Paul A. Ibbetson
What does it mean to be a Republican? What does it mean to be a Democrat? Are they both the same? The answer is no they are not, well not completely. I was disheartened to read David Frum’s article, “The Tea Party is a turn-off for US moderates,” not simply because it misrepresents the Tea Party movement which is usually the activity of angry liberals, but it also once again muddies the waters as to why we have a two-party system.
Frum frames the Tea Party activists as radical and angry people, which makes me believe that he most likely has never attended these events and never met the people who come to show their support for America. There is also a major disconnect in Frum’s reality of the liberal media and this movement. Contrary to Frum’s belief, the Tea Party has never been portrayed by the media as an unstoppable force. Actually, if anything, these gatherings that take place all over the country have been downplayed in every possible way. In his assessment of the Tea Parties, Frum sounded more like Keith Olbermann than a former speech writer for George W. Bush. He implies that liberalism within the Republican Party is a needed working part of its existence. Frum calls them the “moderate faction” of the Republican Party, and he indicates that it is they who are offended by these angry activists. He scoffs at the Republicans for rejecting Arlen Specter and thinks it would have been a good strategy to have kept this liberal under the Republican tent.
There is obviously a major disconnect here that needs addressing. I will do so now as someone who has attended many Tea Parties as a speaker, master of ceremonies and often just as a proud American concerned about the future of this country. Tea Party goers are not angry, misguided people. They are not radicals unless limited government, controlled spending, the Constitution and traditional American values are radical ideas. If these ideas are to be placed within the category of “radical” then let my name be placed there as well.
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Get out of My Tent! Fruming Over the Tea Party Movement”
Well, she’s a former alcoholic, drug addict, washed up actor, shock therapy patient (no, really) and one-time princess to the universe, but now Carrie “Princess Leia” Fisher can add one more calumny to her long list of off-kilter, personality deficits: she’s a “teabagger” hater. So, she’s got that going for her, which is nice.
Every Democrat I know likes to act as if it were the GOP that fights dirty. Of course, every time I ask them for an example they just stare back blankly at me — I know, it’s their normal state, but this question gets particular blankness. On the other hand, I can give reams of evidence of the left doing all it can to win by hook or crook, and it’s usually crook. From ACORN, to constant use of the race card, to changing rules in the middle of the game both at a local level as well as a federal level, as well as the leftist’s prosaic hypocrisy of double standards, we can all name a dirty trick from the left. Well, as if you needed another one, there is a new dirty trick being perpetrated by the left in the great state of Michigan.
This morning