Apparently, the teabagging isn’t going so well, at least in DC. Fox News’ Publicity Department should be ashamed…
First off, some genius thought the initial idea, to dump 1 million teabags in the Potomac River, was a good idea on some level. Now, anyone with a pulse would have to admit it was a pretty goddamn stupid idea to pollute a river as a political protest, especially since the government would probably have to pay for the cleanup. Have you seen the Potomac River? It’s better than it was when I was a kid, but it’s still not all that clean, so polluting the river with a million teabags wasn’t going to fly, especially as a protest of government spending. Oddly, they had to cancel when they found out such an act would be illegal. Who could have ever imagined that, huh?
So, according to The Washington Post, the right wing geniuses who thought polluting a river to make a point was a slamming idea, decided to move the protest to Lafayette Park, which is the park directly across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House. That plan involved the dumping of the same million teabags (why a million? I've never figured that one out...) on the ground and yell at them or something. Well, the truck showed up at the park, and started unloading the teabags, but it turned out they didn’t have a permit -- (What? You need a permit to dump a million teabags in a public park? What is this, Russia?), so they sent to truck off to who knows where, and the 1500 or so protesters “braved” the spring rain to express their displeasure at… um… what exactly?
Arthur Delaney of The Huffington Post was there, and provides the following quote, which is priceless.
"I'm here to protest the spending and the taxes and the government running the private affairs of private industries," said Steve, 51, a computer programmer who took the day off to drive from Northern Virginia and pay "a big chunk of money" to park in a downtown garage. "I'm here to protest the bailing out of companies when they should be going bankrupt."
So, let’s get this straight. A computer programmer, who makes his living on machines that were largely created and improved using government research and investment money is protesting the use of government money to support commerce? Also, how stupid do you have to be to pay $18-20 for parking (which is what it costs around there), when there is a Metro Station right next to Lafayette Park and two others within two blocks in either direction, with both train lines going to and from Northern Virginia, and costing less than $3 each way?
Did I tell you these righties aren’t very bright?
I’m not going to comment on the sign this asshole was carrying., except to note that the extent of right wing "cleverness" seems to be their mass adoption of “Urkel,” the iconic nerd from “Family Matters” to refer to Barack Obama. Sad, isn’t it?Bush looked more like Urkel than Obama does, except for the color of his... now... wait a minute...
The teabaggers also wanted to hold a second protest in front of the Treasury Building – which seems somewhat pointless, given that the Treasury Building is next to the White House, and adjacent to Lafayette Park, but that idea was scotched by the Secret Service. As most who protest near the White House know, protests there are usually forbidden, because it’s too close to the White House service entrance.
Of course, to top off this crapper of a day, apparently one of the protesters wasted a bunch of federal security money, by throwing an empty box over the damn White House fence. So the Secret Service have to clear the area, and use a robot to figure out it was nothing.
So, the net result of the DC teabagger? Nothing was accomplished, about 1500 people (or fewer) spent some time in the rain wishing they had some tea, and they wasted thousands of extra federal security dollars, just so they can bitch about a tax bill that has actually gone down under Obama or, in the case of one computer programmer, to bitch about government money, when his entire job exists because of past government spending…
When the right wing can’t waste money, as they have for the last 28 years, they just waste time…
