Top Ten Cloves: Signs That Your Neighbor May Be Attending CPAC

News Item: The New Conservative Hierarchy

10. Learning Spanish, in case they get to meet Mark Rubio

9. Saw them furiously scribbling notes on the palm of their hands

8. Praying, that on their flight to CPAC, Kevin Smith isn't on same plane

7. They have a "No Teleprompter Zone" sign posted on their lawn

6. Breathlessly hoping, since she sold her company, that Michelle Malkin has time to stalk them

5. Admitted that they have volunteered to let Dick, or Liz, Cheney torture them

4. Making plans to touch Mitt Romney's hair

3. Witnessed them breaking in heavy work boots, so they can stomp on Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews

2. Since RNC meet with Teabaggers, plans on lobbying to have Lewis and Clark Tea Party hang Senator Patty Murray at CPAC

1. Watched them take batting practice, to tune up for whacking the Nancy Pelosi piñata


Bonus CPAC Riffs

Kate Zernike: CPAC Speaker Bashes Obama, in Racial Tones

Eve Conant - This Week in Conservative Media: 'Air America Has Shut Down and Gitmo Is Still Open'

Media Matters - Erickson: Media Matters employees are "the guys who can't get jobs anywhere else"

Media Matters - Armey: "The number 1 biggest problem in America is the physical size of this government"

Tea Time, Avec Beignets

Oh boy, the Flying Monkeys of the Teabagger Uprising sure aren't gonna like this.

"This" being a tremendous Op-Ed today in that dreaded Obama-lovin', liberal media fortress, The New York Times, bringing attention to their rabble-rousing, and the parallels to the French revolt, in the 1950's.



Robert Zaretsky's "The Tea Party Last Time", will, (or should) have a lot of heads being scratched down in Nashville this weekend.

MORE than 100,000 angry citizens united in the nation’s capital to take their country back: back from the tax collector and the political and financial elites, back from bureaucrats and backroom wheelers and dealers and, more elusively and alarmingly, back from those who, well, were not like them.

These weren’t the incensed Americans who helped elect Scott Brown in the Massachusetts Senate race and who rallied around conservative candidates in the Illinois primary on Tuesday; this scene didn’t take place at the Tea Party demonstration in Washington last year. These protesters were gathered in France a half-century ago: Last week was the 55th anniversary of the mass demonstration in Paris of the Poujadist movement, a phenomenon that bears a close resemblance to our own Tea Party. For a brief moment, the movement threatened the very foundations of the French Republic. A comparison between France then and America now may be instructive.

[snip]

During the subsequent national elections, the Poujadists bulldozed their way into town meetings, shouting down opposing candidates and threatening violence: a grim rehearsal for Tea Party tactics during last year’s health care debates. Their tactics, if not their platform — they did not, in fact, have one — worked. Poujade’s party won more than 10 percent of the votes, taking more than 50 seats in the National Assembly.

The election, though, proved to be Poujade’s swan song. He had demanded the nation’s ear, but once he and his fellow deputies had it, they had nothing substantive to say. Slogans and placards were poor preparation for governance, and the group’s rank and file soon either retreated from the political arena or joined the traditional right.

[snip]

Historical parallelism is the duct tape of my profession: we apply it to the most disparate things. Sooner or later the tape frays, revealing unique fissures that require individual attention. Perhaps this is the case with the Poujadists and the Tea Partiers. Saint-Céré is far from Wasilla, Alaska; questioning Mendès-France’s origins is not quite the same as demanding President Obama’s birth certificate; the mendacity in the claim of France’s imminent coca-colonization is of a different order from that concerning the misinformation about death panels in the United States. In both instances, however, the despair and disconnect with politics seem similarly great and real, as does the common tendency to grasp for simple solutions to complex problems.

Tea Party activists might find it infuriating ever to be compared to the nation they consider the anti-America. But French observers of our country may be forgiven if they feel a certain déjà vu when they see a movement that brings nothing to the ballot box except anger.

Sacre bleu!

PrairieWeather says "In the end, the Tea Party fizzles";

Therein lies the problem for the Tea Party. As long as they reside in a fantasy land of alien, illicit presidents, elitists, and vague socialist threats, they will continue to alienate the majority of voters.

And, Will Bunch, over on Attytood, with his "Vivent longtemps la partie de thé!;

Today in America, we're seeing this already play out to some degree even before the fall 2010 elections, thanks in part to the fulcrum shift between the 60 and now (technically, as of Feb. 11) 59 Democratic votes in the Senate. People wondered if and how Obama would "pivot" in the State of the Union and related events, and I think the pivot was trying to place more responsibility on the GOP to...do something, anything. The "Party of No" may be offering a tiny ray of hope to the Democrats by giving them a chance now to run in November against the "do-nothing 41." (Although voters can and should also ask the Dems why they did absolutely nothing during those months that they had a supermajority.)

The other interesting parallel: Who is the Tea Party/GOP deGaulle?...no doubt this mass movement would rather rally behind an authoritative leader than all the hard work of holding rallies, carrying signs, etc. But who is that person? Sarah Palin? I think she'd only run for the job if they raised the presidential salary to at least $5 mil, right?

So, what's a saggin', non-swaggin' Teabagger to do?

They would rather be boiled in oil, with Freedom Fries, than line themselves up with beret-wearing, stinky cheese-eaters.

I don't know why I'm doing this, but I think we can bail them out.

And, they can stay in-character, all Apple Pie, jingoistic, Americana.

They need to go out, rent, and have a group viewing of 'Meet John Doe', one of the lesser shown Capra classics.

