This going to come to a shock to some of you:

There are teabaggers on the left, center and middle of politics. Even Tommy by definition a teabagger.

In fact the left may be touted as the original “modern day” teabaggers that gave teabagging recognition. Credence. MSM clout. That started with the protesting of Vietnam war.

Or just the original 21st century teabaggers. Protesting government, politicians, republican led congress, President of US (Pres. Bush). They carries signs protesting Iraq war, congressional spending on Iraq war, government spendin in general, party corruption. They went to DC, Crawford, Florida (chads/dimples), they held signs that sated Bush is Hitler, facist, impeach. They gathered online on blogs to protest Faux news, MSM’s for protecting Bush and republicans. Hated fiscal policy with cutting taxes, too much spending on defense, inefficient government response, letting Wall st get too fat, no transparency, being to secretive, patriot act, no bipartisian hand.

All noble protests. But protesting none the less. Teabaggers all. But the left for the 21st century were the first teabaggers.

I know a shock. Let it sink in. Hold on to something.
Take deep breaths.
Breathe…breathe…breathe

Now full circle where we need designations:

Teabaggers – (D)
Teabaggers – (R)
Teabggers – (I)

I’ve been known to say “tea-bagger” in real life because it rolls better off the tongue.
(“Tea Party Group Members” just has way too many syllables)

Razorsedge says,

Excellent post razor.

funny guys

“I believe that they were happy to espouse the image of their movement forcing their metaphoric tea-bags into the mouths of the Democrats, and only cried about it when the filthy imagery boomeranged on them.”

Where is your evidence for this? This statement is merely an attempt to make you and other lefties feel ok about derogatory namecalling.

@Facebook: So you’d prefer that Tommy just think of Tea Party Group Members as ignorant, rather than credit them with possessing knowledge and forethought?

No Facebook and Magister. You need to read Tommy’s article closer. This sentence may clear it up.

“Liberals, and many in the media, have been pointing out how stupid the Tea Party movement is for almost a year now, myself included”

If tea Party is protesting and protesting happened during Bush years (including tax policy, spending (Medicare D unfunded), deficits and national debt

coupled with Tommy’s claim:

“The Democrats need their own version of the “tea-baggers,” an energized group to push back against the opposition that has formed around things like Sarah Palin’s “death panels.”

You would have to conclude Tommy stating stupid is what stupid does. Translation. Was stupid for Liberals to protest Bush and republicans. Tea party protests/movement also stupid and now democrates now need to up the ante on their own tea party labeled movement, then both the right and left will be stupid for doing so.

@ magister – no I believe they used the “tea party” and tea bags to symbolize protests against wasteful government spending and unnecessary government growth along with the soon to come tax increases (like the original tea partiers at the boston TEA party). tea bagging, tea baggers and tea bag used in the mocking sense of the liberal media are derogatory sexual terms that are unnecessary in political discourse.

I could be wrong. If you’re a Tea Party protester, and you didn’t know what “tea-bagger” meant until Rachel Maddow told you, record a YouTube video that says so. If I see a thousand of those, I’ll re-think. Tea-bagger had only one definition then. It is their burden to prove they didn’t know the meaning of the words they, themselves, chose.

Wow Tommy,

You just called out the participants of the original Boston tea party which led to growth of the American Revolution.

You logic tells America It was their burden to come up with a different name not knowing the meaning of the words they used. Maybe the media back in 1773 wasn’t liberal

Really? Colonial Americans used tea bags? Did they also use Splenda?

Well, I attended a tea party with it’s intent: TEA – Taxed Enough Already. I didn’t know what the term “teabagging” meant until rachel and Anna Marie Cocks has their little discussion and laugh fest on MSNBC. I don’t need to send something to YouTube to make that clear.

You can mock us all you want Tommy, and you and your pals at MSNBC=mediaite can continue to show your utter disdain for democracy in action.

Gwen Ifil apologized for using the term once she learned what it meant, as have other adults. Some folks however, chose to continue their childish and demeaning manner for the public who is fed up with policies that steal the peoples money to buy votes.

Chuck Schumer used the term in a fundraising email — but then again, anyone who watches the Senate in action knows that Schumer is nothing more than a child anyway.

Anyway, have at it, continue to demean and belittle all you want; it’s clear you will never understand the very clear message of the tea parties.

Tommy, no, no…no splenda.

