Crashing the 'tea party'

By GottaLaff

Tim Rutten has a column in today's L.A. Times in which he cites the latest New York Times/CBS poll. He provides the actual numbers in the article.

He also reveals the Tea Baggers for who they are: "Angry white males" who are screaming their rage at federal programs they support and who are aiding and abetting Republican politicians and consultants.

How's that fakey grassrootsy thing workin' out for ya?

As it turns out, fewer than 1 in 5 Americans "supports" the tea party movement in any respect, and just 4% of all adult Americans have contributed to it or attended one of its events or both. (On any given day, you probably could drum up twice as many people who think the Pentagon is hiding dead aliens in Area 51.)

There's your million white man march, ClusterFox.

They're the "angry white males" we've been reading about since political strategist-turned-analyst Kevin Phillips first identified them as an electoral presence during Richard Nixon's successful presidential campaign in 1968. [...]

They aren't, however, implacable foes of "big government" or even of taxes.

They are, however, foes of the black man in the White House.

What the movement really amounts to is old wine in new skins, a re-branding of the old-fashioned angry white male in a camera-ready package tailored to the demands of the 24-hour cable news cycle.

That's something BendyStraw McMoneyBags and Sean Hannity are all too familiar with.

By staging rallies on April 15, and particularly in Washington, the tea party's strategists made themselves and their speakers the center of cable news coverage. This was true despite the fact that, as the poll demonstrates, a majority of the movement's supporters think their taxes are fair.

Why, that would make them hypocrites!

[T]he public packaging of the tea party movement -- and particularly events that win it TV airtime, like cross-country bus tours, rallies and ads -- is mainly the product of California Republican political consultants, foremost among them the Sacramento-based firm of Russo Marsh and Rogers.

Why that would make them hypocrites who have been duped, used, and will soon be tossed out like used Palin water bottles!

It's good to see that all the creeping socialism in the nation hasn't silenced traditional voices, like those of the angry white male, nor wrung the profit motive from our politics.

And that's the way it (really) is.

CNN Fails to Stop Fall in Ratings

By GottaLaff

Let's see now... CNN gets desperate and hires Erick Erickson. If you don't know who that is, here is a reminder from a previous post:

That was then.

This is now:

Health Care Suicide Bombers — Open Thread

Posted by Erick Erickson (Profile)

Saturday, March 13th at 7:34PM EST

33 Comments

Precisely.

Some things never change.

Yes, that's who CNN hired to prop up their sagging ratings.

They might want to rethink their strategy:

CNN continued what has become a precipitous decline in ratings for its prime-time programs in the first quarter of 2010, with its main hosts losing almost half their viewers in a year. [...]

[Larry] King, whose show has been regularly eclipsed by Rachel Maddow’s on MSNBC (and is almost quadrupled by Sean Hannity’s show on Fox), is now threatened by a new host, Joy Behar on HLN (formerly Headline News.)

If by inviting RedState to the family, they're trying to compete with Fox, that won't end well either:

At the same time, Fox News, which had its biggest year in 2009, continues to add viewers. Greta Van Susteren’s show was up 25 percent from a year earlier. Bill O’Reilly, whose show commands the biggest audience in prime time with 3.65 million viewers, was up 28 percent, and Glenn Beck was up 50 percent from a year earlier.

Maybe if hotels, restaurants, etc. would carry MSNBC, we might see some real competition.

Sorry state of affairs all around.

RedState's Erick Erickson joins CNN: TWPNTOTV!!!*

By GottaLaff

When CNN had its old Sunday line-up, I used to post a regular feature that mocked them just as regularly.

They call themselves "The Best Political Team on Television." I referred to them as TBPNTOTV!!!... with three exclamation points to emphasize their emphasis on emphasizing their over-emphasized self-importance and self-congratulatory smugness.

I also tried to expose their not-exactly-fair-and-balanced approach.

And I used lots of snarky !!!!!!!!!!!!! Lots.

Just when I thought they couldn't get any worse:

Prominent conservative commentator and RedState.com editor Erick Erickson will join CNN as a political contributor, appearing primarily on CNN's new show John King, USA¸ the network announced Tuesday. [...]

"Joining CNN is like coming home, and being in Atlanta makes the decision right for me and my family," Erickson said in a statement.

Erick the Red feels as if he's "coming home" to CNN. That pretty much says it all.

Under Erickson's leadership, RedState.com has become the preeminent right of center community online. [...]

"Erick's a perfect fit for John King, USA, because not only is he an agenda-setter whose words are closely watched in Washington, but as a person who still lives in small-town America, Erick is in touch with the very people John hopes to reach," said Sam Feist, CNN political director and vice president of Washington-based programming.

So he's "in touch". That's the definition of "in touch": Erick the Red Erickson. That's how CNN's political director feels, that Erick is the "in touch" go-to guy.

Erick.

RedState.

Erickson.

Sam Feist, you are woefully out of touch.

And CNN has now hit bottom. Officially. Out of touch, out of mind.

CNN: TWPNTOTV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*



*The WORST Political News Team on Television, with unlimited exclamation points.

