Tea Party’s bigotry is a birthmark, not a tattoo

[MrScorpio]

ALLISON KILKENNY
UNREPORTED

The very public implosion of the Republican base into a tribe of frothing-at-the-mouth racist, homophobic militants has been so extensively documented that it has inspired former Conservative bloggers like John Cole and Andrew Sullivan to renounce and/or heavily modify their political ideologies.

Through it all, the claim from party leadership and beltway insiders has been that the Republican Party has newly fractured into two extremist sects: the Neo-Conservatives, hellbent on world domination, and the Tea Party militants, who refuse to recognize a Democratic and/or black president, and who truly believe feminists, blacks, gays, Hispanics, the poor, and the unions (the dangerous — yet strangely amorphous — “Them” Glenn Beck always whips out when a specific enemy isn’t readily available) are encircling the suburbs.

The Tea Party base has been described as a new phenomenon — a surprising turn of events that no one could have ever, ever predicted. Most recently, a spokesman for Astroturf Inc. FreedomWorks, quoted his boss, Dick Armey:

"Regardless of who yelled what, the reports themselves could be problematic for the tea party movement, said Adam Brandon, a spokesman for FreedomWorks, the small government group that helped organize tea partiers congressional office visits last week.

“Tattoos last forever,” said Brandon, quoting his boss, FreedomWorks chairman and former House Republican Leader Dick Armey. “If the movement gets tattooed as at all sympathetic to those (racist and homophobic) views, I won’t want to be involved in it anymore. It’s very distracting not only to our side but also to the debate and the country.”

The rest: http://trueslant.com/allisonkilkenny/2010/03/23/tea-partys-bigotry-is-a-birthmark-not-a-tattoo/

[Bicoastal]

1. That's a good turn of phrase.

I'll have to remember that.

[Blue Meany]

3. Yeah, well, just because they're born that way doesn't mean

we should let them get married <sarcasm>.

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. “If the movement gets tattooed as at all sympathetic to those (racist and homophobic) views, I won’t

want to be involved in it anymore. It’s very distracting not only to our side but also to the debate and the country.”

Which is why, in the 50s, the republican establishment SHUNNED the tea-party's forerunners, the John Birch Society.

Today, the republican establishment is embracing them.

[louis-t]

4. We've had this debate before.

I've always thought that kind of thinking is learned.

[4dog]

6. A mix of nature and nurture n/t

[louis-t]

7. Nature and nurture! Ha!

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

5. Wow, GMTA.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x242436#242508

I swear I did not see the above article before posting this.