The St. Louis Tea Party Was A Success!!

My friends and I had a great time at Wednesday's Tax Day Tea Party Protest. It was announced that the Park Service estimated the crowd to be 5,000-7,000 people, which sadly was under reported by Channel 5 during their 5:00 a.m. newscast the following morning. (Sadly, too, for Channel 5, the Tea Party Protest didn't come in the line-up of stories for about the first 10 minutes or so ... following a brief update on the Blues hockey team. Shameful.)

We had enthusiastic and inspiring talks from such people as Jim Hoff of Gateway Pundit, talk show host Dana Loesch, and blogger Bill Hennessy (Loesch and Hennessy were the main organizers). My favorite speaker was Kevin Jackson, who proudly spoke of being a Black Conservative. (He has a great blog at The Black Sphere. Soon his book "Rants from a Black Conservative" will be out.)

I wasn't so quick to write my "review" of the event, since I spent a lot of time watching TV and reading online about how this event was covered by the MSM. From what I surmise, the majority of news outlets under reported, slanted, and slandered the 500 protest tea parties around the country, some networks even getting on a vulgar level with their remarks. Some networks claimed the FoxNews was behind the events. Gee, and you wonder why FoxNews does beat the beejeebers out of all the other networks combined. (See Gateway Pundit's post today about how FoxNews beats CNN, MSNBC, and Headlines News -- combined.)

Other networks downplayed the anger expressed by protestors such as The New York Times and NPR. Here are some excerpts from the Times' story the following day (note the low numbers in the crowd estimates, which do coincide with those reported by those who attended):

It was hard to determine from the moderate turnout just how effective the parties would be. In Philadelphia, a rally in Center City drew about 200 rain-soaked participants.

Several hundred people showed up in Lafayette Park opposite the White House, until the park and parts of Pennsylvania Avenue were cleared while a robot retrieved what the Secret Service confirmed was a box of tea bags.

In Pensacola, Fla., about 500 protesters lined a busy street, some waving “Don’t Tread on Me” flags and carrying signs reading “Got Pork?” and “D.C.: District of Corruption.”

In Austin, Tex., Gov. Rick Perry energized a crowd of about 1,000 by accusing the Obama administration of restricting states’ rights and vaguely suggesting that Texas might want to secede from the union.

In downtown Houston, there were some in the crowd of 2,000 that poured into the Jesse H. Jones Plaza who also wanted Texas to secede.

Some networks got downright nasty in their reporting. The main, non-cable networks ABC, CBS and NBC attempted to discredit the protesters' efforts, mixing in accusations of right-wing extremism and anti-immigrant sentiments -- the usual PC tactic of labeling in order to shut down open debate. According to NewsBusters.org:

The broadcast network evening newscasts on Wednesday provided prominent coverage of the “Tea Party” rallies across the nation with time for the views of participants, but they tried to discredit the protests as a front for “corporate interests” or a “fistful of rightward leaning Web sites” -- a concern for motives and hidden agendas the same programs lacked when championing the 2006 pro-illegal immigrant marches. All three also cited polls to undermine the premise the public shares the concerns on taxes and spending espoused by the “tea party” protesters.

Cable networks resorted to low-level, sexually suggestive "humor" to ridicule the efforts of the Tea Party protesters, calling attenders "tea baggers", using the term "teabagging", with CNN's anchor Anderson Cooper quipping "It's hard to talk when you're teabagging." From FoxNews (the supposed catalyst behind the nationwide event):

For thousands of Americans, Tax Day was a moment to protest what they see as bloated budgets and a pile of debt being passed on to their children.

For CNN, MSNBC and other media outlets, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to use the word "teabagging" in a sentence.

Teabagging, for those who don't live in a frat house, refers to a sexual act involving part of the male genitalia and a second person's face or mouth.

So when the anti-tax "tea party" protests were held Wednesday across the country, cable anchors and guests -- who for weeks had all but ignored the story -- covered the protests by cracking a litany of barely concealed sexual references.

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper interspersed "teabagging" references with analyst David Gergen's more staid commentary on how Republicans are still "searching for their voice."

"It's hard to talk when you're teabagging," Cooper explained. Gergen laughed, but Cooper kept a straight face.

MSNBC's David Shuster weaved a tapestry of "Animal House" humor Monday as he filled in for Countdown host Keith Olbermann.

The protests, he explained, amount to "Teabagging day for the right wing and they are going nuts for it."

He described the parties as simultaneously "full-throated" and "toothless," and continued: "They want to give President Obama a strong tongue-lashing and lick government spending." Shuster also noted how the protesters "whipped out" the demonstrations this past weekend.

It's amazing the misinformation that our MSM continues to put out regarding the Tea Party participants a few days following the nationwide, 750-cities event. Today , in fact, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg dopily claimed that Tea Party goers were actually protesting against the military by protesting taxes. He wrote: "Of course, they didn't think they were speaking out against our military and our vets -- they hadn't really thought it through at all. They were under the impression they were condemning federal taxes. But where do federal tax dollars go? By far the largest chunk -- more than a quarter -- supports our military and takes care of aging vets" [Source]

Such an idiot! First of all, at the Tea Party I attended, one of the speakers asked for a show of hands of those who had served in the military. As maaaaany hands shot up in the air, applause and cheers broke out from the crowd as an expression of gratitude for their service. Something tells me that these people are the ones that characteristically support funding of the military, rather than the budget-slashing Democrats during the Carter and Clinton administrations or the nitwit Democrats in Congress who last year were "playing chicken" with funding the war in the Iraq, to use the words of The One himself.

Isn't it amazing how shabbily the MSM treated this event. I dare them to do the same for other protests and gatherings. Picture it: the MSM making similar vicious attacks on people who participate in such events as The Million Man March, anything to do with Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, Earth Day, Arbor Day, March of Dimes ...