Howard Fineman: 'Tea Party People Are Not Here To Legislate. They're Here To Demonstrate'

The media's hatred of the Tea Party knows no bounds.

On Sunday's syndicated Chris Matthews Show, the Huffington Post's Howard Fineman said, "The Tea Party people are not here to legislate. They're here to demonstrate" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

HOWARD FINEMAN, HUFFINGTON POST: The Tea Party people are not here to legislate. They're here to demonstrate. They didn't get to do it on the tax fiscal cliff in the end. They want to do it to something. They want to go over the edge. And this will take them over the edge and they will lose politically and the president is going to have to scramble to shut things down and credit ratings will be affected.

CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: When’s the public going to make a verdict on whether they like that kind of behavior?

FINEMAN: Well, they sort of did in the last election.

Here we go again: Obama's media misinforming the public about the debt ceiling.

Unlike what folks such as Fineman claim, the world would not end if the debt ceiling wasn't raised.

As conservatives pointed out during 2011's battle, the treasury receives ample tax revenues to make interest payments and cover most government expenditures.

There is no looming risk of America defaulting on its bonds, and any suggestion to the contrary is media malpractice.

As for the Tea Party's legislative ambitions, its members clearly did go to Washington to accomplish such a thing, but what angers people such as Fineman is they aren't going to vote for bills they don't agree with.

This of course is completely acceptable when a Republican is in the White House, but when the opposition doesn't just roll over and give a Democratic president what he wants, it's a sin.

As for what the last election meant, if it was such an uprising against the Tea Party, why didn't Democrats take back the House?

Not surprisingly, Fineman didn't consider that in his misguided analysis.