TEA Party

Chris Matthews, who has repeatedly denounced the "hateful" Tea Partiers and once compared them to the Muslim Brotherhood, admitted on Thursday that the conservative protesters have "a point." The admission came during an attempt to suggest that both the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street have failings. [MP3 audio here.]

The Hardball host conceded, "I may surprise some people with this, but both of the movements, right as well as left, had a point, a good point to make. Both of them. Government is spending too much money. If you mean it's spending more than people are willing to finance in taxes." Could it be that Matthews is souring on the Occupy crowd, now that there are reports of defecating on cars and rapes?

(Update:  Reuters quietly improves statement by eliminating the word 'often'.  Thank you Reuters, for being forthright in the error, er, slipping this in, in the hopes that your readers won't notice.  We're certain that all of the Tea Party Patriots being wrongfully portrayed as racist appreciate the effort.) 

Reuters recently ran a piece that analyzed persistent race issues amidst the Obama presidency, and managed to take a racial swipe at the Tea Party in the process. 

As always, the piece diverts attention away from the President and toward conservatives.  Any controversy involving the administration is portrayed as a mere distraction for the President in his alleged post-racial presidency.  The analysis draws a conclusion that the ‘right-wing noise machine', conservative groups, conservative media, and the Tea Party/NAACP debate are all implicit in creating this racial distraction - and ultimately taking the spotlight off of Obama and his ‘biggest achievements'.  (Is consistently usurping the will of the American people an achievement?)

But what stands out in the article (h/t NewsBuster reader Texndoc) is an obvious misstatement of facts.  An implication that racist imagery at Tea Party rallies is prevalent, has been presented as truth.  Patricia Zengerle, the White House correspondent at Reuters, writes (emphasis mine), "Images such as Obama with a bone through his nose and the White House with a lawn full of watermelons are often displayed at Tea Party rallies."

Reuters and Zengerle were contacted via e-mail several times for clarification on the statement, but the only response thus far has been ...

I'm confused. If  major media allows/promotes the hatred of a group (tea partiers) they must think it's okay to be a racist now. right?

CNN reporter Susan Roesgen became a pseudo-"journalistic" anti-hero yesterday for her obnoxiously belligerent interview of one Taxed Enough Already (TEA) Party participant and her overall assessment of the more than 750 events around the country as amongst other derogatory things "anti-government." 

But in another segment, she delved into rank hypocrisy the likes of which we rarely find even in the woefully biased liberal media pantheon.

In it she sought out another TEA Party participant who had a mocked-up sign in which President Barack Obama is melded with Adolf Hitler.  She immediately began arguing with this gentleman as well; amongst the things she angrily said were "Why be so hard on the President of the United States with such an offensive message?" and "Do you realize how offensive that is?"

We will admit that portraying President Obama as Der Fuhrer is a bit over the top.  But Miss Roesgen's sensitivity to being "so hard on the President of the United States with such an offensive message" seems only to arise when the Hitler-izing involves Democratic Commanders-in-Chief.