Wikipedia describes it as "The film, about a "grassroots" political campaign, created unwittingly by a newspaper columnist and pursued by a wealthy businessman."

Apple doesn't fall far from the Teabag Tree, does it?

Substitute "newspaper columnist" with a feces-throwing army of Right Wing Freak Show, and NeoNitWit Flying Monkeys, and replace "wealthy businessman" with "wealthy businessmen", the likes of Dick Armey, and all the other front-companies for the PartyofNoicans, as well as Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes, and the pool of smegma over on Faux News.

It's like a living, breathing remake of the movie, right before our eyes.

Well ... Almost ...

They'll need someone, like this, to step up, and pull the curtain back;

Meet John Doe: speech scene

Our Ignorant Dolt of the Week ... Dick Armey!

Boy, this guy just climbed over everybody to grab the IDOTW title.

He had to bowl over one of the Grand Ayatollah of Ignorant Dolts, the Cheeseburger That Sweats (aka Rush Limbaugh), for his cheerleading for President Obama's failure, which generated a nervous Congressman, Phil Gingrey of Georgia, who at first criticized the radio drug addict, only to come running, waving his IDOTW marker, by begging Limbaugh to take him back into Dittohead Land.

We previously noted Mark Halperin, making a fairly regular stab at being an Ignorant Dolt, and, there was also Glenn Beck, putting his IDOTW credentials on display.

But one guy, just one, lonely, pathetic guy cleared the competitive field this week to say "I want to own, I want to have it coursing through my body, to be one gigantic Ignorant Dolt of the Week."



And, it was none other than the dirty bag former Congressman, Dick Armey.

Appearing on Tweety's 'Hardball' program, facing off against Salon's Joan Walsh, Armey showed, gloriously, how empty and inept the Republican party has become, when he responded back to Walsh's argument about Obama's Stimulus Package.

Transcript courtesy of Crooks and Liars;

Walsh: Who are the income redistributionists?

Armey: Who, what..

Walsh: Who are the income redistributionists?

Armey: Well the biggest income redistributions was a Republican congresswoman, urr. Senator, but Charlie Rangel cracked me up, Charlie said you guys are giving her things that I wouldn't even ask for.

Armey: I don't want to get into that because then the controversy is that Dick Armey is assaulting somebody. There are income redistribitionsts that think they are going to curry favor with a voting blocks in both parties and it's wrong policy whether it comes Republicans or Democrats, it makes no sense. Armey's axiom. Don't let politics define your economics. Don't let politics define anything. Politics is silly, it's inane. Take what amusements you can from them but don't take them seriously.

Walsh: But this is serious business. The economy is a wreck, (Armey laughs) it's been wrecked by the Bush White House and by Republicans in Congress with a lot of help Democratic help, with ( Armey makes more noises and sighs)

Armey: Oh, give it a rest.

Walsh: President Obama, please stop saying 'give it a rest.' Do you have any anything else to say? President Obama has a mandate for change. (Armey laughs again) Your people have stood in his way. They are standing in his way in Capitol hill right now and Rush Limbaugh is making ridiculous statements and Republicans are crawling to him and groveling. That's the state of our economy and our world right now Rep. Armey and it's sad.

Armey: I'm so glad that you could never be my wife because I surely wouldn't have to listen to that prattle from you every day.

Walsh: Well, wow that makes two of us sir, that was really an outstanding comment...

Armey: Look ma'am, you're talking like a paid political hack making your political points.

Walsh: Am I sir?

Armey: Are we going to talk seriously...

Walsh" No, I actually care about social justice, I care about jobs, I care about the economy.

Take a look.



"I'm so glad that you could never be my wife because I surely wouldn't have to listen to that prattle from you every day."

Was he drunk?

What the hell kind of counterpoint is that?

Now, we have long known the kind of scumbag that Armey is.

He rode in on during the Gingrich Revolution, and was one of Newt's top boys, and Source Watch credits Armey "as the main author of the Contract with America"

In the past, he lobbed the gem of calling Congressman Barney Frank, "Barney Fag", and Armey further burnished his Flying Monkey, NeoNitWit stature;

"In September 2008, while commenting about Barack Obama's name, Armey stated that it could "give people concerns that he could be or have been too much influenced by Muslims, which is a great threat now."

Oh yeah, he also supported the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians.

"I'm so glad that you could never be my wife because I surely wouldn't have to listen to that prattle from you every day."

Yeah, that really rings in as constructive discourse, one of those alternative ideas the Republicans claim to have, to get our economy back on track.

A barroom taunt.

Joan Walsh, on her own blog, recounted and responded to this ignorant outburst rather sympathetically.

Ironically, there's a quote attributed to Armey;

Politics will sooner or later make fools of everybody.

In Armey's case, he's had the handicap of, not sooner or later, but constantly, 24/7, all-the-time, being a incredible fool

Added to that, for this past week, Dick Armey can also boast of being The Garlic's "Ignorant Dolt of the Week".


Bonus Armey's An Asshole Riffs

The Raw Story: Former GOP leader accused of sexism against liberal editor in chief

Steve Benen: YOU DON'T KNOW DICK...

Glenn Greenwald: Dick Armey and post-partisan harmony

Digby: Dick

John Cole: Armey’s Axiom: Don’t Take Me Seriously

Taylor Marsh: Self-Important Gasbag Alert

Blue Gal: Dick Armey, Love Muffin

Mustang Bobby: Sphincter of the Day

Jane Hamsher: Hey, Have You Heard the One about Joan Walsh and Dick Armey?