Tea party protesters are real Americans

The other day, across the nation thousands of Americans took to the streets in “tea parties” to protest among other things the government’s wasteful spending that our great-grandchildren will have to pay for. These people are the same sorts of people that William Graham Sumner referred to more than 12 decades ago: The Forgotten Man. “The man who pays, the man who prays, the man who is not thought of.”  In fact they are Republicans, Democrats, independents, and just your average main-street folks who are simply fed up.

However political pit bull Paul Begala called them “weasels.” Actress/comedienne Janeane Garofalo said the tea parties were for “rednecks” and “racists.” Columnist Paul Krugman called the tea parties “phony outrage or ignorant outrage, a radical assault on reason and the violent rhetoric coming from the likes of the right’s mouthpieces.”  Rachel Maddow, a host on MSNBC, referred to the protestors as “tea-bagging” (a vulgar sneer I shan’t visualize). Not to mention the day-long cynicism from the leftwing media, who have forgotten how to cover the news objectively. Mockers? Scoffers? Propagandists? They just don’t disagree; they degrade and disagree.

I call the protestors “real Americans!”

STEVE HATCHER

Clark Fork