A regular reader of Skip’s articles, Bill Hallbert, commented that the use of the term ‘Lame Stream Media’ is too polite… that ‘Pravda West’ would be more appropriate. A good point, Bill… one that, along with some events the last couple of days, has inspired me to write this article while sitting in for Skip.

It was my misfortune to catch Bill Maher in conversation with Letterman last night. Naturally, it descended to the depths of old, worn-out attacks on anything right-of-center in a feeble attempt at humor. Donald Trump’s hair, Sarah Palin’s mind, George W. Bush’s presidency and the Tea Party were all precursors to the stage-prompted bouts of applause and laughter.

Letterman was in his element… he could let his guest gush with spiel that reflected his own views and not even have to think about asking any questions… probably a good thing, given the question put to Cote de Pablo (Ziva David) later in the show… “Is there a real NCIS?” Yes, Dave, there’s a real FBI too. And a real US government… or what’s left of it!

After mocking The Donald and Sarah Palin’s brief tenure in a state where “no one lives” (I’m sure that endeared them to the folks in Alaska!), blaming Bush (what’s new?) for the debt crisis (while conveniently omitting the fact that Obama is racking up more debt than all of his 43 predecessors combined), they turned their attention to the Tea Party.  read more »

So where does the Tea Party stand today? If you ask that question in different locations you are going to get many different answers. If you listen to lefties such as columnist Ted Reinstein, you will hear that the Tea Party is a dying dinosaur suffering from what he describes as the terminal illness of being uncompromising. Reinstein blames the recent slow budget compromise on unbending Tea Party-supported Republicans who he asserts would destroy the country to get their way. Of course he also portrayed the GOP’s original $100 billion budget cut proposal as “devastating.” Who is living in reality here? Reinstein repeats the same mantra often chanted by liberals that the political right can only be “right” when they act like the left. The Tea Party and their candidate’s refusal to break from conservative values in exchange for liberals’ acceptance continue to be a painful and puzzling enigma to the left. This has brought about many false descriptions.

            Back in 2009 liberals like Nancy Pelosi erroneously described the Tea Party as “AstroTurf” and said that attendees were funded by the “high end” with the organization being heavily influenced by the Republican Party. Since that time, Tea Party voters have often voted against liberal Republicans with decent results. Time has made it easy to see that Pelosi was wrong in her “AstroTurf” assessment of the Tea Party but was she wrong because she was attempting to deceive the public or because liberals can’t seem to truly fathom everyday people that champion controlled spending, an adherence to the Constitution and traditional American values? To be fair to Pelosi, Reinstein and other liberals, it’s a hefty amount of both.  read more »