Tea Party Day

I already put up a couple of posts at DetNews about the big Tea Party celebrations. This NYT/CBS poll allowed me to make some strong points but I took a pretty soft approach since it's a mainstream newspaper and fully half of my readers are tea party people. But Billmon posting at Kos didn't have any such restrictions. I'm glad he made this point.

Poll Finds Tea Party Backers Wealthier and More Educated
Which, if true, would be a terrible indictment of our national diploma mills and matchbook cover mechanical academies, but more likely is another example of the now-familiar tendency of teabaggers to claim things (diplomas, in this case) that are not, in the strict technical sense of the word, true -- in this or any other universe.

But the original headline actually did a much better job of capturing the Times's deliberate cluelessness about the wellspring of all that teabagger rage, which appears to have a hell of a lot more to do with the particular, um, complexion of the alleged recipients of the Obama Administration's generosity -- as well as the guy allegedly giving it -- than it does with their place on the socioeconomic ladder.

As always, Billmon is worth reading in full. The tradmed is doing pretty well in bringing out some of the more damning aspects of the poll, for instance their relentless birtherism, but this point is being largely ignored - 1 in 4 tea partiers say it's OK to use violence against the government. That translates to almost 5% of Americans. Most of whom only watch Fox for their news and think of Glenn Beck as their hero. Good to know.

Meanwhile, I'll be busy dealing with tax stuff and other personal matters for most of the day, so posting will resume this evening.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]