Tragedy Trumps The Tea Party

Leslie Savan: Current Events Rendered Michelle Bachmann's "Super Bowl Of Freedom" Even More Grotesque

(The Nation)  Leslie Savan is the author of Slam Dunks And No-Brainers: Pop Language in Your Life, the Media, and, Like...Whatever and The Sponsored Life: Ads, TV, and American Culture.

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Don't bring your pitchforks. This is to be our "last stand" to stop health care reform, it's Alamo time. Don't let your congressmen call it a "rally" or "protest"--make sure they say "press event" or "press conference." The point is to see "the whites of their eyes," because there's nothing a congressman fears more than a "freedom-loving American." Oh, and don't dress "too nicely." We don't want the press to start calling this another "Brooks Brothers riot" like they did when Bush aides stormed Miami hallways to stop the 2000 recount.

You can feel the tension between the urge to bully and the need to seem "normal" in every hectic contradiction sent out over the past couple days by Rep. Michelle Bachmann and the Republican Study Committee to the thousands of Tea Partiers who gathered to protest at the Capitol on Thursday. And you have to sympathize. Truly, it isn't easy to be inoffensively radical, or respectably revolutionary, or even pleasantly insane.

Brought in on buses chartered by the corporate astroturf group Americans For Prosperity, they were the now de rigeur crew of white folks of a certain age, carrying signs emblazoned with Holocaust corpse pits and Obama as the Joker. Most wound up snarled before the metal detectors at the entrances to House and Senate office buildings across the street from the Capitol, trying to get inside to "scare" their congresspeople but instead spilling into the traffic outside. A handful of anti-abortion protesters were arrested at Nancy Pelosi's office in the Canon House Office Building (Pelosi wasn't there; she spent most of her day in the Capitol itself, where access is strictly limited).

Bachmann had called this a "desperate act" in hopes of countering the House vote on the reform bill, scheduled for this Saturday, though you've got to wonder whether another reason was to drown out coverage of its endorsement by both the American Association of Retired People and the American Medical Association (the latter a real Et tu? moment for the GOP).

In the end it didn't matter--the shooting of 43 people at Ft. Hood in Texas by an Army major with an Arabic name drowned out the Tea Partiers and just about everything else.

The mass murder reminded us that, while Bachmann's flock were arguing hysterically about "death panels" and taxes to pay for "other peoples' health care" (as one Tea Partier complained to NBC), George Bush's two unfinished--and unfinishable--wars are taking an unimaginable toll on American soldiers and their families. Not to mention that those hopeless quagmires are siphoning off more money than this mild bill could ever cost, while destroying the morale of the last national institution, the military, with anywhere near the resources it needs to function.

All this is far worse than merely pleasantly insane. How can a country facing the multiple, monumental crises left behind by the Bush/Cheney team ever hope to come together and solve them with Republican leadership like that of Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO)? It was Akin who, just two hours before the shootings began at Ft. Hood, recited the Pledge of Allegiance to the Tea Partiers at the Capitol, saying, "It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this and it drives the liberals crazy!"



Notice how Akin snarkily raises the volume on "under God" while dropping the too-bipartisan word "indivisible"? Even when they are specifically told not to bring their pitchforks, that they must stop frightening little children and horses, these people cannot help themselves. Less than two months ago John Boehner and Eric Cantor were fretting about the need to moderate bomb-throwers like Bachmann. Yet there they were Thursday, sharing a stage not only with the mindless Minnesotan but with hyperbolic posters comparing health care to Maoism and Obama to Hitler.

The massacre at Ft. Hood does put the threat posed by the cost of a poor person's colonoscopy to an insurance company's bottom line in a raking light. But the people who gave us the wars that just came home to Texas can't see the connection: Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), for instance, warned us last week that, "we have more to fear from the potential of that [health care reform] bill passing than we do from any terrorist right now in any country."

Now, that's a respectable revolution.

[dixieconvert]

The only "joke" here I'm seeing is how badly most of you seem to be underestimating the patriot movement.

Keep pushing - bring it. We're primed and ready to go.

[noloyalisti]

Correction: Tragedy Is the Tea Party.

Where were these mindless robots when the Republicans and Bush Crime Family were driving us off the cliff into the second Great Republican Depression in 80 years.

Unfortunately, Obama is no Roosevelt. That's what we needed. Maybe the populist, middle of the road Dennis Kucinich who I was supporting in the primary. The I had to vote for the lesser of two evils. Again: the story of my life.

