Kapact's Rant: CNN's Anderson Cooper on Tea Bagging

When the earthquake hit Haiti, I talked about how impressed I was with Anderson Cooper. I won't retract that, because he did what he did, and it was good. But I've been watching Mr Cooper, as he allegedly 'keeps them honest'. And I just have to ask... where is your brain, sir? You sat there and listened to someone describe Barack Obama as center-left, and you kept a straight face. Good golly. Are we both living on the same planet? Are you from some Bizarro political reality where left is right and stupid is smart and what you call objectivity is in fact objectivity? But then, you are a bit of a study in contradiction... actually hypocracy is really what you're all about. Something I'm sure that you'd like to put behind you (difficult, since you played such a large part in popularizing it) is this liberal fun of calling Tea Party members tea-baggers. Here is the sequence of events:


MSNBC's David Shuster, filling in for Keith Olbermann on his April 13 2009 broadcast had fun referring to the Tea Party tax-protester as "teabaggers" (Urbandictionary.com describes teabagging as when a man places his testicles "onto someone's face, or into their mouth.")

Here is the text of what he said:

"For most Americans, Wednesday, April 15th will be Tax Day, but in our fourth story tonight: It's going to be teabagging day for the right-wing and they're going nuts for it. Thousands of them whipped out the festivities early this past weekend, and while the parties are officially toothless, the teabaggers are full-throated about their goals.

"They want to give President Obama a strong tongue-lashing and lick government spending - spending they did not oppose when they were under presidents Bush and Reagan. They oppose Mr. Obama's tax rates - which will be lower for most of them -- and they oppose the tax increases Mr. Obama is imposing on the rich, whose taxes will skyrocket to a rate about 10 percent less than it was under Reagan. That's teabagging in a nut shell."

And that is MSNBC and liberal 'journalism' in a nutshell.

Of course, that's just the sort of sparkling journalistic high-brow integrity that people have come to expect from the poorly drawn tabloid/comic book that is MSNBC. And what we should expect from someone who plays second fiddle to Keith Olbermann. I mean, that's like the piece of mysterious dirt that a stray cat decides is too disgusting to eat. But then, so is MSNBC.

So in 'keeping them honest', Mr Cooper picks up that ball.

Cooper had CNN's senior political analyst David Gergen and chief business correspondent Ali Velshi on to comment on President Obama's economic speech at Georgetown University. Cooper had asked Gergen about the Republicans' "positioning" in response to the speech. The analyst touted how the GOP was "in disarray" and that they "have not yet come up with a compelling alternative, one that has gained popular recognition." Cooper replied, "Tea-bagging. They've got tea-bagging."

Gergen went on to say, "Well, they've got the tea-bagging. But there was an interesting Politico survey -- it was out today that said that, you know, the president -- the trust level in the president on economic issues is extremely high, and, you know, and everybody else in the administration is well below him. But the Republicans are a little below that. So, Republicans have got a way -- they still haven't found their voice, Anderson. They're still -- this happens to a minority party after it's lost a couple of bad elections, but they're searching for their voice."

Cooper demonstrated his integrity and maturity by making this 'keeping them honest' remark, "It's hard to talk when you're tea-bagging," which Gergen responded to with laughter.

Now, Mr Cooper, I don't expect anything said on MSNBC to spread very far. But CNN is a global organization, the fact is, for better or for worse, people watch it and listen to it. And they listen to you. How about growing up?