April 15 was a hot day for Tea Party rallies, and also a hot day for liberal talk-radio denunciations of the Tea Party movement. Randi Rhodes claimed it was just a crowd of stupid people looking for a free lunch:
They have a lot of free time to travel about and around the country, don't they? These are the same people that just were in Boston; then they got on buses. They never ask who pays their freight. They think there's a free lunch somewhere on the bus, I don't know. And they just come town to town, and they stand there with their stupid signs screaming and yelling about corporations need to be protected. It's the sickest movement I've ever seen in my life!
Bill Press rolled out the typical line that "I think they want something for nothing. I pointed out before, if you look at this crowd, most of them are older, white, on Social Security and Medicare."
On the Ed Schultz show, Big Ed was fulminating against a poll finding that 92 percent of Tea Partiers agree President Obama is moving in a socialist direction:
Here's a news flash for you, Tea Party Nation: you're dead wrong on this one. We have no single-payer. Wall Street [is] up 3,000 points over the last year, and nobody's taking your gun. I know, 'cause I'm a gun owner, and nobody's taking my gun.
Schultz couldn't even find the right congressman who was "spit on" (that would be Emanuel Cleaver, who's backed away from that claim):
So I wonder if that guy that spit on that congressman, John Lewis, if he thinks that actually Americans wanted him to do that? But of course O'Reilly says, well, you can't, you can't broadbrush. Oh yes you can. Absolutely you can. Because you can go from one rally to another rally to another rally to another rally all over the country and what are you gonna see? Hitler mustaches on the president. Socialism. Nazi talk. The whole lot.
For the crunchiest nuttiness, there's always Mike Malloy:
Well, today was the big April 15 Tax Day protest. Um, the uh, the crybabies and whiny-asses gather together all across the country protesting something. Of course, they have no idea what they are protesting!
I'd love to hear some of the speakers, um, all white males, who get up there and say 'We want our country back' -- from whom, from what? Who -- who took your country, you silly goose?
And 'We don't like our tax structure.' Why? Ninety-five percent of working households in this country this past year got a tax cut. We'll get into that in a second. These people are ignorant beyond belief; I'm [pause...] just amazed to watch these people. It's like they live in a parallel universe from normal people! The things they say! 'We want our country back!'
