Well, I wouldn’t wear one of those costumes but I don’t think it’s mandatory to remove them in order to be taken seriously. However, I think it would be beneficial to grow out of the costumes. Just my opinion.
I respect your opinion.
These tea party protests are just one increasingly-small aspect of the movement. The protests will follow the course that is “natural” for them, which may or may not change over time.
In the meantime, the Tea Party movement is also conducting serious business — which, like the protests, is being taken seriously — in grassroots fundraising, phone banking, earned media events and so on.
It’s ridiculous, IMHO, for Beck to declare that protests should not look like protests. Who would pay the slightest attention otherwise?
Think of the huge crowd on the Mall for the July Fourth festivities. A few camera shots through the crowd, really nothing much to see that. But shots of Tea Party protests tell a real, and a SERIOUS story — one that cannot be told without the use of signs and symbols.