Tea Parties, Michele Bachman and TARP

Regular readers of the blog know that I have not fully embraced the Tea Party movement, and people who know me well might rightly conclude that I will never feel totally comfortable with the zeitgeist the movement now rides. But I think as a sentient being and a conservative Republican, I have been derelict in my duties in not paying closer attention to the movement.

So over the past few days, I've tried to turn the corner on that a bit. No, I did not attend a Tea Party rally, but I should have. I watched plenty of video, listened to lots of podcasts, and read a ton of interviews, polls and blogposts.

I see amazing positive energy, I see genuine love of country, and I see a mixed bag of free thinkers and those who seem to ape whatever it is they last heard on the radio or saw on their favorite conservative TV program. I am struck by some of the contradictions I hear. I simply LOVE listening to Seniors complain about socialist takeovers of the healthcare system, and in the next breath decry cutting medicare to pay for it.

What I like least of all though about the Tea Party movement is some of the speakers who whip Tea Partiers into collective frenzies, speakers who appeal to the lowest common denominator and who use simplistic and over the top rhetoric to drive home often very important points. For instance--Saxby Chambliss addressed a crowd yesterday and was presumably talking about tax code simplification--a worthy, important subject. How did it get packaged? A discussion of how he's working to get rid of the IRS, how he was working for a time in which "we" determined how much tax we paid rather than the government" (presumably a reference to a tax system geared to consumption rather than work/saving). Again--good topics to take on, but rhetoric so base and simplistic as to detract from the important policy questions.

I know, I know--some of you will think "but CW, you're an egghead policy wonk Bill Kristol Republican--Chambliss isn't talking to you". And you'll be right. But then you will have answered the unasked (thus far) question--"why isn't the CW more taken with the Tea Party movement". They simply aren't talking to the likes of me.

Another example of "they're not talking to me" was a clip I heard of Minnesota Republican Michele Bachman from one of the Tea Parties yesterday. Representative Bachman is a darling of the Tea Party movement, and has never met a camera/microphone she didn't like (me either). That said, when talking about (again) a very important topic--and that is, increased government intrusion into the marketplace--she cited the fact that this latest round began under a Republican President--when the Congress passed the $700B "bailout of the big banks--a bill that I did not vote for". Said with great pride.

So here we have a "spokesperson" for this movement proudly crowing about having rendered what I consider to be one of the most scurrilous votes Republicans made during the contagion that was the credit market melt-down. Now that the credit markets are ungummed, now that the Dow is up 70%, now that the economy is clearly recovering from the recession and now that it is increasingly indisputable that the $700B TARP bill saved our entire economic system--Representative Bachman excites a crowd by saying she did not support the only thing government has done in the past two years to actually MAKE THINGS BETTER. And the crowd loved it.

I can understand the revulsion that bailing out Wall Street causes in people. I can understand the disdain people have for the folks on Wall Street--aided and abetted by Congress and the Presidency (both parties)--who recklessly hazarded our Republic's financial health--but I cannot support ridiculous, demagogic rhetoric detached from economic and policy reality and promoting a vote which had it prevailed--would have sent this economy into depression.

There are tough problems out there friends, and the solutions will not be easy. I have a tough time thinking I will find them at a Tea Party.