Are We Men, Or Are We Tea Partyers?

By Baxter

We cats are, as you know, curious. And although we've been swamped with work this week, several times we've caught sight of headlines proclaiming the opening of the first (so they say) "Tea Party Convention" in Nashville, Tennessee.

So we were just wondering: Since the tea partyers are all angry white men who want to sleep with Sarah Palin, why is their convention being held on Super Bowl weekend?

Ah, well, never mind. Such scheduling snafus merely serve to buttress our impression of these folks, so let's not mince words. Here's how we sum up the teabaggers: They're Joe-the-Plumber sorry-asses who think that the world owes them everything because they are white and male and allegedly straight Christians, born in the (God bless 'er) U.S. of A.

And anyone — say, President Obama (a nonwhite male) or Speaker Pelosi (a female) — who denies them their self-defined God-given rights must be crushed like the Italians did the Ethiopians in 1936.

They are a classic example of "takes one to know one." They freely call the President a racist — because they themselves are racists. They call Obama a fascist because.... they themselves are fascists. Then they turn around and call Obama a Communist because... well, because they believe in an overarching hand of state controlling everything they believe should be controlled — like a woman's right to choose, individual morality, lifestyles, censorship, textbooks, etc.

They are the direct descendants of the Know Nothings of the 1840s, who, along with the Whigs, gave us the modern Republican Party. We cats say: There is nothing American about proudly knowing nothing.

So why do people like this have a platform at all? Well, partly because the GOP enables them. (House Minority Leader John Boehner said Thursday that there is "no difference" in the beliefs of Republicans and tea party activists.) However, we cats also blame the media. Their he-said-she-said, play-it-down-the-middle-of-the-road coverage has helped give credence to this wingnuttery.

We believe that the media have a responsibility to report the truth and call liars liars. But they're too chicken, and have been for awhile now. That means that when a journalist — like Katie Couric — actually gently tries to expose the know-nothingness of, say, the Tea Party Convention's (well-paid) keynote speaker, the right-wing pushback has, and continues to be, one step short of violence.

We cats are concerned. We've been concerned for a long time. And we finally just had to say something. Have a nice weekend — unless, of course, you're in Nashville.