Tea time

James Taranto calls to our attention the msm's strange new respect for the tea party movement. Along those lines, the AP sits up and takes notice of the black conservative movement in the context of tea party protests. Via Nice Deb, Racial Slurs Hurled By AT Tea Partiers:

They’ve been called Oreos, traitors and Uncle Toms, and are used to having to defend their values. Now black conservatives are really taking heat for their involvement in the mostly white tea party movement—and for having the audacity to oppose the policies of the nation’s first black president.

“I’ve been told I hate myself. I’ve been called an Uncle Tom. I’ve been told I’m a spook at the door,” said Timothy F. Johnson, chairman of the Frederick Douglass Foundation, a group of black conservatives who support free market principles and limited government.

Read the rest of the AP story here. For more, see Clifton of Another Black Conservative. He was interviewed for the piece and fleshes out his answers here. Excerpt:

My belief is that the current policy of "spending our way out of debt" is a disaster in the making. As a nation we are well beyond the point where we can reasonably pay off our debt. Should I completely ignore the obvious hardship we are buying ourselves so that I can maintain racial solidarity with Obama or should I stand up for what I truly believe to be right? [. . .]

Finally there is an aspect of the Tea Parties I wish the black community would explore. It is the concept of coming together around our issues rather than around political parties.

Issues, not racial solidarity or knee-jerk party loyalty. Back to Mr. Taranto:

It all adds up to a remarkably broad-based and nonideological movement--one that has gained strength as the Democrats who currently run Washington have proved themselves to be narrow and ideological. Had President Obama governed from the center--above all, had he heeded public opinion and abandoned his grandiose plans to transform America, he might well have held the allegiance of many of the people who now sympathize with the tea party. [Hat tip: Jennifer Rubin]

But given Obama's ideology and personality, governing from the center was never a possibility. The best he can do is make feints in that direction, which always turn out to be as fraudulent as the rest of the Obama narrative.

A little perspective on this from Matthew Continetti, who reminds us that "Democrat" didn't always mean "socialist" (my word, not his):

Imagine what might have happened if Democrats had decided to take the Tea Party seriously in 2009. The Democrats might have moved to the center, adopting Bill Clinton's second-term strategy of balanced budgets, economic growth and globalization, and incremental, small-bore reforms on health care and education. They might have been able to retain the independents they held in 2006 and 2008 while dampening Republican fears that Obama wants to turn the country into Sweden. The economy would still be crummy. But, in this scenario, 2010 wouldn't look like the Democratic bloodbath it's shaping up to be.

The scenario is fantastic, of course. But why? The above paragraph, after all, describes our politics only a decade ago. The Democrats are supposedly the party of the people. The last half-decade of Republican governance was not in the Tea Party mold.

What has changed is unified Democratic control of government and a much more ideological, left-liberal Democratic party. The Net Roots-cutting edge blinded the Democrats to the Tea Party message. And the result is that, in Michael Barone's opinion, the Republican party may repeat its fantastic success of 1946.

Linked at Michelle Malkin (buzzworthy)

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