MSM's Tea Party Cognitive Dissonance

The American Thinker ^ | April 20, 2009 | Kyle-Anne Shiver

[Scanian]

In all my years of watching news coverage in America, I don't believe I have ever witnessed more condescending, amateurish, purely politicized reporting than what just transpired among the liberal MSM covering America's Tax Day Tea Parties. The Tea Parties represented a very significant news event.

Whenever close to 300,000 middle-class Americans put their productive lives on hold on a midweek workday, make original signs with their own hands, and travel miles and miles to stand with other private citizens just to demonstrate their anger with government, in more than 300 cities from coast to coast and everywhere in between, that's NEWS. Yet, many local newspapers - even the Boston Globe for crying out loud! - pettily refused to even cover their local protests. When every news channel - except the only one thriving on the block, Fox - finally decided to cover the events, it was with derision, mockery and elitist condescension.

Note to MSM: This is why you're going broke.

The puerile, vulgar humor of MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and CNN's Anderson Cooper, targeting the most clean-cut, rancor-less groups of protesters possibly ever assembled in the U.S.A., was the kind of thing one would expect on an adolescent playground when the teacher isn't listening. I personally polled 16 friends and relatives, aged 23 to 66, and not a single one of them had ever even heard the sexually perverse phrase regarding tea bags, which peppered Maddow's and Cooper's primetime rants.

[mountn man]

Whenever close to 300,000 middle-class Americans

My thoughts are there was probably closer to 1 mil. as there were a few hundred of these things going on throuout the country, and it seems most had 2-3,000 people at them, from everything I've read.

[Cindy]

“I personally polled 16 friends and relatives, aged 23 to 66, and not a single one of them had ever even heard the sexually perverse phrase regarding tea bags, which peppered Maddow’s and Cooper’s primetime rants.”

#

None of my family members (including me) had ever heard of dirty references to tea bags before until the main-stream media brought it up ad nauseum. Then again, none of my family members are perverts, deviants, anti-Americans, liberal reporters or liberal talk show hosts.

[David Isaac]

“...300,000 middle-class Americans... more than 300 cities...

Are those the numbers we are going to use? I’ve seen “estimates” of one million and two thousand cities. Having gone to a tea-party with five thousand attendees, I tend to lean toward the higher numbers.

When we have a media as dishonest and ideologically blind as ours, it is very difficult to determine fact from fiction.

[Scanian]

We FReepers tend not to move in sodomite circles, where such talk seems to have originated. I scolded my 25 year old son (straight) for knowing what it meant. But it is understandable since he is a devoté of late-night comics.

[Scanian]

I think you’re right but we all know the drive-bys had to talk them down or—God forbid—it might happen again.

[wastoute]

I saw one sign that read, "This time we left the guns at home!" That should give Zero something to consider.

Μολών λαβέ

[mikey_hates_everything]

Unfortunately, living in the DC area exposes one (and their kids) to all of the terms that the perverts use to describe what they do in groups and behind closed doors. “Teabagging” is just the beginning.

[wayoverontheright]

Here's hoping the MSM continues to ignore us. The tea parties' goal should be two-fold, to put congress-critters on notice that their votes are not being ignored by us, and to gain converts to our cause from the vast middle of non-ideological voters, who elected Obama. No matter how much the media ignores us, rest assured the pols see what's happening.

The media fuel our fire by ignoring us, not to mention the additional verve from having our cause attacked when they do pay attention. The MSM has come out of the closet on this one, in a way that will neuter their effect on future elections. They are probably angry that we pulled this off without them. Call it "shock and awe".

The next tea party I'm going to will be the one in DC on July 4.

[Scanian]

With some of those media types, I’m not sure it’s just the “terms’ that they’re exposed to.

[Always Right]

My thoughts are there was probably closer to 1 mil. as there were a few hundred of these things going on throuout the country, and it seems most had 2-3,000 people at them, from everything I've read.

Someone tabulated all the events with the best guess from all the media coverage, and came up with about 1.1 to 1.3 million.

[agere_contra]

If your son plays video games - first person shooters like “Halo” - then that’s almost certainly where he picked the phase up from. I won’t say any more as I don’t want to extend the meme.

[Vaduz]

A very significant news event,obama family gets a swing set,obama family gets a dog,obama family gets pizza.....

[greyfoxx39]

Political ping.

[Concho]

You can bet that if we had shown up packing openly that the MSM would have said !!!20 MILLION RIGHT WING ARMED TERRORISTS!!!

[Kakaze]

Years ago, someone I knew went to prison and he related an assault, that took place and this was done......that's how I knew what those perverts meant.

Sadly their collective audience finds this humorous.

They will complain about Abu Graib ( panties on the head ) and then promote this deviate maneuver as humor.

Lord knows what their private lives entail.

[MrB]

Maybe as an intermediate step,
the next nationwide rally will have signs with nothing on them but drawings of pitchforks and torches.

As a matter of fact, that gives me an idea.

In addition to your cleverly worded signs, bring the pitchfork/torch signs,

and on cue, everyone puts down all signs except the p/t signs.

[Scanian]

Trouble is, to large extent, that politics in this country is getting to be like football. Hooray for our side, the other side can go to hell. Or maybe Euro soccer is a better comparison, with the media types as hooligans.