Wednesday, April 15, 2009

The mind boggles



We live in strange times. There's been so much stupid in the news lately I'm not sure just where to begin. The mind boggles.

Today was teabagging day. The levels of stupid embedded in that whole astroturf endeavor remind me of one those Russian matryoshka dolls, except infinite. Every time you think you've reached the innermost layer of right wing wackaloon ineptitude and downright dumb, you discover there's yet another layer inside.

First, they start off by calling the whole phony movement "teabagging." Doesn't anyone at Fox News ever bother to Google anything?! I'm not going to get into the fun various commentators have been having with that one. The snark is running thick and deep as television writers vie with each other to see just how many double entendres they can slip into one 30-second sound bite. Cavuto et al finally caught on and began using the term "tea party" instead, but woefully late.

Of course, Neil Cavuto isn't noted for his keen intelligence. He is, after all, the guy who claims the Fox News network covered the Million Man March back in 1995. The fact Fox News didn't exist at the time is apparently irrelevant.

Then, even though this is clearly an astroturf effort, a totally phony endeavor being pushed by Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, and Fox News, they manage to sucker people into actually showing up for the event and allowing themselves to be filmed complaining about the way Obama is running the country. How stupid does an ordinary working person have to be to bitch about being given a tax cut?! Or to support giving more money to billionaires? It's moderately amazing the right wing faithful are able to walk and wave their misspelled signs at the same time. (I was tempted to run downtown today to see just how many people showed up, but didn't want to artificially inflate their numbers by even one body. The crowd didn't look that big on the news, but no doubt by tomorrow Sean Hannity will be making it sound like everyone in Atlanta was there. Or at least everyone white. It did not appear to be a particularly diverse group.)

[H/T to Orac for the great graphic.]

2 comments:

  1. Oh the stupid, it burns! Best cartoon ever. Yes, thank god for hip young friends and the Urban Dictionary. What a bunch of tools.

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  2. I got caught in the traffic jam created by the tea party in our smallish city - I guess they resent havng to pay taxes to support the police coverage of the event, the park in which it was held, the parking at the community pool and 2 schools nearby.

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