Tales of the Tea Party

[Ragnar]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/18/opinion/18douthat.html?_r=2&ref=opinion

The Old Grey Lady throws out some non-hysterical thoughts on the Tea Party people that has much of the MSM so out of sorts...

The “Tea Partiers are racists” (debunked) theory is the most inflammatory storyline, but there are many more. Let’s consider them, in order of increasing plausibility:

THE TEA PARTIES ARE DRIVING REPUBLICANS OFF A POLITICAL CLIFF.

(Turns out: not so much)

THE TEA PARTIERS ARE PUPPETS OF THE SINISTER RICH.

(Theory is strong with fail)

THE TEA PARTIES ARE JUST THE JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY ALL OVER AGAIN.

(Good try... not)

THE TEA PARTIERS ARE HYPOCRITES.

(Uh oh, NYT is maybe on to something...)

That is, they say they’re for small government, but they don’t want anyone to touch their Social Security and Medicare. This is by far the most persuasive liberal storyline. Poll after poll suggests that Tea Partiers are ambivalent about trimming entitlements, even though that’s the spending that will ultimately send either deficits or taxes through the roof.

On the other hand, some Tea Party-backed candidates have been refreshingly courageous on this front — whether it’s Rand Paul telling Fox News that he’d support higher deductibles for seniors, or Buck apologizing to Michael Bennet, his Senate opponent in Colorado, for Republican demagoguery on Medicare.

So the jury is still out. If Tea Party standard-bearers end up being as hypocritical on entitlements as most American politicians, then this liberal narrative, at least, will have been vindicated.

But for the sake of the country’s finances, liberals should hope that the Tea Party proves their most convincing story wrong.

No doubt brother. Go check out the link. It's a very short but well done heads up and way above par for the "newspaper of record".