As Alaska's Sarah Palin prepares to deliver the keynote address tonight at the TEA Party Convention in Nashville, Palin's people have assembled: Retired U.S. Air Force Col. O. P. Ditch wears a shirt supporting the 2008 GOP vice presidential at the convention. (Photo by Ed Reinke / AP)
by Kathleen Hennessey
NASHVILLE -- The second day of the National Tea Party Convention kicked off with speakers taking aim at the mainstream media.
Two morning speakers, media entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart and Tea Party Express' Amy Kremer, dismissed and disparaged reporters as contemptuous of the American people and unnecessary to their conservative cause's success.
The comments prompted cheers from the crowd assembled at the Opryland resort hotel, the cheers quickly mixing with howls and taunts at the riser full of reporters in the back of the room.
"Bye, bye!" a man waved to the media.
"Go Home!" another shouted.
Breitbart is behind BigGovernment.com, the Website that posted the undercover ACORN videos of guerilla journalist James O'Keefe.
O'Keefe, 25, and three others were arrested after some in the crew posed as telephone repairmen and attempted to tamper with the phones at U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in New Orleans. Breitbart told the crowd he wasn't involved in the botched caper but heard from O'Keefe shortly afterward.
O'Keefe told him that he had been denied an attorney after his arrest, Breitbart said, and then joked that O'Keefe would have been allowed to see a lawyer if he were a terrorist.
"Huh, why didn't you just strap explosives on ..." Breitbart said, as his comments were drowned out by cheers.
After the speech, one of the men arrested with O'Keefe said he too was denied a lawyer. Joseph Basel, who was attending the conference as a member of the press, did not comment further.
In his speech, Brietbart skewed the mainstream media as uninterested in stories that don't advance a leftist agenda. He said reporters put all news involving conservatives into two categories: "racism and Watergate." He urged the group of small government activists to take inspiration from O'Keefe.
"I'm trying to tell you, wink, you can do it, too. You have cameras! You have ingenuity!" he said.
Kremer also told the crowd to use the social networking sites that allow them to communicate and share information outside mainstream meda.
"We don't need them," she said.
Comments
He's got a point, a day doesn't pass that I don't read a story about watergate.
Posted by: martin | February 6, 2010 4:50 PM
Let's recap....first day ...birth certificate...second day...the MSM. Yep were do I sign up to join this movement that has it's finger on the pulse of America's problems? A little light on this bacteria is a great disinfectant.
Posted by: bill r. | February 6, 2010 5:01 PM
HEY BILLO. THE THIRD PARTY IS A TOUGH ROAD, ASK ROSS "I'M ALL EARS" PEROT. THAT STILL DOES NOT DULL THE EDGE THE INDEPENDENTS HAVE IN ALL NATIONAL AMERICAN ELECTIONS AND RIGHT NOW THIS THINK IS TILTING BACK WAYYYY RIGHT (NOT WRONG, RIGHT). HOW'S THAT NJ, VA, MA THING WORKIN OUT FOR YA?
Posted by: Bobby Mobbie | February 6, 2010 5:47 PM
Yes, Kathleee, the mainstream media has been ignoring the masses of this country and even disparaging the people. It's one of the MANY reasons why you folks are in deep financial doo-doo.
Now, while I am not conding James O'Keefe's actions in regard to the Louisiana Purchase senator, I am wondering was it "guerilla journalism" when the Chicago Sun-Times set up its own bar in the Mirage investigation? I mean they did operate a bogus bar with bogus bar workers so they can nail city workers on the take. Was that guerilla journalism, dear???
Posted by: John D | February 6, 2010 6:58 PM
Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations
By Bob Weir
"For an hour, I forgot that Obama was black," said Chris Mathews, the host of MS-NBC's "Hardball," after he finished watching President Obama's State of the Union address. Did Mathews mean that he's not used to hearing from articulate blacks who sound just like educated whites?
Recently, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was quoted in the book Game Change as saying privately that Obama, as a black candidate, could be successful thanks in part to his "light-skinned" appearance and speaking patterns "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one." Did he mean that Obama wouldn't have reached the White House if he was darker-skinned or spoke with the African-American vernacular English known as Ebonics?
In the same book, it was reported that Bill Clinton, when he was trying to persuade Ted Kennedy not to support Obama, remarked to the senator, "A few years ago, this guy [Obama] would have been getting us coffee." Did he mean that Obama's race qualified him only for menial jobs? During the 2008 campaign for president, Senator Joe Biden, referring to Senator Barack Obama, said, "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." Evidently, these folks haven't spent much time around black people. Hence, they're shocked when they come across blacks who are physically attractive, well-spoken, well-dressed, and who bathe regularly.
Keep in mind that the aforementioned comments came from liberal Democrats, the recipients of an overwhelming majority of African-American votes every four years. When I hear or read such remarks, it reminds me of what President George W. Bush said about "the soft bigotry of low expectations." In other words, if you're white and you've lived exclusively among whites all your life, you're likely to be stunned when you see blacks achieving high levels of success in any endeavors.
Posted by: Bobby Mobbie | February 6, 2010 8:24 PM
Fox News has the highest ratings for televised product. Can't get much more mainstream than that.
Not to mention the bloggers (on both sides) are completely unaccountable for what they say. Lots of lying going on there too.
Posted by: incognita | February 6, 2010 8:48 PM
@drooling Mobbie.......How quickly your arrogance returns and apparently your memory leaves you. How was the 2008 elections for you? If losing seats means getting something...anything done to help the problems in the country, I'm all for it. But besides the chest beating, I have heard little in what will work, than the constant what won't. Somehow you forgot how we got here and what the country told republicans. In your smug, giddiness don't forget that you need ideas not pair of pom poms. Oh...and turn off the caps....you are no more important than any other American and only children would feel the need to shout when they write. Grow up son!
Posted by: bill r. | February 6, 2010 10:10 PM
THANKS FOR THE ADVICE, DADDO URRR BILLO, I'LL SEE WHAT I CAN DO . . .
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Why are liberals so condescending?
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/04/AR2010020403698.html?hpid%3Dopinionsbox1&sub=AR
Posted by: Bobby Mobbie | February 7, 2010 8:55 AM
"Bye, bye!" a man waved to the media.
"Go Home!" another shouted.
Who's in favor of free speech? Oh, I forgot, the "right" is in favor of free speech, as long as you agree with everything they say.
Posted by: syj | February 7, 2010 12:34 PM
syj it would seem that this story is over your head or you have totally been hoodwinked by your own liberal propaganda. And to even say it has anything to do with free speech shows ignorance. Locking out a news network is an attack on free speech something team Obama and the liberals in Congress have been doing. Trying to keep out reporters was not done at this convention like it was done at town hall meetings held by Democrats to reporters who they felt were conservative. Just remember the loony liberals only account for 1/5 of the voting population and as we have seen in the past few elections it shows.
Posted by: Crooks_In_DC | February 9, 2010 2:44 AM