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Reading the Tea Leaves
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NYT: "Although organizers insisted they had created a nonpartisan grass-roots movement, others argued that these parties were more of the Astroturf variety: an occasion largely created by the clamor of cable news and fueled by the financial and political support of current and former Republican leaders."
The Boston Globe, in the city that hosted the original 1773 tea party, punts by running an AP story:
"Whipped up by conservative commentators and bloggers, tens of thousands of protesters staged 'tea parties' around the country yesterday to tap into the collective angst stirred up by a bad economy, government spending, and bailouts."
Papers such as the Baltimore Sun and Washington Times basically covered the local demonstrations. The Washington Post had a local story and a Dana Milbank column. The Chicago Tribune ran a bunch of photos of the Windy City demonstrations.
Instapundit Glenn Reynolds, in the WSJ, touts the way the demos came together:
"The movement grew so fast that some bloggers at the Playboy Web site -- apparently unaware that we've entered the 21st century -- suggested that some secret organization must be behind all of this. But, in fact, today's technology means you don't need an organization, secret or otherwise, to get organized. After considerable ridicule, the claim was withdrawn, but that hasn't stopped other media outlets from echoing it.
"There's good news and bad news in this phenomenon for establishment politicians. The good news for Republicans is that, while the Republican Party flounders in its response to the Obama presidency and its programs, millions of Americans are getting organized on their own. The bad news is that those Americans, despite their opposition to President Obama's policies, aren't especially friendly to the GOP. When Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele asked to speak at the Chicago tea party, his request was politely refused by the organizers . . .
"What's most striking about the tea-party movement is that most of the organizers haven't ever organized, or even participated, in a protest rally before. General disgust has drawn a lot of people off the sidelines and into the political arena."
Reynolds, who is part of Pajamas Media, draws a quick rebuttal from Andrew Sullivan:
"He makes no mention of Pajamas Media's heavy investment in the events, nor Fox News' endless touting and endorsement of them, but he does point to FreedomWorks' coordinating website. I'm sure, of course, that it's a mix of both: some grass roots enthusiasm, coopted in some part by Republican party operators. But it seems odd to describe this as anything but a first stab at creating opposition to the Obama administration's spending plans, manned by people who made no serious objections to George W. Bush's. The tea-parties are as post-partisan as Reynolds, one of the most relentlessly partisan bloggers on the web. When you see them holding up effigies of Bush, who was, unlike Obama, supposed to be the fiscal conservative, let me know.
"But the substantive critique must remain the primary one. Protesting government spending is meaningless unless you say what you'd cut.
"If you favor no bailouts, then say so. If you want to see the banking system collapse, then say so. If you think the recession demands no fiscal stimulus, then say so. If you favor big cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, social security and defense, then say so. I keep waiting for Reynolds to tell us what these protests are for; and he can only spin what they . . . are against."