Behind the right's insani-tea
Elizabeth Schulte reports on the right-wing Tax Day protests--and the nasty politics that lie beneath the surface.

IN WHAT they called the "spirit of the American revolution," conservatives organized protests in cities and towns across the country on April 15--Tax Day--dubbing them "tea parties." "Tea" stood for "Taxed Enough Already," according to organizers, who took aim at the Obama administration for spreading "socialism" and "big government," and "wasting" taxpayer money on social spending in the economic stimulus package.

"They want us to hold our noses and take a little bit of socialism, like a child taking a bitter pill," Washington state Sen. Janéa Holmquist told a crowd in Olympia. "You can get pregnant with a little socialism, and sooner or later, you're going to give birth to a full-blown Marxist." The protesters brought teabags, to symbolize the American colonists who dumped tea into Boston Harbor in 1773 to protest unjust taxation imposed by the British king. The repeated use of the word "teabag" (as in "We're going to teabag the White House") made the arch-conservatives shilling for the protests--including Dick Armey, oh my!--the target of justified derision, and plenty of semi-naughty jokes.

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