Okay folks, I know it's impolite to mock the afflicted... but dammit, when they're serving up material on a silver platter like this, and from multiple directions, there's just no way any human being has the will power to let it go.
It's Teabaggin' Day, and I've been laughing my ass off fairly steadily since I fired up the ol' PC this morning. It's to the point where I've guffawed and grinned so much that the back of my scalp aches. This whole load of right-wing batshittery couldn't have gone more exquisitely awry if I'd rubbed a friggin' magic lamp and fired off a triple-barreled wish to that end.
I know a number of people who are all huffing-and-puffing serious about going to their "Tea Parties" today, and dropping Rick Santelli's name like it was the name of God itself, suddenly doing the same with Thomas Paine (now that Glenn Beck has recast Paine in the mold of a 21st-century anti-intellectual wingnut), and would probably even be dressing up as Indians if the idea didn't threaten their sense of supreme whiteness so badly.
And then, in a not-particularly shocking development, nobody's showing up to these things. 200 in Philly, 500 at Lafayette Park in DC, and of course there's the infamous FAUX News banner from earlier today about "hundreds" of protesters gathering in Boston. Best part was, the footage they showed almost looked to be more accurately described as "dozens".
But... but... I thought they "surrounded" us?! Weren't legions of pudgy, out-of-shape dittoheads from sea to whining sea supposed to magically turn into Chuck Norris clones and put a heap of hurtin' on us stinking leftist Arugulans? Whilst daintily waving tea bags over their heads?
Fact of the matter is, this thing is generating attendance numbers roughly comparable to what one would expect on a weeknight during a Michael Richards comeback stand-up tour. I think the mid-season cancellation of Firefly drew bigger protest crowds than this.
On top of that, it was reportedly raining sideways in DC this morning as the Teabaggers were beginning to gather in preparation for giving President Obama what-fer. Even Mother Nature seems to have zero ability to refrain from de-pantsing these small roving bands of raving Teabaglicans. Had it then suddenly begun to rain lemons, it would have been the perfect gag.
And then, in a final shoe up the collective teabag, it turned out that the DC Teabaglicans didn't even get to dump their tea in front of Casa de Obama:
"We have a million tea bags here, and we don't have a place to put them because it's not on our permit," said Rebecca Wales, lead organizer of D.C. Tea Party.
(That's always, by the way, been my favorite part of any of the drawings and engravings I've seen of the actual Boston Tea Party - the guy standing off to one side in the feathered headdress and the waistcoat holding a copy of the official permit that allowed them to dump the tea into Boston Harbor.)
I'm sure the fun's not over yet, and eyewitness accounts and photos will continue to turn up throughout the day and evening. And yes, I realize that this is a pretty low-brow diary on the subject, since I'm not coming up with any pithy political commentary and am merely doing a bunch of self-indulgent schtick about the whole thing. I leave that to the more thoughtful among us. Me, I just think this sideshow is as big and ridiculous a side-splitter as the wingeroonies have come up with in ages, and I'm having too damned much fun with it.