On the dreaded (and dreadful) LIRR, a bunch of scampy rapscallions with X-acto knives and glue *love* to vandalize the advertisements. They'll cut out a pro athlete's face and glue it on Katie Couric's body, or put Heidi Klum's face at an angle that makes it look like she's giving Maury Povich a hummer. (And he's totally auf.)
It wouldn't have hurt the delivery of that line to have at least cracked a bit of a smile, Anderson Cooper.
And I'm kind of appalled at how all this term is like common parlance among all these middle-aged tv news guys. Wasn't this one of those expressions that Dan Savage got everyone to start using?
Let me get this straight, Rachel and Ana Marie have a little fun at the expense of idiots who would put signs in the hands of their kids, THEIR KIDS, that say, "Tea Bag the Liberal Dems Before They Tea Bad You" and now you get all huffy?
Is she supposed to take them seriously?
And why is Rachel the last person, because her sex with Susan does not include testicles?
I find some of the responses here show some "spoiled sportedness."
If you wanna ride a Rachel backlash, Ryan, be my guest, but you're in the vast minority.
@Joe Bua: Teabag humor is far from brilliant, although achingly hilarious. I genuinely and generally think Stewart is one the funniest things in existence, but I would say he's rarely brilliant (I'm not saying Stewart and Maddow are equivalent in the realm of political media, I'm just saying someone can be entertaining or likable without being 'brilliant'. I think it's hard to be noticeably intelligent or original as a political commenter, anyway).
I enjoy Maddow. I don't think the fact that she's the liberal poster girl for the moment is a legitimate reason to dislike her, although I get that anything that is universally liked within a community becomes lame by definition (See: Coldplay circa 2005). That said, she's often smug, you gotta admit it. There's a fair bit of mileage left on the Teabaggin' humor train, but she would've fared far better had she not worked the joke into the ground in a single program. That's what I find somewhat irritating about her, to be honest, the air of 'I'm so original'. There's nothing I've ever heard her say that wasn't already said on a blog and/or by other political commenters. So, yeah, the smugness irritates.
Everyone who watches your show already agrees with you on your opinions as much as Glen Beck viewers agree with him on his. Don't bash me over the head with it.
These green GOP teabaggers face a steep learning curve and should check with the Brits, who make it part of a proper English Breakfast. Just ask the Prince of Wales, Darjeeling.
@CountryClubRepublican: Yes, slight humor like this is in such stark contrast to the republican murmurs of "treason" whenever a liberal questioned the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act, the looming war in Iraq, etc, 6 years ago. Largely, because this is kind of funny. While impugning triple-amputee / vet Max Cleland with charges of "anti-Americanism" is just disgraceful.
@CountryClubRepublican: To make a finer point in a broad generalization: liberals ridicule the message, while conservatives denigrate the messenger.* The former is a property of reason, while the latter is the provenance of fear.
@CountryClubRepublican: Please, explain how making fun of someone hurts their right to free speech. Because, I believe, mocking is also a form of free speech.
@CountryClubRepublican: Yeah and when libs were calling bullshit to the WMD claims (and hundred sof other LIES perpetuated by the Bush administration, the Republican-led congress or their lackies in the media and think tanks), my free speech wasn't being "mocked" so much as I was just being called a terrorist by the right-wing peanut gallery and their cohorts in the media.
After eight years of being told that I should either support the war in Iraq or shut up, no social conservative has any room to be telling anyone that they can't mock the same people that voted for these jackasses in the first place. I say MOCK AWAY -- you people deserve it. All I ask as we mock accurately. It's not that hard to come up with many reasons to ridicule the people who ruined our country (or blindly supported those that did).
I thought it moderately funny. The Repubs did come up with that term for their effort and Ana Marie Cox was wonderful in her interview: "Well, who wouldn't want to teabag John McCain?"
I consider myself to be quite liberal, social conservatives would hate me because I support gay rights, single-payer health care, and think abortion is a GOOD (if not difficult) choice in many cases.
But as a liberal I feel comfortable pointing out that I believe the term is "Tea Party," as in "Boston Tea Party" not "Boston Teabag Party."
The "teabagging" part (as least as far as I can tell) is a construct made up by the people who want to make fun of these "Get a Brain Morans" people.