[doc_holliday76]

by alsoconcerned:
"I wish the former Republicans had done the job of addressing health care, the stock market, etc."
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If you were truly concerned, you would have spoken-up then, as we have watched our health care debacle grow worse each year, as de-regulation allowed the financial sector to write its own rules of GREED, as our infrastructure crumbled, as we became more dependent on foreign sources of finite fossil fuels instead of renewable energy after the first OIL embargo, as "liveable wage" jobs and manufacturing were offshored by the millions -- instead of building a military/industrial complex for the select WAR profiteers that now comprises a black hole of waste, fraud and abuse beyond belief!

[babooph]

The founding fathers of "tea party" days were the most radical leftists on the planet-these modern fools would have been Benidict Arnold fans-of course ,in their delusions....

[doc_holliday76]

Of course the conservitards were the loyalists and Tories of the day, afraid of change and dissent like those darn "librul" radicals. The republican'ts have only proven how they love authoritative and secretive governing like the fascist busheviks and their UNpatriot Act of 2001, removing many rights and freedoms of Americans like habeas corpus and search and seizure of homes and property.

[doc_holliday76]

by band3x:
"So, where were all these demonstrators while bush was taking a C R A P on the front steps of the white house and wiping his @$$ with the constitution?"
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by Taylor_09:
"Bush has never trashed this country."
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Absolute proof that these far-right mental midgets continue to try to re-write history and only parrot the same FAUX NoNooz propaganda on a daily basis. No doubt, we have much more terrorism to fear from within our nation from the far-right fringe extremists, that continue to show their juvenile behavior as support for violence by a very marginalized miNOrity party of misanthrope malcontents.

[briannorwood]

Dear Ms. Bachmann:

There's nothing a freedom-loving Americans fear more than a batshit-crazy jackass like yourself serving in our House of Representatives!

[OregonJames]

These people are fruits and nuts, and they are the reason the republican party has become such a disaster. They are a gift to the democratic party and they are too stupid to see it.

My hat is off to these idiots. I salute them and thank my lucky stars they came along, because every time these fools open their mouths they demonstrate to the world the utter lunacy of their party. God bless them!

[mypitts2]

I would argue that the AARP and AMA endorsements had already bigfooted the tea baggers before Fort Hood came along and bigfooted everything.

[doc_holliday76]

by antiobamunist:
If you are indeed a "health professional", I will hope I never run into you when getting treatment for my affliction.
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Unfortunately, there is no treatment for ignorance of the foxnewsus propagandus homosapien subspecies.

[Taylor_09]

Oh there's ignorance out there allright. But it's all on account of the lamestream media being in the tank (or in bed) with the Democrats (socialists). If most of Obama's voters knew the real truth about what's going on and what's in the healthcare bill and what else he intends to do to destroy this country, no entitlement in the world would keep them from running the other direction. I said most, not all. Cause some really are too stupid to save. Does that sound like any leftie you know?

[antiobamunist]

oc_holiday76 wrote:
"Unfortunately, there is no treatment for ignorance of the foxnewsus propagandus homosapien subspecies".

Doc, that was quite a retort to my post. My original comment, "If you are indeed a "health professional", I will hope I never run into you when getting treatment for my affliction", was meant to reply to the poster who wished me Ill Health to somehow show me how Socialized Medicine would be such an improvement over the current Private system. I would think that a "Health Professional", whether Conservative or Liberal, would not be so callous as to wish Ill Health on another to somehow prove his point. Did that obvious thought elude you, or do enjoy mocking people stricken with Cancer because they are not as enlightened as you think you are?

Just to be clear, I am a Cancer Patient, while you sir are an Idiot. If you get a yuk discounting my disease by making such obscene comments, you are showing your own ignorance and childish beliefs.

If you care to respond to the points made in my last posting, go ahead.
If your only interest is using this board to show others what a Liberal's idea of debate is, you certainly missed the mark.
You are one sick puppy...

[doc_holliday76]

by defiance8:
"I would like to see an armed march on Washington. April 19th sounds perfect."
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Go ahead.......armed civil disobedience by fascist jackbooted thugs is hardly free speech, but an act of aggression against a duly elected government. The rabid extremists from the far-right are now foaming at the mouth, and just asking to be put out of their misery!

