2/17/10:A note to media:Stop calling them Tea-Baggers!

After months of hearing members of the media and political system slander Tea Party members and attendees, it is now time for all of us who do not believe these attacks are appropriate or acceptable to call the authors out directly. While I am sure that in their circle of liberal friends and co-workers it gets a chuckle, but it is not acceptable to people with any degree of common sense or dignity. I am positive that in the Dodd campaign headquarters when Jay Howser used the term last year, it got some high-fives, but imagine the outcry there would have been from these same people if these same type of sexual references were made about ACORN or Union members from the right! In response to Jay Howser’s crude comments about this group of patriots, I emailed the three Republican candidates for Senate at that time and asked them to address it because as just one more citizen, my comments would have not gotten the coverage that theirs would. Two of the three did immediately and showed me that they weren’t going to wait until they did a poll or convened a focus group to see what side of the issue they would come down on!

The reason for this post is a story in the Hartford Advocate by Chandra Niles Folsom from February 16th in which she continually used the sexually charged term to refer to the Tea Party attendees. It included a quote from GOP chairman Chris Healy who I am sure will post a comment to the article defending the group of people he is trying to ‘court’ and believes that “We have to work to earn their trust” from.

I have met many of the people who make up the Tea Party movement and they are far from wingnuts or crazies. They are grandmothers and grandfathers who will stand in Southbury, in below freezing weather, to let people know that our country is on the wrong track. They are from all walks of life and income levels and many have never done anything like this before. They dislike Republicans who have sold them out just as much as Democrats and have shrugged off all of the attacks calling them names or questioning their motives. These people do not get bused in by any special interest group, or get a check for their ‘participation’, they simply do it because they feel they have to.
It is time for people to realize that we can have political discussions without the name calling and that in the end, the best way to expose crazies or wingnuts is to let them keep talking! The problem for some of my friends on the left is that they are afraid of where the American people will discover the real ‘wing nuts’ reside!

I often tell people that a leader is one of the first people to join a cause, while a politician is one of the last to join. The politician waits for the polling data, while the leader does what is right regardless of the outcome. I will take a leader who is right 80% of the time over a politician who is right 100% of the time!

Bill Evans