@The Giant Noodle, I am not 100% but I recall making this point before and you making counterpoints against it? I could be wrong but yes, this thing has been hijacked by Dick Armey, Sarah Palin, and Glenn Beck to make some money and guilt people into thinking what they think or else they aren't American enough. It's like if you took what George W was about and filtered it into pure form, threw it in the microwave and then pissed in it. You have the tea party movement.
Am I saying Bush W was that bad? Hell no not even close. I would say Bush did a lot of really good things, but he also did a lot of really bad things, and a lot of that was because he didn't have the know how, the oversight, and had congress by the balls. The tea party is mostly wrong now, and will continue to be wrong either way. This is the key difference.
Its far more likely that 'The GOP has hijacked the TEA party' idea started with the Dems as an effort to mal-characterize the GOP as a party full of hate-mongering extremists.
Not really considering the Tea Party supporters such as Beck and Palin have turned on a lot of very prominent conservatives, and Palin just last night was talking **** about the Republican seantor from MA Scott Brown for not being "constitutional" enough, and has even turned against the guy that brought her into the limelight, John McCain, so John McCain from 2010, had to run against John McCain from 2007 just to beat his tea party supported opponent.
Glenn Beck doesn't have much to do with tea parties and he's not a Republican.
I support the tea parties, but I'm not a Republican.
Bulllllllcraaaaaaap. Seriously has nothing to do with the tea party movement? Ok here let me give you 2 colorful pictures that will help you make the connection:
Here is the 9/12 project:
here is the Gadsen flag often used during Tea Party rallies:
Hmm **** I wonder where Beck got the idea......
The fact of the matter is though, you will see more people going to comicbook conventions than go to these little tea festivals. The media just pays to much attention to them.