Tea party may run its course into ditch (Hurl, you shall)

The St. Petersburg Times · ^ | September 24, 2010 | Daniel Ruth

[2ndDivisionVet]

There's a scene toward the end of the great movie Lawrence of Arabia when the Bedouin warriors seize Damascus, their long yearned for and hard-fought prize at last within their grasp.

Alas, chaos soon grips the occupiers. Fires break out over the city and the new, bickering rulers of Damascus find themselves impotent. They know nothing about electrical grids, or how to operate the water system, or how to govern. Meanwhile the British Army sits on the sidelines — and waits.

In short order the frustrated Bedouins, completely bumfuzzled over the complexities of modernity, return to what they know best — the desert, leaving the city to the British.

The lesson here, of course, is that while passion is an admirable quality, passion won't make the trains run on time if you have no idea how a railroad works.

For example: Followers of the tea party, a movement filled with its own political Bedouins of malcontents and folks angrier than Yosemite Sam meets Snidely Whiplash, would throw all the bums out of Washington and replace them with — what?

There is a school of thought that the tea party effort is made up of ultra-right-wing neo-conservatives who believe in smaller government, lower taxes and yada-Glenn-yada-Beck-yada-Rush-blah-Limbaugh-blah-Fox-blah. But it is becoming increasingly clear that this is a burgeoning party-within-a-party, whose ideals are grounded more in civic illiteracy rather than flag-waving, and situational ethics rather than phony motherhood and apple pie patriotism.

You want proof? Christine O'Donnell.

A few days ago, Delaware make-believe Republicans rejected Mike Castle, an able, experienced legislator respected on both sides of the political aisle. A guy who might have given the GOP control of the U.S. Senate was tossed aside in favor of the Gidget from hell — maybe literally.

Christine O'Donnell, a perennial Delaware political gadfly, is less electable than David Duke running in Harlem. She won the Senate nomination thanks to the Know Nothing Tea Party voters who preferred a candidate who has dabbled in witchcraft and hasn't had a job in five years. This is a fiscal conservative whose house was foreclosed on and who used campaign funds to pay her living expenses.

Now there's a Margaret Thatcher moment for you.

Castle's sin? Who knows? Maybe he once said "Good morning," to Barney Frank. Uh-oh.

In Utah, three-term U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett, an intellectually honest conservative, was denied re-nomination after being told by a tea party bumpkin he didn't love the Constitution enough.

And in New York, the tea party helped nominate Carl Paladino for governor, a chap who likes to send racist and obscene e-mails. How's that values thing working out for you?

If you are a loyal, rock-ribbed Reagan/Goldwater Republican, you have just been played for a chump. Your party has been hijacked by a gaggle of faux Bible-thumpers, conspiracy theorists, revisionist historians, lemmingesque disciples of the radio dial drive-by bloviators and Sarah Palin, the queen of the cut-and-runners.

This isn't a political party. It's a perverse quilting bee of pinched, ill-informed supernumeraries who would cast an ignorant, unquestioning vote for an unelectable candidate because a failed vice presidential candidate, who looks fabulous in leather, told them to.

You know things aren't looking up for Republican political fortunes when the likes of Karl Rove start checking out real estate listings — in France. Rove looked the most shell-shocked over O'Donnell's primary victory, reacting as if Roseanne Rosannadanna might someday wind up sitting on the Senate Finance Committee.

But Rove himself always has relied upon the cluelessness of an easily manipulated body politic to advance his candidates and causes. The O'Donnell win could be viewed as a case of "The Architect" being hoisted on his own disregard.

In the long run, the ultimate victim of the tea party useful idiot euphoria may be Palin herself. If Palin decides to run for the presidency in 2012 (please, please, please, run, Sarah, run) it's hard to imagine the Republican establishment rallying around a figure who so openly opposed more viable GOP candidates that she may have cost the party at least control of the Senate this year.

To her credit the Palin imprimatur has been a valuable commodity this primary election season. But at what cost to her at least titular association to the party, which has provided her such a lucrative career?

In the meantime, Palin better be careful not to even nod hello in the general direction of a Democrat. These tea party types have a very low threshold for perceived treason — or reality.

[Fiji Hill]

...who preferred a candidate who has dabbled in witchcraft

An op-ed writer for the LA Times made a similar statement earlier this week. Neither writer noted that she did this when she was a teenager a quarter of a century ago.

[BigSkyFreeper]

I’ll take the one who dabbled in witchcraft years ago over the one who puts Marxism into practice every day, any day of the week. O’Donnell is a rock-ribbed Conservative. Coons is a kook.

[HP8753]

Sounds like he is really describing the Communist-Democrat party, And how all the Commies,Socialists,Progressives, and other assorted whack jobs took over the Democrat party back in the 80's

What most of these propagandists in the Newsfaker orginazations don't seem to get is that for every sign carrying Tea Party supporter that shows up at a gathering, There is a hundred supporters sitting at home ready to craw over broken glass to send the Commies packing.

