"Teabaggers" Upset. . .And It's Still Funny

Teabaggers get upset when you call them teabaggers. Even though they used the term first, with full knowledge of its use as a sexual term. Signs like "Teabag Obama!" and "Teabag Democrats in Congress before they teabag you!" make little sense unless they knew what it meant. Yet they still get bent out of shape when their movement is referred to as teabaggers. [By the way, I'm watching ABC's This Week on DVR, and The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel used several tea bagger references! And uptight Tucker Carlson got pissy about it! Hee hee!].

Here's a little secret: if the "teabagger" double-meaning had stuck as a funny put-down of Democrats, the movement wouldn't mind at all. They'd use it with glee, and they'd use it with gusto. Instead, it got turned around on them. They're not used to that. Democrats rarely get to capitalize on this sort of thing. But they did. And the tea party movement keeps getting annoyed, and it keeps being funny.

The irony is, the more upset they get about it, the funnier it gets. And part of the funny comes from them acknowledging what it means, while trying to distance themselves from the gay. When they do try to address the gay, they do so by feigning how appalled they are, that anyone using the dirty meaning must be somehow deviant and immoral. And yet, they keep using the tea bag as their symbol, with countless offshoots, from Tea Party Patriots to Tea Party Express and beyond.

Pretend that there never was a sexual double meaning. Don't they realize that "tea party"--beyond being a political protest in the 1700s--sounds incredibly dainty? Like a little girl's imaginary social gathering? Here's what I think of (besides balls) when I think of these people. . . Eric Cartman's Tea Party

[Excerpt]

Top Teabagger is mad: Don't call us 'an offensive sexual slur'

The teabaggers don't like being called teabaggers. Yesterday, via email, I got a press release from one of the leaders of the teabagging movement, David Webb, the "Co-Founder Tea Party 365, Inc." Webb is steamed at Senator Chuck Schumer. . .

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