Tea for more than Two

The president disparages citizen tea parties (video), the media dismisses us:

A tax-day editorial from the Austin American-Statesmen seemed to echo the same talking point: “Instead of presenting ideas for lifting the economy, Republicans again are engaged in attention-getting gimmickry. This time they are backing a ‘Tax Day Tea Party’ to denounce President Barack Obama’s budget and initiatives to stimulate the economy. . . . The tea parties, scheduled today in Austin and across the country, are stunts — the kind associated more with high school or college students than serious-minded politicians confronting an economic crisis.”

First, the tea parties were a grassroots effort not associated with the GOP, even if the party is largely simpatico with the effort. Second, there are polling data that say a majority of Americans have a favorable view of the tea-party effort — so it seems the GOP has to choose between popularity and being called “serious-minded” in the press. It can’t win.

But even the normally cheerleading AP is getting a bit testy, doing some fact-checking: 

"That wasn't me," President Barack Obama said on his 100th day in office, disclaiming responsibility for the huge budget deficit waiting for him on Day One.

It actually was partly him — and the other Democrats controlling Congress the previous two years — who shaped the latest in a string of precipitously out-of-balance budgets.

And as a presidential candidate and president-elect, he backed the twilight Bush-era stimulus plan that made the deficit deeper, all before he took over and promoted spending plans that have made it much deeper still.

Somehow the message is getting through on the ruinous spending--perhaps because We the People are the genesis of the Tea Parties.

And we won't shut up no matter what.