The Tea Party that Didn't Bark

Most all of us are familiar with the Sherlock Holmes story where the biggest clue was what the dog didn't do.

Well...did you know that there was another great teabagger rally in Washington today? Yes, wingnuts have been promoting it for some time now- the last great chance before the health care vote to demonstrate the wrath of the American people. Here's a sample of the online promotion for this event:











Now what would this have to do with Sherlock Holmes' non-barking dog?

Here's a report from the great event, from Fox News:

"Tea Party activists from across the country rallied outside Democratic congressional offices in Washington on Tuesday to protest the $875 billion health care bill and demand meetings with their respective members of Congress."

Sounds impressive. Boy, these guys are on a roll.

Now, remember the group Freedom Works, that organizes these tea parties? Yeah, they were the ones who claimed that the 70,000 people who showed up in Washington for the September tea party actually numbered a million and a half. Well, what was their "estimate" of the crowd this time? A hundred and thirty million? Nineteen billion or so?

" FreedomWorks estimated the attendance today closer to 1,000 "

Other estimates that I saw ranged from 500-1000 to as low as 300.

So what did the dog not do? He didn't show up. Bad doggie.

















Forget it. I'm staying home.




A thousand! or maybe 300! Hear the people roar!

Well, this post is not just about ridicule (although Green Eagle can never pass on that opportunity.) Here is what is more than obvious at this point:

SORRY, GUYS. THE PARTY'S OVER! You lost. Having attended a bunch of tea parties, my opinion is that the whole thing has been falling apart since the first big teabag day last April 15th. Well, I think it's dead now. Nothing has been keeping the teabag movement conscious but the willingness of our prurient press to collaborate in maintaining the fiction that this is a viable movement. Any illusion on that score pretty much came to an end today. Turns out the American people aren't that enraged at getting health care, after all.

Comments

rockync said…
Good post;I suspected the tea baggers were mostly a scam that would fade away.
Green Eagle said…
Yeah, obviously I agree. You can always count on Republicans to lie, but I first got suspicious of this sort of thing at the time of the Terri Schiavo affair. The news was wall to wall for weeks with stories about the protests outside her nursing home. I started looking at the footage of the crowd; since then I must have looked at hundreds of pictures of these "protests." I have never found a picture with more than three or four dozen people in it; yet the press was happy to reward these synthetic events with endless coverage. Since then, it's always the same with right wing events- unquestioning repetition of right wing claims, and small groups of paid-for protesters presented as a huge movement.
Poll P. said…
That's the cutest dog I ever saw! I can't believe he's a Republican!

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