[Taylor_09]

Ah yes...duly elected. But in case you missed it or it whooshed over your little head, that government that was duly elected took an oath to uphold the constitution. NOT to trash the hell out of it, which is what Pelosi & the other socialists are doing. I believe our founding fathers addressed this issue and what to do about it, should it occur. Pay attention. You might actually learn something, for a refreshing change.

[doc_holliday76]

Bachmann had called this a "desperate act" in hopes of countering the House vote on the reform bill, scheduled for this Saturday, though you've got to wonder whether another reason was to drown out coverage of its endorsement by both the American Association of Retired People and the American Medical Association (the latter a real Et tu? moment for the GOP).
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Yep.....the AARP and AMA both endorse this health care reform, but the rabid far-right teabaggers still supported bozo bachman's "press conference" disguised as an anti-American hatefest.

[Taylor_09]

The AARP is in it for their own profit, since they've got a deal worked to be involved in the insurance aspect of the "reform bill". The AMA does NOT represent the majority of doctors, physicians and surgeons. I challenge you to do your own survey if you don't believe me. Go around the medical community and ASK doctors and their nurses if they support this ""reform"". You will be surprised to find out that they do not. You'll either be surprised, or you already know it's the worse piece of legislation the Democrats have ever come up with and you're so partisan you support it anyway. That would make you a dishonest fool, btw, should that be the case.

[boc234]

Is CBS News comfortable channeling the far-left "Nation" now? What's next "The Daily Worker?" Yeah, it's a scandal that Bachman hangs around with extremists.

[doc_holliday76]

by boc234:
"Is CBS News comfortable channeling the far-left "Nation" now?"
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Actually, they prove they are "fair and balanced" by "channeling the "National Review Online" quite often, with many far-right constipated conservitard opinion pieces. I think the populace should hear from both sides to make their own opinion, but apparently YOU seem to only want to hear the FAUX NoNooz propaganda disguised as "fair and balanced" when it is just a one-sided republican't channel

[fss2009]

bann65 says: "grow a brain and join the rest of the world."

Sorry, fool...
20% does not represent the rest of the world...
it represents the lunatic fringe.

You are an idiot!

[bann65]

Hey all you nazi, marxist suppressed liberals, how about ousting this sleazy freak out of the Whitehouse?! He and rich, snobby Rahmie and sleazy Pelosi should be overtaken and charged with treason or if you prefer sent to they're friends Castro or Chavez. Please take crazy Hillary too, since she thinks we're all bad. Obama could go bow down to the middle Easterners again, LOL. Remeber this is the Nuthouse, NOT the Whitehouse...........

[defiance8]

The "racist" mantra that keeps getting bantered about is the "politics as usual" stuff that gets tossed out there when there is no plausable defense. I also like to call it the "blackabi"...."things happen to me cause I'm black...you don't like my policies because I'm black", basically using ones blackness as an alibi which is nothing more than an excuse to divert from the original offense.

I would like to see an armed march on Washington. April 19th sounds perfect. Enough is enough. "Can you hear me now" will not simply be a cliche afterwards.

[excoachken]

As sung in that wonderful Sound of Music song, "Cu--koo Cu-Koo."

[fss2009]

BTW---
Bachman supporters were reporting attendance at "way over a million", but according to counts done by experts,(as apposed to lunatics) the number was somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,500. Honesty and accuracy are certainly no obstacle for these circus freaks.

[sparta776]

Tea party group and and Bachman represent Fear and fight progress and change. They use hate and play on people fears and stupidty and tell lies and misrepresent fact to bring out there backward ideas and long for the past and good times of the Bush era.

[missyFL]

The words used in this article by Leslie Savan and in comments shock me with the chosen vitriole and sarcasm. Opinions based on stereotypical, sweeping judgments and voiced in the most derogatory terms seems to be the new political correctness. Thank you, Ms. Savan, for suggesting pleasantly insane people would hold my considered opinions - that are to be kept to myself because you belittle me? Very American stuff going on in this country.

[Taylor_09]

No...actually, the tea parties represent mainstream, middle-class conservative Americans. The backbone of this country. They fight socialism (communism w/a smiley face), federal government tyranny and anything that goes against the US Constitution. They're fighting for your freedom, your rights and the freedom and rights of your decendants, as well. You're just not bright enough to recognize it, much less to feel any gratitude. As for the fear, that's what you'll be feeling some day in the not that distant future under this Obama Deathcare. You're supporting a ghoul that is for letting live, fully formed human infants lay crying and dying in a medical waste bin, rather than get any medical assistance or humane treatment of any kind. You're supporting a ghoul that fully supported removing Terri Shiavo from her feeding tube and letting her die a slow and painful death via starvation. Anyone that represents such a pro-death stance will not hesitate to pull your plug or that of anyone in your family should the misfortune befall you or your family. They say you get what you ask for and you will. If the Tea Party folks are not successful, you will get what you wished and voted for. God help you if that happens. God will be the only one that could help at that point. Get a clue.

