Even Nader Gets It Wrong

"The Tea Partiers don't even care that 50 percent of Tea Partiers back home and 70 percent of Republicans polled thought additional tax revenues should be part of the deficit-reduction program passing through Congress.

"You see, these House and Senate Tea Partiers are like mad dogs - at times even beyond control of their political and corporate masters. Fanatics neither think nor blink in their hostage politics. They're scarring Wall Streeters with their brinkmanship. Brandishing a historic moniker that symbolized rebellion against the then monarchial power, the Congressional Tea Partiers are anything but rebels against power - whether against the wars of empire, corporate welfare, sovereignty shedding NAFTA and WTO, corporate crime, the flouted war powers of Congress, or a runaway Wall Street."

These quotes are from one of Ralph Nader's blogs on his web page. There are others, of course, but this one caught my eye given that Nader is bashing the Tea Party and trying to make them responsible for our current troubles. Nader knows better and this one is a bit confusing. First, Nader points out that half of those called Tea Partiers are not fanatics and that well over half of Republicans are not fanatics either. But then he goes on to argue that the Tea Partiers in Congress, a distinct minority, are "scarring" their opponents and are doing so even against the wishes "of their political and corporate masters." This is, to put it mildly, hard to accept. And then Nader asserts that the Tea Partiers are "anything but rebels against power." Well, which is it, Ralph, are they rebelling against their "masters" or not? According to Nader, they are "scarring Wall Streeters with their brinkmanship" but they "are anything but rebels against...a runaway Wall Street."

Sorry, Ralph, but this makes no sense. And I would suggest that it makes no sense because the "story line" makes no sense. Some people must be either (a) silently colluding with the Tea Party, either to make them look like dangerous fanatics or (b) are actually in agreement with the Tea Party types in Congress and they want the Tea Partiers to bear the brunt of the responsibility for actions they want to take but don't want to take responsibility for. I imagine it is a bit of both.

Anyway, the intense and almost universal bashing of the Tea Party continues, and soon, if not already, people will be ready to rely once again on those who are responsible for our current situation. And we will wonder why our political system is dysfunctional.