Rep. Maxine Waters Calls Protesters 'Teabaggers'

March 23rd, 2010 11:59 AM

Is it too much to ask for a member of Congress to show a little grace after a major legislative victory and not resort back to the lowest common denominator?


Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., who in 2008 made her own socialist Freudian slip, couldn’t handle that. In an appearance on HLN’s March 22 “The Joy Behar Show,” Waters expressed her jubilation over the House of Representative vote on health care reform on March 21.


“I was very pleased. It was truly a historic moment and I almost couldn`t believe it was happening,” Waters said. “It was surreal that all of a sudden it all came together after a year of debate and many times thinking it would never happen.”


And all this happened despite the best efforts of the tea party efforts to convince members of Congress there would be repercussions for voting on a bill that public opinion wasn’t in line with, or as Waters referred to them as “the teabaggers.”


“Thinking that the teabaggers out there had influenced a lot of people and had caused them to be on the ‘no’ side, and when it finally happened, I thought, my God, this certainly is historic,” Waters said. “This is a moment in history that will be remembered for a long time.”


The “teabagger” euphemism was made famous by MSNBC at the height of tea party rallies. Urbandictionary.com, cited multiple times by one of those MSNBC guests, describes it as when a man places his testicles “onto someone’s face, or into their mouth.”


Waters’ comment also comes on the heels of media complaints about the tea party protests and claims offensive things were said by protesters.

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