Why the Teabaggers Really Were Full of It (and I Don't Mean Tea)

**Special note to any of my GOP-minded friends that might happen by here. I do, in fact, call some of your partisans "twits" and "pinheads" below. But I am sure I didn't mean you, and I do stand by my characterizations of those who did and said the specific things discussed.**

In the midst of a good, friendly debate over at the DinkZone blog, my bud Heath (tongue-in-cheek) said he hoped I "had fun teabagging" on Wednesday. While far too much has already been made of this whole dismal spectacle, I feel the need to take a moment to distance myself from this particular "protest." If you told me, in abstract terms, about some people who legitimately believed that our government was excessive in size, and who decided to take April 15 as a day to stage a peaceful, respectful, and principled demonstration in favor of reducing said wasteful government, then, yes, I would confess that it sounds like something I might endorse, or hell, in which I might even participate.

Of course, the "tea parties" that took place on Wednesday were nothing of the sort. Yes, the twin facts that various entities and individuals within the GOP establishment, including Fox News, organized and promoted it heavily, even while Fox simultaneously hyped the parties as "spontaneous citizen protests" would have been funny, had it not been so insulting to our collective intelligence. But beyond that, the blatant hypocrisy of so many of the twits that showed up at these events was truly hard to stomach. After sitting by and watching 8 years of astounding fiscal irresponsibility and the biggest expansion of federal spending since at least LBJ, now is the time to get outraged at excessive government spending!?!? Anybody who really meant a damn word of their "I believe in small government" speechifying, would have to admit that the Bush administration has trounced all others in recent memory in expanding spending, executive power, and secrecy. To pick this moment, and this (still very new) administration as your target is ridiculously and transparently partisan and oxymoronic (or perhaps just moronic), even if the provenance of this "movement" had not already made that clear.

Please don't associate me with any of these pinheads. All of this was really enough to put yours truly, a genuine believer in limited government, off his lunch. Nearly as much as feeling obligated to finally go look up "teabagging" at the Urban Dictionary. Now there is something I really did not need to know.