My take on the tea parties

I think an awful lot of how the folks who attended these things are much like me -- just plain angry at our current political system for a whole variety of reasons, and many of them Independents. I'm proud of those folks for getting out, showing up, and showing that it's not only the far left who can hold protests and make noise. That said, I was disappointed in the tenacles that the republican party had into these protests (even though I believe these protests were LARGELY true grassroots efforts) as well as by the appearance of republican politicians at many of the protests. And FoxNews basically being an advocate for these protests? That's not journalism, it's advocacy, and it's reason why I am always just as critical of FoxNews as I am of the far left media outlets like MSNBC and CNN. But I digress. The republican appearances and republican connection to many of these protests, in my view, really did a disservice to these events. For example, it gave the far left media outlets and far left blogosphere ammunition to claim that these protests were no more than republican-choreographed events attended exclusively by far right conservatives -- which clearly was not the case. I read several accounts from the far left media that did just exactly that, including a particularly disingenuous account on MSNBC. But that one criticism aside, I'm very proud of "the folks" tonight -- turning out in anger at our political system on such a widespread basis is really not something that I can remember occurring during my lifetime, and certainly not from a group of people that is not far left in persuasion.