No silly, British didn’t tax Splenda back in 1773. Colonists Tea Party participants didn’t ‘use’ tea bags to present the optics for the protest. Huh, they destroyed tea bags. Lots of them!

British govt wanted to ‘name call’ tea party colonists, but the American Revolution happened before the British could settle on a derogatory name for the tea party movement. Bristish asked the media for help in coming up with a derogatory name for tea party protestors (promising inceased readership and govt favors). But the media refused claiming ethics or something like that.

Honestly, until MSNBC and Rachel Maddow made some repeated childish joke about it, I had only really heard the term “teabagging” during the prepubescent environment of an Xbox live Halo tournament.

How childish.

Teabagger is a pejorative term used by the left to inflect emotional damage to its opponent just like the radical right, including the “teabaggers,” employ the same tactic 10 folds worse. Now let’s get back into the pig pit and wash ourselves from our sins.

The Hairy Balls In Your Mouth Party has a future. I disagree with Maddow.

liberalontogeny,

did these colonists have access to a DeLorean and a flux capacitor? Tea bags hadn’t been invented yet, those were crates of loose tea. Schoolhouse Rock was a cartoon, not a documentary, so you may also be surprised to learn that the Redcoats didn’t walk through the Atlantic to get here.

TfT,

your claim of ignorance of sexual slang is belied by the sexually hostile nickname you gave my colleague, Ana Marie.

Yes, when tens of thousands of people begin using a term, then claim not to have known what it’s one and only meaning was, it is their burden to prove that. If I made such a claim about them, that the entire Tea Party movement was too ignorant to know what their own rallying cry meant, they would shriek about that.

Hold it. Colonialist used tea but wasn’t teabags, as we know them, invented in the 1800′s?

Tommy Christopher says:
January 18, 2010 at 7:27 am

Okay missed that post Sorry. However let me add this. The only reason I know the term ‘teabagging’ was
because I am a gamer. I didn’t know exactly what it was until maddow said it. Now be honest, unless they
were into HALO or porn would people really know what ‘teabagging’ was? Really?

Fidoohki,

Yes. I’m neither a gamer nor into porn, and I knew. More importantly, though, the biggest piece of evidence that they knew what “tea-bagging” meant was the fact that they, y’know, SAID IT. It only had 1 meaning, and as we’ve both pointed out, the Boston Tea Party was completely bagless. No jury in the world would acquit them of knowing what their own words meant.

I see Tommy, you, Rachel and Anna Marie can dish it but you can’t take it? As I said, I learned what “teabagging” meant after Rachel had her little laugh fest on MSNBC=mediaite. You can call me dishonest as much as you chose, it doesn’t bother me one bit.

TfT,

It says more about you than it does about Ana Marie. I’m just pointing out an inconsistency in your anonymous assertion. If you didn’t know what it meant, though, how did Rachel’s segment clue you in? How would you have gotten any of the jokes?

Tommy – I didn’t watch the segment live; I read about it on the internet and watched clips only after it became an issue and after I looked up what the term meant. And of course, I didn’t find her jokes funny at all.

I disagree in regards to your comment about me versus Ana Marie–the dumpster dive started on MSNBC (dumpster-dive simply means going into the gutter, at least in my lexicon).

I recall just recently Glynnis posted a statement that offensive language would be moderated and banned. Perhaps you can do some self assessment and realize that “teabagger” is considered offensive to any number of people who post here. Perhaps you could follow the example started by Gwen Ifil and heed mediaite’s own recommendation.

Thanks.

Tommy Christopher says:
January 18, 2010 at 8:01 am

Out of curiosity, where did you learn it from?

Yes Tommy,

And colonial Americans didn’t have sex in 1773 either, is that were you’re going? “Boston Tea Party” “Tea Party movement”

No tea bags in 1773 or 2008. Difference was media. Santelli to Maddow. And you carry the derogatory flag for the left with your claim. So you’re the other difference. Possible, just possible if you were reporting in 1773 you may have lived your adult life as a British subject. Because it’s stupid you claim for tea party movement.

TC Invented teabagging before Maddow

Proof For your claim

So my assertion is you still called out Boston tea party movement with your logic “it’s their fault” for choosing a name they didn’t know the derogatory meaning of. Even in your post there were no ‘bags’, you called them “tea party protester.

Like Boston Tea Party just no Boston this time.

