1 Oh I'm sure he knows all about it. Just the same spin as when they tried to convnce us that Bush wasn't concerned about his approval rating. To be fair, the Bush administration didn't seem to care too much about statements of dissent. Granted, I thought Obama was going to be the type of guy to address this type of thing head-on. So that's pretty dissappointing. And for the record, I do remember the dead being way popular in our school. Granted, that's also when pot-smoking got way popular too...if only I could draw a connection between the 2...

2 I'm still marveling at how a handful (or even one or two) pink-shirted screamers garnered a spot on every evening news program on regular and cable TV--and these people were taken seriously & treated with deference, but thousands of people turning out in droves, peaceably assembling for a specific purpose were 1) not covered or, if they were, 2) they were treated with disdain and oral sex references. Bravo to those who, had I not been paying better attention, would have had me doing a song and dance for my 10-year-old rather than explaining to her what teabagging is. SUPER thoughtful and mature.

3 Excerpted from Alinsky's rules for radicals. Sound familiar? RULE 5: "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon." There is no defense. It's irrational. It's infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions. (Pretty crude, rude and mean, huh? They want to create anger and fear.) RULE 6: "A good tactic is one your people enjoy." They'll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They're doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones. (Radical activists, in this sense, are no different that any other human being. We all avoid "un-fun" activities, and but we revel at and enjoy the ones that work and bring results.) RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.) But no, the 4th estate/5th column isn't biased. What we should do as a movement is close ranks. No media interviews, no punditry, no debates. Make grassroots just that, and go old-school. Door to door, word of mouth, etc. As you DH will attest, the movement has to control the message, and therefore the media. Then, we protest the media in ways that will force them to respond (like swarming their offices and shutting them down) and still control the message, ensuring all protesters refuse comment, deferring only to the pointed spokespersons, who must be out most well educated, normal-looking, no-skeletons-in-the-closet, and charismatic people. (I nominate you, Sarah.) Even more fun, go after the advertisers. Protest their support of an elitist, biased media that invents news and produces piss-yellow journalism. Force them to pull ads from news programs, news papers, and even the news networks. How about an Oprah's book club burning? That'd make the news right? Yes, but in a very bad way. Any journalist who uses "teabaggers" is immediately banned from interviews. Even if that interview has NOTHING to do with the tea party movement. They should receive a standardized answer that you refuse to speak with them, personally, because of their bias on other issues. Cite examples, if you like, but don't enter into discussions with them about it. And to make it even more intriguing, use tactics practiced by the Falun Gong. Those people scare the crap out of the Chinese gummint. Most important, we have to figure out how to identify and discourage the crazies. --Chuck

4 Hah! Dead Heads at RHS. Uh, what a great story and accurate recap. Yeah, I remember the stink eye I would give all the dead heads. And then I end up marrying one! Isn't that freakin' karma. This summer - 1 Dead concert and 1 Phish concerts. I think God is LHFAO at my expense. But at least I'm a good sport about it.