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Former Geico Announcer Lance Baxter Lashes Out at ‘Tea-Baggers’

» 29 comments

Recently-fired Geico voiceover actor Lance Baxter has posted a video response to all of the “tea-baggers” who got him fired for leaving a message on Freedomworks’ voicemail asking what percentage of the Tea Party were “mentally retarded,” and how they would spin it when one of them finally killed someone. While he may have a decent point or two, Baxter is in no position to play the hero here.

His response was to post a video featuring voicemails he received in the wake of the incident, along with photos of some of the Tea Party’s greatest protest sign hits. The voicemails aren’t very revealing, so I guess the idea is that the photos are intended to rebut the protestations of the callers.


Despite Baxter’s nod to political correctness by saying “mentally retarded” instead of “retard,” he’s not really entitled to the moral high ground here. The voicemail he left for Freedomworks, who have made a concerted effort to keep the ugliness out of their events, was childish wiseassery, nothing more. Also, note to Lance and the rest of the left: the term “tea-bagger” has outlived its usefulness, and now serves only to buttress the Tea Party’s sense of persecution. It was clever for 5 minutes, but to the rest of the world, it just seems douche-y now.

However, publishing his phone number and going after his job were disproportionate and dirty actions. Additionally, the Tea Party’s effort at cleansing its image is undermined by their refusal to admit there was ever a problem, something Baxter’s litany of “isolated incidents” underscores. Aside from our old pal Dale Robertson, the rest of these folks seemed pretty welcome at their Tea Parties, and they continue to deal with the ugliness on Capitol Hill by calling civil rights hero John Lewis a liar.

This doubling-down is not likely to help Baxter much. Perhaps he’s counting on goodwill from fellow Hollywood Tea Party opponents to get him through this, but as Freedomworks has already demonstrated, the Tea Party has ample time and energy to devote to getting him fired again.

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  • Penguin60

    Maybe Keefy and RM will hire him to intro their shows. They wallow in tea-baggery.
    He got fired for being a DB, but my guess he had no problems with Geico pulling ads from Beck’s show. How’s that go again, for every decision comes a consequence?
    You made the choice, deal with it Bax.

  • m

    Teabaggers can’t stand anyone with an opinion different from theirs. Anti-democratic and anti-American.

  • timzank

    M, if a relatively famous conservative who was a spokesperson for a huge national company had done the exact same thing to a liberal organization and got fired, would you not be cheering?

    You’re obviously clueless to irony as well. Re-read your statement “Teabaggers can’t stand anyone with an opinion different from theirs. Anti-democratic and anti-American.”

    Replace the word “teabaggers” with “progressives”. Are you so stupid you can’t see that your statement would apply to you just as appropriately?

  • http://thedailybarb.com Jack Burns

    Yep M you’re right, they are Anti-Democratic. Since we are a Republic, that’s pretty much there stance. Very much American though. The TEA Party people “are” open to different opinions and freedom of speech. Not like the Obama team who wouldn’t let the Media in to report on the DADT protesters. America is great as long as we are able to voice decent. Like you and I do online. When this is prohibited as the Obama Team is working on this very minute. Then who is being Anti-American?

  • errxn

    Actually, Tommy, “tea-bagger” was douche-y from the moment it was first uttered.

  • Penguin60

    And M would know this because??? He’s been to so many TEA parties and thrown out, yeah that’s it. Or he gets his opinion from BONBC.
    That guy beat up at the TEA party was protesting the TEA Party? Nope, beat up by union Dem thugs, hose anti-American?

  • Cecelia

    Was Lance Baxter trying to make amends with the Tea Partiers by making a video filled with his own puerile vulgarisms and imagery, and then contrasting it with the garden variety insults of Tea Party folks?

    I suppose it was not enough that a man Baxter’s age is caught making a harassing prank phone call, now he has to make imagery of something floating in a toilet…

    The few bigoted epithets aside, Pres. Obama is NOT so sacred that it is de facto racist to treat him as other presidents have been treated, and all presidents have been caricatured and pilloried with hyperbolic imagery.

    It’s is also NOT unreasonable, or tantamount to heresy, to believe that civil right leader Rep. John Lewis may have been hotdogging it a bit by saying he heard something that several dozen video cameras and microphones never picked up, or even to believe that the slurs came from only one person (who seems to have been whispering…) Rep. Lewis is certainly refusing to elaborate.

    There has been no mass protest absent objectionable signs and a few objectionable people. The media could have certainly played up the anti-Israel placards of Code Pink.

    At bottom, the flimsy underpinnings of these accusations are mostly appeals to saintly authority and other special case pleadings.

    It’s amazing to see so many regular joes derided as being racists on such paltry grounds.

  • Cecelia

    That said, I do agree with Tommy, that the Tea Partiers would do well to police their ranks with more discernment than has been the case.

    I don’t think anyone goes into a movement like that as a public relations expert. They’re learning “on the job”.

  • SWWT

    Also, note to Lance and the rest of the left: the term “tea-bagger” has outlived its usefulness, and now serves only to buttress the Tea Party’s sense of persecution. It was clever for 5 minutes, but to the rest of the world, it just seems douche-y now.

    ——————–

    THANK YOU!

  • The Real Royal King

    I’m pretty much content to attack the idea of the Tea Partiers. Knee-jerk reactionaries never contribute to the well-being of society. And, I think the over-whelmingly White nature of the movement is fair game as well. I won’t attack intelligence of motivation until I learn that Jeff Merrill, Ms. Hawkins, Sara N. Italy or Snacker have joined up. Then, intelligence and motivation become fair game.