Here’s the other point. Plenty of evidence you protest the right or you support the left for protesting the right. You for a year now think tea party movement stupid for protesting something you don’t support or believe in. To show that support you invented derogatory name.

That makes you simply a bigot. No way around it

Even if the Tea Party Movement knew what it meant, it’s still no excuse for the childish display Maddow and others have put on. Grow up.

SWWT

Agreed. Protesters are protesters and is a earned right and should be accepted. Whether it’s left, right or middle politics.

For the right to “attack” the left for protesting Bush is ignoring really the same as the right protesting Obama. Just different ideology/politics. It goes both ways. As long as civil/legal/peaceful etc.

If one thinks only the left or the right in politics is correct and just (not stupid), then I think they are being close minded and a rigid intolerance of ideas or opinions seen as different. If they think protests are stupid on the right, they should feel stupid to protest on the left. Or accept both. Same tactic, different ideology

As I stated above, The liberals are the original tea-[baggers] that brought protesting mainstream. Certainly the first teabaggers in 21st century.

Name calling, derogatory terms, calling protest movements stupid is just a reflection of that rigid intolerance. It is a tactic to marginalize and attack something they are intolerant of, prejudiced against.

When the people in the movement first began using this term about the movement and themselves, I have to admit that I found it highly, highly amusing. There was a sweet irony about these semi-literate, holier-than-thou, extreme right zealots so naming themselves. It is far more convenient than some clumsy, contrived phrase to describe this group. At the same time, I confess that some in the media have given a rapier quality to the term as it applies to this group. The better course is probably not to use the term. However, I can’t say that the term rises to offensive quality. It is more in the nature of a double entendre. As such, I don’t see it disappearing.

As for Carlson, his whining and self-aggrandizement have become intolerable. He can’t seem to keep a job anywhere her lands. I can understand why.

The main problem here in your analysis is that the vast majority of Tea Partiers knew the lurid meaning of “teabagging.” I heard no one, and I mean no one, refer to themselves as tea baggers. There may have been stray signs making teabagging jokes, but on the whole, those who turned out for the tea parties didn’t know why the hell Anderson Cooper had a smirk on his face until someone explained the term to them.

To hell with your analysis of whether the tea party movement ought to be taken seriously. Continued use of such a crude epithet makes me inclined to ignore what the critic of the Tea Partiers is saying. Drop it. Calling liberals “libtards” or conservatives “wingnuts” is far different from calling them “Ballsackdippers.” Show some class, why don’t you. Good for Tucker Carlson.

Subject of this article: Katrina Vanden Heuvel is a moron. And Tommy Christopher is a moron.

You may disagree with Vanden Heuvel. You may find her irritating. I do. Blitzer-style irritating. Moron? Absolutely not.

about the movement and themselves, I have to admit that I found it highly, highly amusing. There was a sweet irony about these semi-literate, holier-than-thou, extreme right zealots so naming themselves.

I see your at it early this morning, King.

TFT,
Stop trying to argue with Tommy, it’s pointless. I, like you, had never heard the term before and only learned what it meant after it was being used. The fact that they use it repeatedly says alot about the left. It’s school yard tactics, so in that mode, let’s remember the phrase, I’m rubber and you’re glue…………….

As always, they are just trying to intimidate the right into shutting up. Admittedely, it usually works, but it seems we’ve finally found a spine, helped mostly by new media. It’s driving them absolutely crazy!

There is no logical reason why one should be closed, at least insofar as they are not the media.
memory stick

>> The Real Royal King: “You may disagree with Vanden Heuvel. You may find her irritating. I do. Blitzer-style irritating. Moron? Absolutely not.”

Actually, I disagree. I do find her to be a moron specifically BECAUSE of her perpetual on-air, piss-poor, “holier than thou” behavior. And she did it here yet again. As the article notes: “Katrina Vanden Heuvel invoked the term “tea-bagger,” prompting a disgusted protest from Daily Caller’s Tucker Carlson. Vanden Heuvel’s response was to plow through Carlson’s objections, a strategy which, no doubt, delighted liberals.”

That is ALWAYS Vanden Heuvel’s on-air style, to perpetually talk over anyone else. Frankly, I make it a point not to watch any show where she’s going to be a part of any group discussion because — like setting a stop watch — you can bet she’ll try to seize a moment…interject one of her patented talking points…and then try to control the rest of the discussion, in order to blather away. So, in essence, by being SO irritating and rude, she earns the crown of being a moron.