[csense]

He absolutely did not intend to imply racial animus to the Tea Party.

It certainly seems that way to me. I'm not sure how you can spin the following to mean anything other than that:

Ask yourself this Tea Party, is it about Obama's race? Because that what it appears to be to me. If you're against him, but you're for this guy, it must be about race"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOkaLfJyqyw&feature=player_embedded

[andy58-in-nh]

The clip is taken out of context, which is not entirely surprising since it was edited and uploaded by ThinkProgress, a George Soros-funded project of the Center for American Progress. Viewed in its entirety, what Beck clearly meant to do was to illustrate the absurdity of conservative Tea Party members supporting someone who in many respects represents the opposite of what they do.

As I said in my post, I think his is a poorly-considered argument. Gingrich's attachment to Progressivism is nowhere near as complete and profound as Obama's. If Tea Party members are still searching for a viable candidate, it is not because they are intellectually confused or because they have been misled, but rather because no single candidate seems to adequately represent their interests.

In his rush to battle the forces of Progressivism, Beck ignores a more immediate and critical battle: the war between the Republican Party's leadership and its rank-and-file members, which is both largely unremarked and unprecedented in modern political history.

If you polled GOP party leaders and opinion makers in Washington as to their Presidential preferences, Mitt Romney would emerge as a nearly-unanimous choice. One small problem: Republican primary voters (like many of us here) detest the man and will not vote for him, ever. It's Ruling Class vs. Country Class, and in a sense the '12 GOP primary race has become a proxy for that fight, which I believe will very soon break out into the open, possibly with a revolt against the GOP leadership. We'll see.