The joke is less funny when you realize that these people in fact did not make this term up themselves (because, you know, they're so stupid and don't know what "teabagging" is, har-har.)
It appears to me that "tea party" was changed to "teabag (or teabagging) party" by people who want to force this joke upon us. Sometimes, it must be admitted, liberals can be "Morans", too, even if they're better spellers (but don't know how to change their oil filters).
@Kobayashi Maru: I love the way those tea bags look like a scrotum. I suspect in that case it's actually a play on the slang, like "I teabagged your sister" is an insult, right? So in this instance I think it's a matter of the creator consciously playing on the term teabag. Again, that's not the same thing as implying these people naively using the term. Also the website of the actual group itself refers to it as a "Tea Party."
I hate defending these people, because I don't like them and I have few agreements with them (though I certainly hate pork barrel politics, too, especially MILITARY PORK), but it also makes liberals look better to approach stuff like this objectively and fairly instead of "running with a meme" just because it's (ostensibly) funny and it denigrates the other side. It is, after all, one of the things that (ostensibly) separates social liberalism form social conservatism.
09/12/09
09/11/09
09/11/09
I admit to giggling - but I blame them for this.
07/06/09
05/21/09
04/16/09
04/15/09
And I'm kind of appalled at how all this term is like common parlance among all these middle-aged tv news guys. Wasn't this one of those expressions that Dan Savage got everyone to start using?
04/16/09
Damn him.
04/15/09
04/15/09
04/15/09
04/15/09
04/11/09
Is she supposed to take them seriously?
And why is Rachel the last person, because her sex with Susan does not include testicles?
I find some of the responses here show some "spoiled sportedness."
If you wanna ride a Rachel backlash, Ryan, be my guest, but you're in the vast minority.
This blogger apparently thought it was genius.
[iamatvjunkie.typepad.com]
04/16/09
I enjoy Maddow. I don't think the fact that she's the liberal poster girl for the moment is a legitimate reason to dislike her, although I get that anything that is universally liked within a community becomes lame by definition (See: Coldplay circa 2005). That said, she's often smug, you gotta admit it. There's a fair bit of mileage left on the Teabaggin' humor train, but she would've fared far better had she not worked the joke into the ground in a single program. That's what I find somewhat irritating about her, to be honest, the air of 'I'm so original'. There's nothing I've ever heard her say that wasn't already said on a blog and/or by other political commenters. So, yeah, the smugness irritates.
Everyone who watches your show already agrees with you on your opinions as much as Glen Beck viewers agree with him on his. Don't bash me over the head with it.
04/10/09
04/10/09
This just points out another difference between conservatives and liberals: Liberals denigrate conservatives' right to free speech.
04/10/09
04/10/09
*Smails and Smails-like people not included.
04/10/09
04/10/09
04/10/09
After eight years of being told that I should either support the war in Iraq or shut up, no social conservative has any room to be telling anyone that they can't mock the same people that voted for these jackasses in the first place. I say MOCK AWAY -- you people deserve it. All I ask as we mock accurately. It's not that hard to come up with many reasons to ridicule the people who ruined our country (or blindly supported those that did).
04/11/09
I don't like to "denigrate conservatives' right to free speech; I just like making fun of them.
04/10/09
04/10/09
But as a liberal I feel comfortable pointing out that I believe the term is "Tea Party," as in "Boston Tea Party" not "Boston Teabag Party."
The "teabagging" part (as least as far as I can tell) is a construct made up by the people who want to make fun of these "Get a Brain Morans" people.
The joke is less funny when you realize that these people in fact did not make this term up themselves (because, you know, they're so stupid and don't know what "teabagging" is, har-har.)
It appears to me that "tea party" was changed to "teabag (or teabagging) party" by people who want to force this joke upon us. Sometimes, it must be admitted, liberals can be "Morans", too, even if they're better spellers (but don't know how to change their oil filters).
04/10/09
[teabagcongress.com]
04/10/09
04/10/09
I hate defending these people, because I don't like them and I have few agreements with them (though I certainly hate pork barrel politics, too, especially MILITARY PORK), but it also makes liberals look better to approach stuff like this objectively and fairly instead of "running with a meme" just because it's (ostensibly) funny and it denigrates the other side. It is, after all, one of the things that (ostensibly) separates social liberalism form social conservatism.