UPDATE: Joeyess reminds me of a post I did back in 2009. Here's a sample:

And this is the unit insignia of the RedState Army's Strike Force:

Like many chickenhawks who struggle with what it means to be a man in the modern era, Erickson and the "soldiers" in his budding "Strike Force" have again tried to imitate serving in the military without actually having to don a uniform, pick up a weapon, or sacrifice much of anything at all.

Could that be any more embarrassing? Or offensive? Or childish? Or presumptuous?

And here's a photo that should have been included, of a typical soldier:


There. Now you're all updated.

Texas Approves Curriculum Revised by Conservatives

By GottaLaff

Now children, let's go back and review what we've been missing:

Men rode dinosaurs so that they could hunt better. And besides, they made great companions when the wife was busy birthing cavedwellerettes.

There is no such thing as separation of church and state. That's a crazy myth that some Marxist commie made up.

Always use your position to exploit and indoctrinate children, and then accuse the first African American president of doing the same when he's encouraging good work habits and responsibility:

After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday voted to approve a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the role of Christianity in American history and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.

The vote was 11 to 4, with 10 Republicans and one Democrat voting for the curriculum, and four Democrats voting against.

And children, above all else, be fair and balanced:

The board, whose members are elected, has influence beyond Texas because the state is one of the largest purchasers of textbooks.

Remember children: The whole church and state thing? Pffft!

The conservative members maintain that they are trying to correct what they see as a liberal bias among the teachers who proposed the curriculum. To that end, they made dozens of minor changes aimed at calling into question, among other things, concepts like the separation of church and state and the secular nature of the American Revolution.

“I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state,” said David Bradley, a conservative from Beaumont who works in real estate. “I have $1,000 for the charity of your choice if you can find it in the Constitution.”

Bias? What bias?

They also included a plank to ensure that students learn about “the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schalfly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association.”

To be fair, the Black Panthers and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s "nonviolent approach" will get some print space, too. That's some concession, huh?

Today's lesson: Little children asked, and received, their own little raptors for their birthdays. And if they were extra special good, pet nanshiungosauruseseseses... eseses...es.

Sunday's lesson: Jesus had dinosaur stables back when saddling up a brontosaurus was in vogue. He loaned his herd out to anyone who needed a ride to the nearest crucifixion. He was socialistic that way.

What's that under President Obama's robes?

By GottaLaff

Chess, not checkers. Strong closer. You've heard the various descriptions of how President Obama plays the political game.

And that brings us to the Quote-O'-The-Day:

[T]he president is giving a decent impression of the Dalai Lama on a quiet day. But he's done that before, only to reveal a Ninja under the robes.

--Andrew Sullivan

Let's leave what's under Prez O's robes out of this, mmkay? Mmkay.

White House Courts Congressional Heads of Committees

Full court charm offensive ahoy!!

With a difficult budget to sell on Capitol Hill in the coming weeks, the White House is making nice with the folks who will have a lot to say about the outcome – the Democratic chairmen and chairwomen of all the Congressional committees as well as the ranking Republicans on the panels.

Officials say the White House has scheduled a “Chairman’s Dinner” for this Wednesday, inviting the top members of the dozens of committees down for some face time and informal conversation about the imposing agenda ahead.

The gathering is just another example of how the Obama administration is being extremely aggressive about using social events and access to the White House as a powerful tool to win over lawmakers, who are notoriously susceptible to flattery and like nothing more than to be wooed, particularly by a popular new president. And it is a safe bet that some of these lawmakers made very infrequent visits to the White House during the Bush years.

Obama And Michelle Ask Progressive Groups For Help Driving White House Agenda

By GottaLaff

A Me-Likey moment:

At a private White House cocktail reception last night for leaders of major progressive groups, Barack Obama and his wife Michelle appealed to these leaders and signaled that their groups would play a key role in driving the big progressive changes at the heart of the White House’s legislative agenda, an attendee tells me.

The message was that these groups would be valuable as a kind of progressive outside “echo chamber,” as the attendee puts it.

The party — which was organized by top Obama aide Valerie Jarrett — signals that the White House is moving forward with efforts to build coordination with outside progressive groups in order to drive the White House’s message and beat back its foes. As I reported recently, Jarrett is at the center of those efforts. [...]

Among those on the guest list: Labor leaders Jimmy Hoffa, Gerry McEntee and Andy Stern; MoveOn’s Eli Pariser; Sierra Club’s Carl Pope; Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richardson; and Joe Solomonese of the Human Rights Campaign.

And in a follow-up report:

Obama also displayed a fairly intimate knowledge of what the groups had done to push the stim, such as the big Americans United for Change ad campaign.

“People were very excited -– if I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say, `It’s nice to be back in the White House after eight years,’ I could buy a nice lunch today,” the attendee adds.

One other fun detail, involving chief of staff Rahm Emanuel: “It was interesting,” the attendee emails. “Rahm came in the room and pulled Obama aside to share something. But it didn’t look all that urgent –- or at least it wasn’t bad. Whatever news he gave him got a big smile from the President and a half bear hug.”

If Prez O is smiling, then I'm smiling.

Michelle Obama On The First Lady's Agenda