Have you ordered your official Tea Party Express Wall Calendar for 2010? For supporters of the 2009 national Tea Party movement, this is “the perfect Christmas Stocking Stuffer, loaded with full color photographs from the 41 rally locations of the historic national bus tour.”
I fell for the Web site promotional, but something tells me The Columbian’s Editorial Page Editor John Laird hasn’t sprung for a wall calendar yet. His Nov. 29 column, “Coming soon! A giant anger-palooza,” is an unusually curmudgeonly put-down of the Tea Party movement as a mob of angry bigots who have been “kicking and screaming” since the movement started in early 2009.
I covered the local “We the People” Tea Party rally last Sept. 12, so I’m not about to let readers read such a strident critique without a little kicking and screaming of my own.
First, liberal strategists and their helpmates in the media are scared stiff about a revitalized conservative base, so they’re circulating packaged talking points to discredit the Tea Party movement.
Without a shred of evidence, they attach the terms “bigoted” and/or “racist” to any such commentary. MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann called the Tea Party protestors “worse than racists.” Janeane Garofolo chimed in, calling them “racist rednecks who hate blacks.” Nancy Pelosi dreamed up “swastikas and symbols like that.”
None of those charges has ever been supported.
Last August, a peaceful Tea Party protester named Kenneth Gladney, an African-American, attended a Tea Party rally in Missouri. His innocent form of protest was to pass out “Don’t Tread on Me” flags. Members of the Service Employees International Union viciously beat him, repeating an ethnic slur as captured on video and shown on YouTube. The bigotry that day was on the other side.
Local event was peaceful
The Tea Party rallygoers I observed were a broad cross-section of the American electorate primarily interested in pocketbook and constitutional issues. The unfailingly peaceful crowd that overfilled Vancouver Landing included small-business owners, retirees, veterans, and idealistic teenagers. I saw a large percentage of women protesters.
If some Tea Party protesters express passion and anger, those emotions are well-founded. A Nov. 30 release of a Rasmussen poll revealed that 71 percent of American voters are at least somewhat angry about the current policies of the federal government and that 46 percent are very angry. (Only 27 percent of us are not angry.) The same large majority, 71 percent, believe that the federal government has become a special interest group that looks out primarily for its own interests, which is to expand its own powers.
The arrogance of President Obama’s policies instigates anger that I contend is justifiable. He has heaped debt on our children and grandchildren. He has trashed our currency. He has nationalized our once-proud auto industry. He is well on the way to nationalizing our health care and energy industries.
On the world stage, he is an embarrassment, with those sickening bows to kings, emperors and dictators, and those cheesy gifts presented to the Queen of England. While sucking up to enemies like Hugo Chavez, he slights allies such as England, France, and Poland.
His approach to national security is an accident waiting to happen. He has freed many of the Guantanamo terrorists to the “safekeeping” of countries around the world that in some cases hate us, and he will soon be bringing the worst of them to New York City for jury trials.
Meanwhile, three courageous Navy Seals who captured and roughed up a much-wanted terrorist are being court-martialed.
Obama’s recent speech on the surge in Afghanistan included the date on which we would pull out. George Patton is turning over in his grave!
With the overwhelming majority of voters justifiably angry at the federal government, the Tea Party Express represents a sound catalyst for change we can actually believe in.
