Russ Steele
As the Tea Party Patriots flex their political muscle in Washington DC after the election the left is growing very nervous. Mother Jones Magazine has launched a three-part series on the Tea Party Patriots to expose them for what they are. Wow.
‘”Tea Party Patriots? I can’t attribute one victory to them at all,’ Laura Boatright, a former TPP regional coordinator in Southern California who has become an outspoken critic, told the publication. ‘Where’s the success with what they’ve done with all this money? My view is that it’s just a career plan’ for its national leaders—namely Jenny Beth Martin, who in 2010 was named by Time as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and Mark Meckler, now a regular commentator on Fox News.
Professor Paul Rahe is one of the country's most distinguished historians of political thought, writes about the Tea Party in the current issue of Commentary . Professor Rahe brings the scholarship of his most recent work on "soft despotism" to bear on his analysis of "How to think about the Tea Party."
Most important, it should be humbling to those elites that ordinary American citizens choose spontaneously to enter the political arena in droves, concert opposition, speak up in a forthright manner, and oust a host of entrenched office holders when they learn that a system of punitive taxation is in the offing, when they are repeatedly told what they know to be false--that, under the new health-care system that the administration is intent on establishing, benefits will be extended and costs reduced and no one will lose the coverage he already has--and when they discover that Medicare is to be gutted, that medical care is to be rationed, and that citizens who have no desire to purchase health insurance are going to be forced to do so. . . . What we are witnessing with the Tea Party movement is one of the periodic recurrences to fundamental principles that typify and revivify the American experiment in self-government. [Emphasis added]
So, now we have two views of the Tea Party, one from a very nervous lefty organization who is digging up all the dirt they can find on the TPP and a learned history professor who is more interested in putting the Tea Party in proper historical context.
Exit Question: Who is the most credible?
H/T to Power Line for the Commentary tip and Jeff Pelline for the Mother Jones tip. [Be sure to read the comments from our local left in this issue at Jeff's blog, they will be priceless.]
Update (02-14-11, 16:15) Here is an example of the left wing discourse and discussion at Jeff's blog:
Kate Hancock
There’s some bloggers, wingnut ones, and a tea people one, that is saying that CPAC was “run” and monied by “the Muslim Brotherhood”. Furthermore, they have linked Grover Norquist and CPAC to the muslim brotherhood in their tea soaked oblingatas. Mother Jones could do no more harm than these peeps doing inside their own um, warring, party…holy smokes, bat#$&% crazy they’ve gone. I thought Barbour and Rand were delusional, this is the big enchilada of nutso…
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