" guy was a total dumbass? Or do you not think it's a fact that FOX is conservative?

"I live in a nice neighborhood a few miles from Focus on the Family and New Life Church."

I lived a couple of years in Colorado Springs, myself. It's really too bad the wingnuts had to go and ruin such beautiful scenery. Focus on the Family is like a sh*t stained smear on the Front Range.

Stupid knows no ideology (trust me -- I've met my share of fellow liberals who I thought had been dropped on their heads as youth ... repeatedly).

The difference, though, is that the right celebrates not just ignorance, but willful ignorance.

It's why they mock academics and people with knowledge ... why they love folks like Palin who are unencumbered by thoughts and reflection and history ... why they attack anyone who respectfully points out the "facts" the right often uses are not actually, you know, facts.

It's also why the right is a top-down model -- if they were to leave everything to their followers, they'd implode in a week (just see all the Teabaggers who failed to get permits, etc.)

It'd be hysterical if it weren't so damned dangerous.

CJ,

I have a feeling she had been harassed already. She seemed to be a foul mood from the outset. CNN is perceived by dittoheads to be liberal, and probably even more in Chicago, so she was probably just tired of taking their shit before she went on the air. She probably needs to be thicker skinned.

"You don't think it's a fact that that "fascist" guy was a total dumbass? Or do you not think it's a fact that FOX is conservative?"

If I turn on the news to watch CNN bashing Fox, then that's not journalism...it's competition. Yes, the fascist freak was a dumbass. But the reporter pointing out to the Lincoln fan that President Lincoln's home state received stimulus money showed that she's a dumbass too. Frankly, I don't want dumbasses speaking for me. The CNN lady wasn't reporting; she was picking a fight under the guise of reporting.

Conservatives might need to have their collective egos stroked by so-called reporters, but this liberal doesn't.

Low information voters=sheep.

I agree that the protesters reflect the activist (and scary) base of the modern GOP, but I also agree with the few commenters here that point out the antagonistic journalism of the reporter. There is no need to give up objectivity and become the Fox of the left. These people would have hung themselves nicely on the rope of their own stupidity. Such obviously biased journalism only warms Republican hearts, and confirms their half-baked theories about media bias in general.

mikeypay said Yikes! I saw that clip -- scary stuff. The ignorance is just mind-blowing. It's almost enough to make you believe in making the right to vote contingent on passing some kind of rudimentary civics test.

They do make one want to reinstate literacy tests to vote.

Does anyone else find it interesting that after weeks (months?) of free publicity from FoxNews, many GOP leaders, as well as Beck, Limbaugh, and Hannity all promoting the National Day of Teabagging that all they could get was a few thousand people in cities like DC or Chicago? Is this the best they can do? This is their show of strength of a surging "silent majority" movement?

It's all kind of sad, really.

CJ:

I was of course being facetious. There simply is no such thing as completely objective reporting of "just the facts". The language used, and the choice of what to report on and what not to, and what weight to give things, and judgments concerning newsworthiness, all ensure that what you're saying you expect from the news simply doesn't exist.

As for this news story, yeah, it was confrontational. But given the subject matter, what do you expect the news to do? Take seriously, and discuss on the merits the idea that Obama is a fascist?

I hear you DH, but you should probably ignore my comments and read jdk's comment @6:12. He (or she) expressed my view a lot better than I could.

Oh, and before you send your teabags to Faux News? Use them first. No reason to waste good tea.

(They'll dry out in a day or so.)

Ooh, I think I saw the equivalent of the "Use your brain Morans" sign. I just saw a pic on the Rachel Maddow show, some guy in a suit was carrying a sign that said "Tax Astroturf." That guy is either clueless, or a genius lefty subverting the protest from the inside by using a message too subtle for teabaggers to understand.

That guy is either clueless, or a genius lefty subverting the protest from the inside by using a message too subtle for teabaggers to understand. --charlie don't surf, @21:17

My guess would be "option 2". I saw some photos (on TPM) of today's events and there was one of "Billionaires for Bush" in DC. Full regalia -- the tailcoats, the pleated-front shirts (couldn't see if they had French cuffs, not could see the sashes) the stove-pipe hats, a pig-snout mask on one of them... the whole nine yards and then some. Their sign read: "3% tax increase on the top 5% of the population is 100% tyranny!"I didn't know what to wipe off first - the tears or the snot -- when I saw it.

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Mark D: "The difference, though, is that the right celebrates not just ignorance, but willful ignorance."

That about sums it up. You could write an entire book on the subject. In fact, Chris Mooney sort of did.

These people are like the rightwing version of those loony lefties you knew in college from the Sparticus Youth League.

Truer words were never spoken. In fact, I spoke them in my kitchen just the other night. Even the reference to the Spartacists.

It's only a matter of time before these people parrot so many stupefyingly looney talking points that they spawn a new psychiatric disorder:

"Fox-Tourette Syndrome"

"They are incapable of reasoning beyond the level of a parrot"

I have two macaws. Whenever they talk they use their speech in correct cotext. Please don't insult them by comparing them to these imbeciles.

I've asked this yesterday and I'll ask again...why did this merit the hysterical, non-stop, saturated media coverage that it got? The crowds weren't impressive, the participants were rediculous. I din't hear anyone at work, at my gym, at the coffee shop, on the street, my family or friends say one word about it. Why was this manufactured as some major event when in fact, no one cared?

Look at that - the right wing CNN bashing the right wing Tea parties. The reporter even managed to bash the right wing Fox news. So glad there isn't a progressive element at CNN or any other news network. It is so nice to actually see a right leaning reporter go after the dangerous guy holding his infant daughter. There is no possible way that anyone in this crowd was liberal.

These tea parties deserve as much coverage as the Spanish courts considering an indictment against administration lawyers who might have given a non-condemning recommendation to the Bush administration on what possibly might be considered torture. Bush's lawyers deserved to be punished for trying to get information instead of just beheading them.

And labeling them teabaggers is a classy way to keep the discussion on an "adult" level. Can't wait to hear the president use that term.

I've been trying to figure out the key difference between the right-wing and the left-wing. Both have their share of wacky madhatters (Obama "birthers" and 9/11 "truthers") but beyond that there is something else.

Lefties believe that we in a war of words and ideas. Rightwingers also believe that they are at war and that the enemy lives among them and wants to destroy the country-- and they also have a real affection for guns.

Which group is scarier?

Roesgen should have let the guy with the baby finish his sentence instead of sneering at him and cutting him off mid-sentence.