  • The Real Royal King

    Of course, SWWT, the Tea Partiers named themselves that. I still find that a tremendous sense of amusement. But, I agree. The term ought not be used.

  • Moderate

    “I think the over-overwhelmingly White nature of the movement is fair game”

    Since 47% of the people do not pay income taxes and wants the Government to spend as much as possible, it is ‘racist’ to assume that only White people are tax paying citizens concerned about government waste.

  • timzank

    TRRK: “And, I think the over-whelmingly White nature of the movement is fair game as well.”

    Just for the hell of it, I perused an enormous number of photos of Code Pink, and much to my surprise I saw no black faces. They appear to be over-whelmingly White. Are they racists King?

  • Moderate

    U.S. voters who self-identify as part of the Tea Party movement jumped eight points since the previous month. April 15, 2010 marked the one-year anniversary of the movement.
    Of those surveyed, 55 percent said they are not part of the movement or do not have any ties to the Tea Party, while 11 percent said they are unsure.

    http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/64599

  • Moderate

    I see no Black people is this Code Pink protest, therefore they are racist.

    http://zombietime.com/hillary_sf_office_topless_protest/

  • Cecelia

    The “over-whelming White nature of the movement” is contrasted by overwhelming African-American support for the president.

    It’s certainly understandable that people of color would be proud and overjoyed that our country has belatedly elected a president who looks as they look. It’s not logical to ignore this fact when weighing the racial diversity of the Tea Party movement.

    If wholehearted criticism of the president is monolithically from whites, wholehearted support for him is monolithically from African-Americans. Neither phenomenon is racist in nature.

  • Cecelia

    “I won’t attack intelligence of motivation until I learn that Jeff Merrill, Ms. Hawkins, Sara N. Italy or Snacker have joined up. Then, intelligence and motivation become fair game.”

    Well, with THAT standard, you’ve had the effect of ingesting a kilo of mercury upon the entire internet.

  • Penguin60

    Moderate,
    I wonder where Keefy is wondering aloud about the “whiteness” of Code Pink. The horror of the racism in their group is only surpassed by the sight of those breasts. Thanks for bringing to light the overt racism but those images have scarred mr for life.

  • Olby Sucks

    This loser is blaming the “tea-baggers” for “getting him fired?” Is that like “the devil made me do it?” Enjoy the un-employment line! ;)

  • timzank

    Olby Sucks says:
    April 23, 2010 at 11:49 am
    This loser is blaming the “tea-baggers” for “getting him fired?” Is that like “the devil made me do it?” Enjoy the un-employment line! ;)

    It’s the liberals way of life, they honestly believe that anything that happens to them is someone elses fault. absolutely no personal responsibility whatsoever. Sad isn’t it? He really believes he was fired because the Tea Party exists, not because of his own foolish behavior. Typical of a huge segment of our society.

  • Jamestaylor

    Lance Baxter comes across as yet another liberal brain trust: :”They got me fired.” No Lance, it was your hatred that got you fired.

  • timzank

    To draw another analogy pointing out how these people actually think, Dillinger would have been a model citizen and never broken the law had it not been for those “evil” banks.

  • Grammie

    Come, come! Let’s not be too hard on L’il Lance.

    I am certain that that the Tea Partiers had been sending him subliminal messages for a long time taunting him into standing up LIKE A MAN to them. Then they made a phone magically appear at his fingertips programmed to ONLY dial Freedom Works.

    What else could the poor man do under such nefarious vicious pressure but walk like the innocent lamb he is into that nasty trap.

    My guess is that he has a history of similar behavior but this time his target fought back and he reaped what he sowed..

  • http://gordonbloyershow.com gordonbloyershow

    There is no national membership office of the Tea Party. Anyone that wants to can organize a local tea party. In heavy democrat areas the tea party is formed of perennial republican candidates that have no chance of ever winning an election. These folks usually have extreme views because they are frustrated because the corrupt democrats control all of the local government.
    When I lived in S.F. there were these nuts that ran year after year. No one of any stature wanted to run when the republican registration was only 15%. The nuts fill the void. When I tried to remove the nuts from the party they would sue the party officials and myself.
    Republicans try to remove the nuts the democrats elect theirs.

  • puck30

    So this idiot makes a prank phone call where he leaves his number and ends up getting fired.

    Then he makes threats against the CEO of the place that he made the prank phone call on.

    Now, El Stupido makes a dopey video. BTW: Those were the worst of the phone calls that he got?

    Fine pal, keep it up while any career you might have left crashes and burns.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Kevin-Nelson/100000843821605 Kevin Nelson

    Angry young man. The irony…

  • writer

    According to Royal King, anything white is necessarily evil. Of course, the King is a black Muslim, so take that with a grain of salt.

  • shootfromthehip

    I dedicate this clip to all Tea Baggers.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COJzR-U1sr0

    That’s what all of you sound like to most Americans.

  • Sunnyr

    This Lance creep is a real whack-job! I hope he has saved a lot of money because he will play hell getting another “voice-over” job, especially in Obama’s economy. Maybe he can qualify for Obama Food Stamps! OR, maybe he can to to work for Baghdad Bob Gibbs as Asst. Secretary of Misinformation. Comrade Obama can always use another Useful Idiot or two.

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