A Little Sugar In The Tea Might Help

Let the Teabaggers crow all they want about the “big victories” they’ve scored in primaries around the country.

Their braggadocio, to a large degree, makes quite entertaining television.

All they have done is push viable candidates, who had real chops within the Republican Party, out of numerous races – leaving doors wide open for opponents in the Middle and on the Left to amass votes from more moderate-thinking voters.

Let the Teabaggers crow all they want about the “big victories” they’ve scored in primaries around the country.

Their braggadocio, to a large degree, makes quite entertaining television.

All they have done is push viable candidates, who had real chops within the Republican Party, out of numerous races – leaving doors wide open for opponents in the Middle and on the Left to amass votes from more moderate-thinking voters.

As long as those candidates do their homework and have enough sense to hit the right notes.

The reality of the Tea Party movement is that it isn’t as big as FOX(NotReally)News would have us believe.  At most, it probably encompasses 25% of the voting public.

And, having virtually no minority voters within its ranks, this cluster of angry middle-aged-to-elderly, self-absorbed White folks lacks any true traction.

Led by the likes of the uneducated “so White he can’t go out into the sunlight without creating a blinding glare” Glenn “Cry Me A River” Beck, and the under-educated quitter-cum-opportunist “Sister Sarah” Palin, it’s frighteningly hilarious how so many people can allow themselves to be so buffaloed by liars, charlatans and buffoons.

I hesitate to inject either of these con persons’ names into any of my columns, but sometimes such inevitability simply cannot be avoided.

It is a low down dirty shame how middle-Americans can be so gullible as to heap honor and praise upon purveyors of divisiveness and hatred who are raking in millions of their (ostensibly hard-earned) dollars by the dozens, while crying that the “Big Government of un-Christian, America-hating Barack Hussein Obama, is “stealing” their paychecks.

At four months to go, the candidates the Teabaggers have backed are being exposed for the prevaricators they truly are – with irrevocable malfeasances that previously kept them out of the public arena now surfacing under the microscope of media scrutiny.

In her run to oust Nevada Democrat Harry Reid from his Senate seat, upstart Sharron Angle has yet to present a focused, workable platform.  Her entire campaign has concentrated upon hatred and distrust of Mr. Reid the person, whom she claims can outspend her because he’s rich and she’s just a poor working girl.

Worse than that, Angle reiterates the Teabagger bellyache against Government as evil that should be abolished, even if it takes violent overthrow.

Yet, her goal is to become a member of the most elite 100 people in the nation.

Here in Illinois, we have a dunderheaded congressman named Mark Kirk who lied, literally, his way into office.  He further built upon those falsehoods to garner a Republican nomination for the Senate seat vacated by President Obama.

In 2008, Kirk ran against bona fide Iraq war heroine Maj. Tammy Duckworth, a combat helicopter pilot who lost both of her legs resultant from enemy fire.  The career politician bullshitted his way to victory at the polls by embellishing his own war record.

His exaggerations of personal “heroism” grew even longer than Pinocchio’s nose during the senatorial primary.  On numerous occasions, Kirk bragged of prestigious awards and accolades for exemplary performance under hostile conditions.

In truth, he was a reserve intelligence officer who never got anywhere near a danger zone; the “awards” he claimed either never existed, or were of the “organizational” variety.

Organizational awards are often presented after those whose accomplishments that earned them have already been reassigned, yet may be displayed by anyone who thereafter joins that unit.

The only “qualification” Kirk is running on is an ongoing smear campaign against his opponent, State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias.

Granted, both candidates have more baggage than Illinois needs at this time, but holding up a phony military record to garner votes is about as low as a politician can get.

Now, caught in webs of deceit of their own making, both of these candidates are hiding out from the press in their respective states.  The self-proclaimed “poor” Ms. Angle has apparently found enough money in her coffers to hire a high-priced public relations firm to scrub her image.

The real horror in all this is that a platform based solely upon hatred of the way things are, with nothing more to offer than anger at Government in its current configuration, is no way to solve problems that call for well-thought out solutions.

Yet, adherence to unbridled preaching from the likes of Glenn Beck, who channels Joe McCarthy uncensored to a nationwide audience for four hours each day, and Sister Sarah, the money-grubbing 21st Century embodiment of fanatical Sister Aimee (Semple MacPherson), has already negatively impacted legislation intended for the betterment of all Americans.

Fortunately, such dangerous extremism from a vocal minority has, in the past, never made it past the starting gate; it must not now be allowed to further damage our Nation’s essence.

It is imperative to our very freedoms that Americans capable of cogent thought, with an ability to recognize the bigger picture, get out to the polls this November and vote these zealots away.

Shalom.

(Jerry Tenuto is an erstwhile Philosopher and sometime Educator.  A veteran with seven years of service in the U.S. Army, he holds a BS and MA in Communications from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.  Depending upon your taste in political stew, you can either blame or thank Jerry for his weekly “Out Of The Blue” feature in The Lone Star Iconoclast.  Visit his blog Blue State View at illinoiscentral.blogspot.com)