Doubtless the
defense here will be that The One wasn’t aware of the sexual connotation and therefore had no idea that the term offends tea partiers. Funny thing, though: Offhand, I can’t recall a single instance of him saying “teabaggers” publicly. Not in speeches, not in interviews, not at town halls, not even at that fundraiser a few weeks ago when he goofed on protesters by saying they should be
thanking him for cutting their taxes, i.e. for running up gigantic deficits. If he doesnÂ’t know the termÂ’s impolitic, how come he hasnÂ’t innocently used it on camera yet?
He knows. They all know.
In Jonathan Alter’s “The Promise: President Obama, Year One,” President Obama is quoted in an interview saying that the unanimous vote of House Republicans vote against the stimulus bills “set the tenor for the whole year … That helped to create the tea-baggers and empowered that whole wing of the Republican Party to where it now controls the agenda for the Republicans.”
Tea Party activists loath the term “tea baggers,” which has emerged in liberal media outlets and elsewhere as a method of mocking the activists and their concerns.