Teabag Tantrums Fail

April 15, 2010....The day the tea parties died.

I'm sorry to have been chained to my desk at the $250 million colossus of a movie that is my current employment, so I couldn't actually attend any tea parties yesterday, so what I have to report is basically from right wing blogs. That, however, tells an interesting story.

Many of the right wing blogs today essentially ignored the tea parties, which is perhaps the most telling thing to say about the whole tea party phenomenon. At the rest, there was not much of the boasting that they published after previous tea party days. A couple of the most bbelligerent blogs only wanted to talk about the imaginary left wing saboteurs that they have hallucinated up in recent weeks. Here's a sample of what I found:

Town Hall: "The Washington rally in brilliant sunshine was spirited but modest in size, lacking the star power of tea party favorite Sarah Palin, who roused the masses at earlier stops of the Tea Party Express in its cross-country bus tour."

"Modest in size." Boy, you never heard that before- every tea party was the biggest, most awesome thing ever! From my previous experience, I would think that "modest in size" is conservative speak for two geezers and a stray cat.

"Worried about liberal infiltrators, Kevin Terrell, a self-described colonel in the Ohio Valley Freedom Fighters militia based in Louisville, led about two dozen camouflaged followers on a patrol around the park. "I'm a little apprehensive because of the left-wing nut jobs out there," Terrell said."

Who apparently didn't bother to show up, although Town Hall doesn't quite make that clear for some reason.

"Police estimate 1,200 showed up in Hartford, Conn., where one sign plainly took sides: "Dump All Democrats." At least 1,000 paraded through downtown Boise, Idaho; about 500 rallied in Oklahoma City. In Montpelier, Vt., where 60 people mocked the government in song and word, Linda Chagnon, a 57-year-old caregiver from Burlington, carried a sign that read: "Give Me Liberty, Not Debt."

1200, 1000, 500, 60! Yes, Town Hall found it appropriate to give national publicity to a gathering of 60 people.

"About 300 turned out to watch former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, architect of the GOP's Contract with America agenda in the 1990s, sign the tea party's "Contract From America."

300 showed up to see one of the right's biggest stars.

"In Wisconsin, a half dozen tea party groups from around the state decided to boycott Thursday's rally in Madison because former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson was among the speakers."

"In Helena, Mont., activists smashed cardboard boxes symbolizing the crates of tea dumped into the harbor in the 1773 Boston Tea Party. More than 150 people waved flags and carried tea pots; signs said "Go Green, Recycle Congress."

150. One hundred and fifty people. In Montana.

And in Lansing, Mich., more than 1,000 sign-waving protesters cheered calls for tax cuts and states rights. "We have lived eight years of liberal Democratic leadership and Michigan is in shambles," Joan Fabiano of Grassroots in Michigan told the crowd. In Colorado, about 2,000 rallied in Denver and another 2,000 in Colorado Springs."

2,000 in Colorado Springs-the national center of right wing Christian politics- a place so dominated by Republican lunatics that its patriotic citizens won't pay enough taxes to pave the streets or staff the fire department.

Moe Lane, Red State: "So, that ‘Crash the Tea Party’ thing was a bust."

Or maybe it was just a figment of your somewhat overactive imagination.

Confederate Yankee: "The very day that hundreds of rallies are held across the nation, with tens of thousands of protesters drowning out the scattered voices of his supporters, (Obama) chooses to mock the concerns of growing number of Americans. That goes beyond mere arrogance to outright stupidity."

Not a word about how many people actually showed up.

Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit: "Busted… Radical Leftist Thug Turns Up at Two St. Louis Rallies";"Racist Leftist Infiltrators Driven From Tea Party Rallies"

Let's just leave aside the issue of whether these "radical leftist thugs" who, apparently, did absolutely nothing in the way of thuggery, even existed.

Hoft has consistently been one of the worst abusers in the way of overestimating crowds at tea party events, and even he couldn't muster the energy to make any claims today. In the past he could easily claim that a few dozen retirees in lawn chairs was actually an intergalactic army of about a quadrillion people, even when his own pictures made his claims look crazy. Today- nothing.

Most of the rest of the right wing blogs I follow didn't have much of anything to say about the tea parties, apparently hoping for "out of sight-out of mind." Even that compulsive liar, Joseph Farah, couldn't stir himself from his after-party torpor to make his usual preposterous claims.

Parrots are known for squawking, not crowing, but Green Eagle is going to give crowing a try here. I have been saying since the second big tea party day, last July 4th, that the tea party movement has been on a downhill course. Well, I was right. It's come to this. Cheering over a gathering of sixty people. Ignoring what actually happened in favor of spreading idiotic paranoid delusions about imaginary left wing thugs.

Guys, the party's over. This is a pathetic shell of a movement, propped up by Republican astroturf groups and a compliant media. There is no there there. It's over.