Remember how you guys showed up in Nashville last February for the National Tea Party Convention at a rate of one reporter for every three Tea Partiers? For an event that drew 600 people? Yeah that was so fun!
And remember how we got daily reports from the event, nightly news coverage on cable and the major networks, and Sunday morning bobblehead panels devoted to the event? Again, all for an event that drew 600 people?
Yeah, we haven’t forgotten the barrage of news coverage for this gathering of wackos in tri-corner hats whose only message seemed to be they hated the President. So I’m sure you’re all going to descend on Las Vegas this week for Netroots Nation, right? Right?
I mean, a lot of progressives are really angry at the President right now, too. Not for being a socialist, of course, but for being not socialist enough. So it might be really fun for you guys. Nancy Pelosi will be there, and you might get to watch her booed by some DFH lefties. I smell an Emmy!
Plus, there are going to be panels on climate change, healthcare reform, social networking, gay marriage, immigration, the culture wars ... you know, all the stuff you guys devote so many gallons of ink and hours and hours of airtime to. So this should be a no-brainer. Especially since the event draws around 2,000 progressives.
So, Corporate Media, If you cover this event to the same degree you covered the National Tea Party Convention, I would expect over 650 reporters to be registered. Sadly, that doesn’t appear to be the case.
I wonder how many media folks were planning to attend Judson Phillips’ July Tea Party Convention in Las Vegas, now cancelled because of the heat (not lack of interest, they swear):
Judson Phillips, the founder of Tea Party Nation, said the group will try to reschedule the convention in October. He said many activists were interested in attending, but many also said they would not be able to come in July, when Las Vegas is likely to be baking in 100-degree-plus weather. (On Tuesday, Vegas was expected to hit a high of 106 degrees. But remember, it's a dry heat!)
Phillips would not say how many people signed up to attend the convention, to which he'd hoped to attract as many as 2,000 participants. He said it would be inaccurate to say that the convention was being canceled due to lack of interest. Among the speakers who had been booked for the event were Andrew Breitbart, Lou Dobbs, Sharron Angle, Laura Ingraham and Tom Tancredo.
Weenies. What kind of patriot wilts in a little heat? Think it didn’t get hot back in 1776?
I don’t for the life of me understand why the media is infatuated with the Tea Party but ignores liberals. If it’s an attempt to appear “not liberal,” it’s not going to work: last week I saw a car with a bumper sticker that read, “I Don’t Believe The Liberal Media.” You will never convince these folks otherwise and good riddance. One would hope in the wake of the media's latest Andrew Breitbart fail that they'd finally learn a lesson, but let's be real: all Andrew Bretibart's partisan ratfucking will do is get him a slot as a CNN "special correspondent."
Here's what I love: the media's endless musing over "what the Tea Party means" and "who the Tea Party is." C'mon. I'll tell you who the Tea Party is. It's the same 25% who gave George W. Bush high approval ratings at the end of his failed presidency, the conservative holdouts who believe climate change is fake, abstinence-only education works, evolution is a con, Saddam's WMDs were real, "trickle down" is a legitimate economic theory, and the only thing separating America from the Soviet Union is your insurance company's right to deny you benefits because of your pre-existing condition. It's the same far-right fringe we've always had, and attempts to dress up this pig in silk pajamas is the perfect demonstration of how thoroughly broken our national news media is.
C'mon, Corporate Media. Quit ignoring liberal voices. We're not going away.
