NOREEN: Tea party was hardly a grass-roots movement

Wednesday's tea party in Acacia Park was one of more than 500 across America, all billed as nonpartisan grass-roots events to support "small government, fiscal responsibility, low taxes, and liberty."

That's according to FreedomWorks, one of the groups that helped plan the highly successful coast-to-coast phenomenon.
Was it nonpartisan?

Hardly. Is it a grass-roots movement?

Of course not.

In a political world driven by talk shows and Web sites, very little qualifies as grass-roots any more. Like the 2008 Democratic National Convention, the tea parties were orchestrated far in advance. They had printed agendas, choreography, permits were obtained.

Participants' passion was fueled by conservative talk show hosts like Richard Randall of KVOR in Colorado Springs.
Randall, who speaks of "the media" in the third person as if he is not a media member himself, solemnly intoned, "This is about as grass-roots as it gets."

Maybe it could be called "grass-roots" if you're willing to distort the meaning of the term to include an orchestrated national media blitz by Fox Television's Sean Hannity. who presided over a similar tea party in Atlanta.

It's "grass-roots" as long as we also are willing to accept as coincidence former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's decision to hype the tea parties and let it slip out, this week, that he just might run for the presidency in 2012.

Grass-roots? No, this was about political opportunity and radio/TV ratings. GOP politicians decorated Acacia Park's band shell.
Any claims organizers made about nonpartisanship were overwhelmed by the sea of virulently anti-Obama placards. The president was labeled as "socialist," "communist" and "Hitler." In office for less than 100 days, Obama was blamed for the recession and calls for impeachment were common.

A series of speakers, all Republicans, lambasted federal spending and the reach of government into people's lives.
You really had to be partisan to swallow all of it.

"Spending in this year is out of control," said 5th-District GOP Congressman Doug Lamborn, who led Colorado's U.S. House delegation in procuring earmarks in the budget, with a whopping $21.73 million of pork reeled in.

Ed Jones, the onetime state senator and former El Paso County commissioner, used the event to stump for his campaign to be re-elected to the county commission.

The crowd cheered at being told they comprise the "silent majority." Caught up in the moment, they could forget how badly conservatives were beaten in November.

While some embraced the founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson, the presence of the stars and bars smacked of Jefferson Davis. But they behaved themselves. They didn't mint their own money, secede from the union or fire upon Fort Carson.
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