I’m not sure Alex Burns is rightwhen he reports that “President Barack Obama took direct aim at the anti-tax ‘tea party’ demonstrations” in Missouri. “„Those of you who are watching certain news channels on which I am not very popular, and you see folks waving tea bags around, let me just remind them that I am happy to have a serious conversation about how we are going to… [list of Obama priorities].
This struck me not as an attack on protesters (which would be a strange thing for a community organizer to do) but an attack on Fox News, its pundits, and its Republican guests. When I think of “folks waving tea bags” I think of Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) literally waving tea bags and saying “I’ve got my tea bags here! Pick your brand!”
This seems like classic presidential media-bashing more than mockery of the protests themselves. But it doesn’t really matter, because the protesters are taking offense (and relishing the attention) anyway.