UPDATED: Plan B for the Anti-Tea Party Attack Poodles
The next stage? Now that the Tea Party Movement seems a teeny bit more tangible (at least tangible enough to get the attention of the MSM) the attack on Tea Parties is taking on a different shape. Cases in point are established Leftie journalist and academic Marc Cooper – on today’s L.A. Times – and good ol’ “conservative blogger” Andrew Sullivan.
Their take goes something like this: So what! It lacks substance! Empty theatrics! Where are the policy proposals? Protesting for protest’s sake! Hollow!
Note, however, that Marc Cooper knows quite well that it’s possible to go from protest to politics: to go from “creative civil disobedience” to “long-term, strategic and politically effective ways.” Yes. It makes sense. But I guess Cooper’s just not willing to grant to Tea Partiers the same patience and confidence he showed to the World Social Forum, a group that happens to dislike capitalism and neo-liberalism (which is to say “free market economics”), when he wrote the lines I quote above. Chalk it up to bias and plain old missing the point.
Andrew Sullivan at least offers what could pass for good advice: “All protests against spending that do not tell us how to reduce it are fatuous pieces of theater, not constructive acts of politics.” However, it’s hard to take words about constructive acts of politics seriously from the leading Trig Truther in America today. I guess Sullivan thinks he remains a credible observer of politics. Perhaps he does. He’s certainly not credible as long as he’s willing to use the term “constructive” when making an argument.
UPDATE: Professor Douglas addresses Cooper’s rant here.
