Tuesday, August 23, 2011

The Clutching of Tea-stained Pearls

Three California House members held a "Kitchen Table Summit" ("Town Halls" are so passé), and Maxine Waters did what so few of our congresscritters are willing to do. She took a stand.



"I'm not afraid of anybody. This is a tough game. You can't be intimidated. You can't be frightened. And as far as I'm concerned, the Tea Party can go straight to hell."
Personally, I think she should have gone with "Teabaggers," but, you know, decorum and shit.

I have no problem with what she said (particularly since her statement has been an unspoken theme in many of my blog posts over the last two years or so). But interestingly, it seems that some people got their panties all knotted up when her harsh words assaulted their delicate, shell-like ears.
Jenny Beth Martin and Mark Meckler, co-founders of the Tea Party Patriots, are calling on President Obama and leaders of the Democratic Party to "censure their own." They lambasted previous comments from Democrats that Tea Party supporters are "terrorists" and "hostage takers."

"Is civility required only of their opponents?" Martin and Meckler said in a statement. "...The president's silence on these latest violations of civility has been deafening, but not surprising."
Or to translate: "She said mean things and he didn't do anything!"

I suppose we should ignore that Obama's been staying out of almost all of the partisan infighting. And I guarantee that we're supposed to ignore all of the following statements:
"(An) Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug" ~~ Mark Williams, national spokesman for the Tea Party Express (2009-2010), on President Obama

"You lie!" ~~ Joe Wilson (R-SC; member, Tea Party Caucus), interrupting Obama's address before a joint session of Congress, after Obama said his health care plan would not cover illegal immigrants (Sept. 9, 2009)

"He has no place in any station of government and we need to realize that he is an enemy of humanity." ~~ Trent Franks (R-AZ; member, Tea Party Caucus), on President Obama (Sept. 26, 2009)

"We're on to them; we're on to this gangster government... I'd say it's time for these little piggies to go home," ~~ Michele Bachmann (R-MN; founder and chair, Tea Party Caucus), at the Tea Party's Tax Day protest in Washington, D.C. (April 15, 2010)
Please note: only one quote from Bachmann, despite reams of the stuff, from "death panels" to calling members of Congress "anti-American"
"You know if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I'll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out." ~~ Nevada GOP candidate and Tea Party darling Sharron Angle (Jan. 14, 2010)
And yes, only one Sharron Angle quote, too. She also had a raft of 'em, but she didn't get elected.

And to be fair, she
might have meant "take out" as in "take out of office." Unless you take the whole quote in context, that is...
"As your governor, you're going to be seeing a lot of me on the front page, saying Governor LePage tells Obama to go to hell!" ~~ Governor Paul LePage (then Tea Party-backed candidate LePage, Sept. 29, 2010)
And I'm not saying that particular quote sounds familiar or anything...
"The radical Islamists, the al-Qaida … would be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on Sept. 11 because they would declare victory in this war on terror" ~~ Iowa Rep. Steve King (member, Tea Party Caucus), on the result of candidate Obama getting elected president (Mar. 8, 2008)
Please note that I mostly avoided any failed Tea Party Candidate (except Angle, who was too wide-eyed and drooling to avoid). Like Glen Urquhart, who asked why liberals were Nazis (very common among the unhinged Right), or... really, Christine O'Donnell was one of the only Tea Party candidates who didn't spend most of her time vilifying her opponents - she was too busy proving herself to be a science-hating fundamentalist, with no real talent for either logic or statistics.

I'm not saying it means anything. I'm just saying that it's interesting.

11 comments:

  1. Well, it means this to me: That the Baggers are an illiterate group of reactionaries financed by corporatists and inspired by chalk-board lunatics who wouldn't know what a socialist was if she were teaching them how to spell or saving their burning houses.

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  2. That chalk board lunatic is a local hero of course. A couple of days ago that shit-house Solon ventured the proposition that Obama was trying to foment a race war in America.

    I went out and bought a Kalashnikov. How else am I going to defend myself against the hordes of Obamist Mau-Maus?

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  3. in common parlance:

    Don't get mad. Get even.

    I'm serious. How many posts from how many years have we devoted to bashing these village idiots. Perhaps a little more gray matter should go into beating the fucking crap out of them next year at the polls. Any ideas? I'm all tentacles.

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  4. I really think the Republican party should be renamed 'The Hypocrisy Party'.

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  5. There has been an earthquake of magnitude 5.9 in the D.C. area. Haven't heard of any injuries, but I guess they're not much used to quakes there, so it's rattled everyone.

    Well, let me try to beat the Tea-Hooligans to it and be the first to say that it's all Obama's fault. It just has to be because after all, everything's his fault, right?

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  6. O Greenish One, would you call what you just wrote an "Obama's fault" line?

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  7. ... everything is always Obama's fault, Clinton's fault, Carter's fault, San Andrea's fault, Mariana's fault, Caroline's fault, Mohn's fault, Tan-Lu's fault, Keynes' fault, and Standard & Poor's fault. We live in an Age of Tectonic Blame Shifters where it is always someone else's fault except a goddam Republican.

    Chrusty Christie is in Virginia today? That explains everything!

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  8. I like Angry Octopus. He reminds me of me when I was relevant in Blogistan. Other than he's real smart and doesn't live where he has to shovel snow.

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  9. Shaw,

    Yes, "Obama's Fault" -- that'll make the 'Baggery happy. But I'm khaki, not green.

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  10. Public opinion seems to be split three ways. The earthquakes and the hurricane are Obama's fault; they're the Liberals' fault for tolerating gays or both.

    Herbert Hunke, the guy who hung around with the Beats, wrote a book called Guilty of Everything some time ago. It seems too bad because it would make the perfect title for an Obama biography.

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  11. Our local representative, Democrat Peter DeFazio (who we are very proud to have represent us) offered the suggestion of letting individual Tea Party members personally register to "opt out" of Social Security, Medicare and other benefits they seem so worried about.

    I love it; polls have shown that a large number of these dolts don't even realize that they ARE receiving government benefits. Let them choose to eat cake, as it were.

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