Eric Alterman: A Real Tea (pity) Party

  In its apparently endless quest to assuage the sensitive feelings of all the victimized right-wingers in America one day at a time, The Washington Post published Steve Hendrix’s sob story of the pain and suffering experienced by Washington’s “tea party residents” who live in a city where “home can at times feel like enemy territory.”

  How bad is it? Well, a man at another table in a coffee shop said “sorry” and walked away from one guy. And another one had to experience the pain of being asked whether “your boyfriend listens to Glenn Beck.” Apparently, the notion that self-proclaimed “tea party patriots” listen to Glenn Beck is the kind of thing one hears “in the left-wing news media ... they don't know any real tea party people.” No wonder Tea Party member Brian says, “I fear for my country." He is, after all, “just more tolerant than they are."