Is Tetely the New KoolAid?

From the people who told their Congressman to “keep yore damn socialist hands offa my Medicare payments……..”

A Tea Party convention billed as the coming together of the grass-roots groups that began sprouting up around the country a year ago is unraveling as sponsors and participants pull out to protest its expense and express concerns about “profiteering.”

The convention’s difficulties highlight the fractiousness of the Tea Party groups, and the considerable suspicions among their members of anything that suggests the establishment.

Erick Erickson, the editor of the influential conservative blog RedState.com, wrote this month that something seemed “scammy” about the convention. And the American Liberty Alliance withdrew as a sponsor after its members expressed concerns about the convention’s finances being channeled through private bank accounts and its organizer being “for profit.”  — NYTimes

This is the event at which Sarah Palin is supposed to deliver the keynote speech, allegedly for a six-figure fee (eight, if you count the zeroes after the decimal point; many more if you count the zeroes in the audience as well).   And speaking of the audience, tickets are $549 each.   Ain’t populism great?

Not to be cynical (ha!), but is anybody surprised that the Tea Party Movement is in reality just another scam out to bilk the suckers true believers of their hard-earned shekels?   Scanning the crowd – and look at that crowd: do these folks arrive at rallies directly after posing for People of Wal-Mart? —  did anybody truly subscribe to the notion that these are kindly, sincere Americans doing what they think is best for themselves and their countrymen?

The Teabaggers are the probably the best thing that has happened to the ‘Crats since Ford pardoned Nixon.  They fill a void in popular culture missing since the late ‘60s, when activists perceived as nauseating, rabble-rousing, drug-using, youth-corrupting, anti-American anarchists indelibly stained liberals and the mainstream Democratic party, setting the stage for Tricky Dick and his 5:00 shadowed minions to trash the Constitution (for patriotic purposes and to save America, of course).

So over 40 years later, behold the Teabaggers in their pressed pants and plaid shirts waving painted placards  denying evolution, demanding school prayer, clamoring for the President’s birth certificate, but mostly viscerally reacting with profound, deep-seeded negativity.  To paraphrase Groucho  as (Rufus T. Firefly), Whatever it is, they’re against it.

I’m behind these guys 110% — that’s arithmetic they would approve of – not only for their amusement value, but also because they create such chaos.  Ultimately, they will limp home utterly disgusted and defeated as one by one, their high profile friends in government let them down once they’ve used them up.  They will not get a smaller government or a flat tax.  They will not see a birth certificate.  They will not get prayer back in schools or an anti-abortion amendment.  They will, however, get endless requests for donations by conservative politicians  who have mastered the art of keeping people at arm’s length  while holding a hand out.

Godspeed, good people.  Rest assured that America will follow your exploits on the Daily Show, and your 15 minutes of fame will last all the way to the next election.