I'll be honest. When I decided to head down to the tea party in D.C. today, I just expected to spend the morning rolling my eyes, laughing at some (most) of the people there, and maybe occasionally resisting the urge to punch someone, but generally just amuse myself at the freak show around me.
But you know what? I learned a few things. About teabaggers. And indeed, I think about life itself.
1) Teabaggers love the USA. Maybe a little too much. Like, in an "obsessed ex-girlfriend" kind of way.
It's never not a good time for teabaggers to start chanting "USA! USA! USA!" Never. I'm not entirely sure why, but it seemed to make them really happy.
2) Teabaggers aren't good at math
Possibly because LBJ or Carter or Clinton tried to address them at school when they were kids, their parents kept them out, and they missed an important lesson. Who knows? But while down by the Capitol, I heard all kinds of crowd estimates, anywhere from 250,000 to over a million.
Michelle Malkin is actually claiming two million, which would mean Glenn Beck has somehow mastered space and time itself, and managed to fit a crowd larger than the one that attended Obama's inauguration into an area a fraction of the size of the one the crowd from January took up.
In actuality:
This photo was taken around noon, when the event was in full swing. There was no crowd behind me. In fact, at one point, one of the organizers had to tell everyone to move in closer, because the rally didn't have a permit to be on the Mall. (The teabaggers didn't like this. There were boos and ominous grumbling, and I heard a few fantasies from the people around me about what they'd do to the cops if they were told to move.)
In a further affront to math, one of the speakers tried to claim that Obama and McCain each got half the vote. Well, no, not really. One got slightly more. That's why he's president and the other one isn't.
3) Teabaggers like to play dress-up
Whether they're pretending to be from 1773 (when people like President Obama weren't so darn uppity!) or some sort of teabagging superhero with a Soviet flag for a cape, make-believe appears to be easier for them than reality.
4) Teabaggers won't vote for Democrats
No, I know. It's a shock. But apparently, if Democratic congressmen and senators don't do what the teabaggers want--which seems to be not even passing watered-down health care reform, but passing no health care reform whatsoever--teabaggers are going to vote for the Republican candidate in 2010.
You hear that, Congressional Democrats? You're in danger of losing support you never had! Better act fast and do nothing! Otherwise, that teabagger vote? Gone. And I don't think you're getting it back.
5) Teabaggers don't need your stinking health care reform
There were obese teabaggers. There were chain smoking teabaggers. There were teabaggers with missing teeth. There were teabaggers using canes and wheelchairs. At least one of them collapsed and was taken away in an ambulance.
Apparently, their logic is, "I don't need health care! Why do you?" I'm surprised Fox News hasn't tried floating the idea that heart disease is a liberal myth.
6) Teabaggers are classy, classy, classy, classy people.
Ron Burgundy would be proud. Wait...no, he wouldn't. Wes Mantooth and the Channel 9 Evening News team might be, though.
More photos can be found here.