[antiobamunist]

I see Ms. Savan has set down her copy of Rules For Radicals and decided to write a scathing critique of people who dare to protest the onslaught of Tyranny currently being imposed by the Political Elites of this Country.
I guess Congresswoman Bachman had better check the Jihadist Web Sites before organizing the next peaceful protest of our out of control Government officials. Her bad, the murdering Jihadist "with an Arabic name" good, especially since he took the spotlight off the D.C. protest. Boy, what great timing for the America hating Liberals.
As usual, the Leftists among us, who spent the last eight years protesting anything and everything, now have a problem with dissent. How compassionate of them. Defending the wholesale theft of other Citizen's Labor and Property to fulfill their unattainable dream of a Socialist Utopia. They rail against those Evil Health Care Companies and the 2% profit margin they earn, but have no problem with the Government imposing outlandish Taxes with the threat of imprisonment of those who don't carry mandatory Health Coverage. Of course, paying $200 a month for a cool IPhone is money better spent than purchasing Heath Care Coverage, especially when you can use your vote to force another Citizen to pay it for you.
As for me. I will side with the Patriots that value the Constitution, not the Malcontents whose only joy in life is stealing from other hard working Citizens to fund their "compassion".
The Tyranny of the Majority is alive and well when you think someone else owes you a living. The Congress has shown us tonight that the Inmates are running the Asylum.

[hakori]

That's enough. If Bachman is a "hero" of yours, you choose them very unwisely. She says absurd things on a regular basis. If you don't understand this, then "YES" you are a RADICAL and radicals rarely comprehend that they are! I'm a Liberal and I love my country, and we had GOOD reason to protest the Bush adminstration. When the wolf was truely at the door, you asked him in for a cup of tea, so don't preach to us now. It makes you look foolish!

[hakori]

antiobamunist, who told you the insurances companies are only making a 2% profit margin? The insurnace companies?! That's NOT true! Look it up if you don't believe me. The insurance companies routinely are making in the neighborhood of 15% profit, which is up from around 5% over a decade ago.Do you know how they've increased their profit margins so much? BY DENYING COVERAGE, DROPPING THE SICK WHO NEED COVERAGE MOST, AND RATIONING! Wait until it's your turn! I'm a health professional and I see the crimes these corporations commit on a daily basis, so don't preach to me about the merits of big insurance! They're in it to make a huge profit at your expense! THEY ARE SCREWING US, but you choose to believe the screwers rather than the screwies. You, like the rest of the tea partiers, really need to do some fact checking. You are being lied to! You come on here and rant about something you obviously know little to nothing about. Start thinking for yourself woman!

[Taylor_09]

Like most typical lefties, Hakori is full of 'you know what'. Fortune 500 reports profits on United Healthcare, Wellpoint, Aetna and Humana were only about 5.8%, 5.4%, 6.7% and 2.3% respectively and in that order in 2007. I didn't do the calcs for the others listed but those four disprove the idiot's bogus claim. Lefties lie. It's the only thing they do well (and often). http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2007/industries/Health_Care_Insurance_Managed_Care/1.html

[zebra8835]

What is this thing called "health care" anyway? It's called a BENEFIT! Tea Party people hate unions also. They bring higher pay, job security and sometimes even pensions. These are all BENEFITS. Why would thinking people want to give away all their BENEFITS? So some insurance CEO can collect a few tens of millions dollars more he didn't need in the first place? The lies being told about health care are so transparent, that's the sad part.

[Taylor_09]

I have a question for you, zebra. If this health care is such a 'benefit', why is it MANDATORY. Wouldn't everyone just naturally want to have it? And everyone includes the Congressmen and Congresswomen that voted for it...and YET, they threw out an amendment that would require them to have the same health care 'benefit' that they are foisting upon the entire country, against the will of the majority of Americans. If it's such a great ""benefit"", why did Pelosi & Co. not embrace having to be under the very same ""benefit"" as the rest of us??? Another question....since when is it legal under the constitution to force people to pay for health insurance?