The 1968 DNC convention in Chicago was the last time Democrats had control of the Democrat party.

All the Commies,Anarchists, and Kooks rioting outside are who now control the Rat party.

[andy58-in-nh]

I love it when people who treat the Constitution like toilet paper accuse those who respect it of being “know-nothings”. It were as though all human knowledge achieved prior to, say, 1968 can be safely ignored. Progressives are the true “know-nothings” of our time. They reject reason, logic and the accumulated wisdom of the ages in favor of their emotional prescriptions, all of which lead to the same end: power and control over that which they had no hand in creating.

[smokingfrog]

Daniel Ruth, 59, has been scribbling away for 36 years as a reporter, film critic, television critic and columnist for the Tampa Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times and the St. Petersburg Times. He also has worked as a radio talk show host as well as an adjunct professor for the University of South Florida, the University of Tampa and Columbia College in Chicago. Daniel is a Peter Lisagor Award recipient for his columns in Chicago and has been honored by the Pinellas County Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union with the Irene Miller Vigilance In Journalism Award.

Red Diaper Doper Baby?

[fish hawk]

Bedouins one, RINOs nothing.

[BigSkyFreeper]

If you are a loyal, rock-ribbed Reagan/Goldwater Republican, you have just been played for a chump. Your party has been hijacked by a gaggle of faux Bible-thumpers, conspiracy theorists, revisionist historians, lemmingesque disciples of the radio dial drive-by bloviators and Sarah Palin, the queen of the cut-and-runners.

Most of the people in the Tea Party are Reagan/Goldwater Republicans.  Palin isn't a "faux Bible-thumper", Jeremiah Wright is.  Obama faked it too last Sunday.  All the fakers are on the left.  People like Sarah Palin put their Christianity into practice every single day.  Those like Obama do it simply for political expediency.

The only people played for chumps are the goof balls like this op-ed writer from Florida, who bought into this "Hope and Change" garbage back in 2008.

[wiggen]

You nailed it. Move the clock back and the scenario is already being played out. The writer is quite the ignorant fellow.

[BigSkyFreeper]

A Tom Shales wannabe.

[huldah1776]

Well, we always bust on drug users. But here is my response:

Uh, who was the guy we saw in diapers? And how long does it take before you actually learn how to create a bill or sign onto it or vote for it? Obviously some democrats still don’t know how to be a true representative and listen to their constituents AND they don’t read the bills anyway! AAArrrgggghhhh.

[jonrick46]

The Left has this fantasy that the Tea Party Movement will dry up and go away. All they do is live in a fantasy world; much of it is drug induced. The idea that the Tea Party Movement will drive itself into the ditch is another use of Alinsky technique. It is an effort to make it look like your opposition does what you do. The term for it is projection.

It is the Left that is driving America into the ditch with its drive into socialism.

[fight_truth_decay]

...frustrated angry Bedouins, completely bumfuzzled over the complexities of modernity, return to what they know best — the desert...

I think she is making a ethnic slur against Bedouins!!!

[Blood of Tyrants]

Fools clutch desperately to their delusions.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

The writer is so full of sh*t that it would solve the world’s fertilizer problem for decades.

One kingsized enema coming up!

[Blood of Tyrants]

Obastard made the mistake of thinking the frog in the pot had been drugged so thoroughly that it wouldn’t jump out of the pot even if he poured in boiling water.

[BobP]

Progressives are the true “know-nothings” of our time. They reject reason, logic and the accumulated wisdom of the ages in favor of their emotional prescriptions, all of which lead to the same end: power and control over that which they had no hand in creating.

-------------------------------------

They reject God.

These sick people see the government as their God, with their President as the Godhead. He and his ilk only believe in themselves.

He is a socialist pure and simple, all rights come from what the government deems the people should have at that point in time,, it's the basic tenet of Zer0's belief system.

He detests the basic values of America, and tries to replace virtue with political correctness, and freedom with socialism.

The social experiment is over, time to run the Kenyan out of office.

VOTE THEM ALL OUT IN NOVEMBER.

Look out Zer0, the hope and change is a coming... and not from you.

[Cyber Liberty]

What do you think “Hurl, you shall” means?

It tells me people are starting to speak in "Yoda."

[Leo Carpathian]

We need to vote in more Tea Chicks, for RAT presstitutes to be busy writing those “stimulating” articles.
Vote the bastRATs out!!!

[Leo Carpathian]

We need to vote in more Tea Chicks, for RAT presstitutes to be busy writing those “stimulating” articles.
Vote the bastRATs out!!!

[kcvl]

Keep it up A-Hole...you are only making me want to crawl over dead bodies to VOTE!

http://tinyurl.com/2dplw4t