"Now Where Did I Put That Doggone Country of Mine?"

Some polls and surveys have given us more information about those who identify themselves as TEA Party members. Most of the data is quite predictable, to wit: TEA Baggers are almost exclusively white. They are above average in age. Virtually all of them call themselves Christian, with many of them saying they are fundamentalist or evangelical Christians. Most would like to overturn Roe v. Wade. They are pro-gun, anti-tax, anti-government. They like Sarah Palin. They strongly dislike Barack Obama. A large majority say Fox News is their source of choice for staying informed. No real surprises with any of that.

Somewhat unexpected was that most of them still had most of their teeth, about half were college graduates, and around 20% said they made more than $100,000 annually. A Dispatch article summarized these findings and ended with a quote from a TEA Party woman, who said, "See? We're normal. We're educated. We're just like everybody else. It's the liberal media that tries to paint us as nutjobs just because we happen to know for a fact that Obama's a Muslim Socialist born in Kenya." (Really using that college education, isn't she?)

Buster has noticed two things about the TEA Baggers: One, they are truly convinced that they are the majority, and therefore mainstream. They are not. The polling results perfectly describe far-right arch-conservatives. Might be 10% of the American public, 20% tops. And two, they are very fond of saying, "I want my country back!", as if it were misplaced or stolen. Often, the words are screamed out with great anger.

It's time to channel the late Howard Cosell and tell it like it is: Their missing "country" is a fiction that never really existed to begin with. It's a Norman Rockwell/Beaver Cleaver bullshit dreamworld with clean-cut WASP families all living, working and praying together in perfect Kum-Ba-Yah harmony. Sounds like Stepford, Connecticut. Preserve me!

More telling it like it is: Where was all this anti-government vitriol while Dubya was running up record deficits and lying out of both sides of his mouth simultaneously? What if the current Democratic President was a low-key, well-spoken moderate white guy named John Smith, instead of a low-key, well-spoken moderate black-ish guy with a funny name? Despite all their protests to the contrary, could it be that there's more than a little raciscm at work in the TEA Party? To borrow a phrase, You betcha!