Attack of the clowns

Meet Mark Williams. By day, he's an idiot with a microphone, a.k.a. an obscure internet radio talk show host/cable news pundit (don't act so surprised). In his spare time (which he most likely has a great deal of), he's the de facto founder and leader of the current 'tea party' movement that's embarassing Republicans across the land.

In an incident that everyone should have seen coming, Williams, who once referred to the President as "an Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug and a racist in chief", imploded during a cable news broadcast last night. He did nothing to refute earlier statements, and in fact, even turned on his own, calling the more extreme element of the mess he wrought as "no more part of the mainstream of America than the hippies who wear nipple clips and feather boas in San Francisco streets during so-called peace demonstrations." And it all sounds rather funny coming from a guy who wears an earring.

In essence, Mr. Tea Bag is really Mr. Douchebag.

When asked by CNN's Anderson Cooper last night about the 'welfare thug' statement on his blog, Williams was more or less handed more than enough rope to hang himself with. "He's certainly acting like it," he said. "Until he embraces the whole country what else can I conclude?"

And Williams' frequent portrayal of himself as some sort of little guy battling the Big Bad Democratic Government doesn't hold much water, since the current tea party movements are, in fact, heavily organized by big PACs such as Our Country Deserves Better, and promoted heavily by obscenely wealthy right-wing media personalities working for very big corporations. Oh yeah, and the little pissants like Mark Williams.

And how crass are these guys? They blatantly exploited a day of tragic significance (September 11) for their own means, hyping up their "September 12" march on Washington.

Even funnier is their knowledge of history, as their little 'tea party' schtick seems a bit ridiculous than the historical one they seek to emulate.

Coming on the heels of last week's nutty outburst by South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson, the combined incidents have led Los Angeles Times columnist Tim Rutten to claim that "the right-wing anti-Obama movement in the U.S. these days is overpopulated with nuts, fundamentalists and paranoids."

But not to fear. At least Wilson and Williams have gotten what they really wanted -- their own fifteen minutes of infamy. And it's really all about ego, is it not?

During the eight years of the Bush administration, right-wingers were very quick to take their ideological counterparts to task whenever they questioned anything the president did. Now that a Democrat lives in the White House (and an African-American one at that!), the tables have turned and they have become a bunch of sniveling crybabies, not realizing that a record number of voters made their choice last December, and voted against them.

Again, don't act so surprised