PrintHelp for the Tea Party Unwashed Masses
The elites have spoken: You're dumb. And not just ordinary dumb -- you're Tea Party dumb. This is the kind of dumb that causes life to imitate art (the boob tube, naturally) and pushes Republican insiders Karl Rove and Charles Krauthammer to join hands with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and offer their best imitation of "The Simpsons" Mayor Quimby: "Stop, you idiots!"
But the Tea Party idiots won't. As Clarice Feldman notes, the Tea Party has become "damned good" at organizing and will be around for a while, challenging the ruling class. Some will find themselves living and working among the political and media elites, strangers in a strange land where Christmas is déclassé and country music is something the Obama FCC is targeting for elimination after conservative talk radio. Tea Party members and sympathizers may be passionate, but they lack education. As one Harvard professor lamented in a conservative publication that takes up an entire row of the Mayor Quimby chorus, Tea Party favorite Glenn Beck is representative of a portion of this movement in that he may be "quick-witted," but he "is not an educated man." New Yorker magazine is not as charitable, saying the Tea Party and its sympathizers live in the land of "unreason," wholly unable to understand "evidence, knowledge, argument, proportionality, nuance, complexity," and other "tools" of the educated class.
The Tea Party needs the wisdom that comes with education. Republican strategist Karl Rove is today the toast of insider Washington -- with even Democrats describing him as "the voice of reason and rationality" -- because he clearly outlines the need for those whom a Bloomberg news columnist describes as "delusional nobodies" to get educated and learn how to live among the nation's elites. Failing that, we will see more conservative insiders join Rove and Krauthammer to form what Lee Cary of American Thinker calls a Republican "axis of disdain." Therefore, as a public service, American Thinker begins an occasional series of articles devoted to helping the nation's latest and greatest crop of idiots, the Tea Party, acquire wisdom.
We offer this to assist Tea Party types in becoming more worthy of rubbing shoulders with what David Brooks of the New York Times calls the "educated class." It is all right to sit back "happily chewing on a Twizzler," Brooks says, because the ruling class has life figured out for us by virtue of its superior intellect and education. But once we decide to get in the game, Brooks points out, we have to put down our Twizzlers and get serious. Leaving aside the question of how familiar he is with life west of the Hudson River ("Ladies and Gentlemen, please put down your Twizzlers and stand for the national anthem..." or "Yeah, I'm thinking of going out with him -- I just love the cut of his Twizzler"), Brooks has a point: Tea Partiers, ordinary Americans all, need to become more like the political, media, and cultural elite. It doesn't happen overnight, hence our series "The Tea Party Guides to Insider Wisdom."
Our hope is that this will ease the transition of Tea Party newcomers to the corridors of power. For example, we will teach you how to cling less to guns and religion, as President Obama so elegantly described those who have never shaken down a lobbyist for a living. You will learn the essentials of dining on the taxpayer dollar, the etiquette of sexually harassing government interns, and what to wear on taxpayer-financed vacations. American Thinker guides will help you overcome the extraordinary disadvantages of a background steeped in family values, love of God and country, and belief in personal responsibility.
The series serves as recognition that those cheering Palin, watching Beck, or voting for Delaware upstart Christine O'Donnell are not part of insider Washington, don't live on Manhattan's Upper West Side, and have never lifted a venti triple-decaf no-whip Mochachino paid for by grandpapa's trust fund in salute to Che. Much as we hate to admit it, PBS-stamped "mastermind" Karl Rove, David Brooks, and the New Yorker are right -- there is more to life than chewing on Twizzlers, reading with your lips, and Rush Limbaugh. Our upcoming "Tea Party Wisdom" guides to Washington values and New York Times opinion-writing will help "delusional nobodies" not just gather in Washington, but become part of it, assisting Rove and Republican party insiders in making real American government work.
American Thinker guides will ensure that the wisdom of taxpayer-funded "penis-washing" remains appreciated as more and more "delusional nobodies" work their way into Washington and elite media. Our "Tea Party Guide to Contemporary Sex" will help create a common understanding of the need for government involvement in all aspects of sexual relations and the multiplier effect on the American economy of washing genitals in Africa. In Washington, taxpayer-supported sex is good politics; hence, the Rove Republican support for stimulus dollars funding studies on "hookup" techniques on college campuses, proper condom use, and masturbation.
