If you can't beat 'em, bad-mouth 'em?

Editor's Note: Parts of the following story make explicit references to graphic sex and will be objectionable to readers. It is not suitable for children.

Anderson Cooper on the cover of the Advocate, a homosexual magazine

Perhaps it's a new "If you can't beat 'em, bad-mouth 'em" strategy on the part of some news anchors to denigrate the grass-roots Tea Parties that blanketed the United States this week.

Yesterday, anchors for MSNBC and CNN repeatedly used a sexually suggestive term commonly associated with homosexual sex to deride the "tea party" theme adopted by hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens protesting a federal government they say is grabbing more authority, spending more money and proposing to collect more taxes than ever before.

"Is that what it's come to now? We've a bunch of snotty liberal journalists telling insider sex jokes, making fun of the good-hearted conservative Americans," said Peter LaBarbera, chief of Americans for Truth, who alerted WND even as the comments were being made.

The anchors repeatedly used the words "tea bag" or "tea-bagging," instead of "tea party" or "tea parties." The first references are commonly accepted in the homosexual community to describe a homosexual act in which testicles are inserted in someone's mouth.

"They are sneering, using vulgar jokes that the vast majority of Americans wouldn't even get. There still is a majority of decent Americans who would never know anything about 'tea-bagging,'" said LaBarbera. "They've got their whole little inside joke thing going on. These guys are the minority still."

Some of the references were made by CNN's Anderson Cooper, who interrupted his guest analyst, David Gergen, to gleefully mention "tea-bagging" when Gergen was stating he thought Republicans had nothing to say.

The video is on YouTube and embedded here:

Cooper followed the comments by Gergen with, "It's hard to talk when you're tea-bagging."

Media Research Center President Brent Bozell released a statement asserting the coverage was biased and the language egregious. He called on the networks to apologize.

"What an utterly embarrassing and crude display by MSNBC and CNN. It appears they've decided that since they can't be any more biased in their coverage, they'll ramp up the vulgarity instead," he said.

"Now the news isn't just biased, it's R-rated. MSNBC and CNN both allow this vulgar attack-journalism to go out on their airwaves without blinking an eye and without any sign of guilt. It appears neither woeful bias nor lowly crassness on their airwaves bothers them a bit," he continued.

"MSNBC and CNN owe these decent Americans an apology for the slimy, smarmy attacks they perpetrated in 'covering' the TEA Parties. Ordinary citizens exercising their First Amendment rights in over 750 cities and towns deserve the media’s coverage, not their sleaze-riddled condemnation," Bozell said.

(Story continues below)

WND has reported extensively on the Tea (Taxed Enough Already) Party events held nationwide this week in hundreds of towns and cities.

Sacramento, Calif. (WND photo / Chelsea Schilling)

For example, in Sacramento, Calif., a sea of red, white and blue U.S. flags waved above a large crowd that surrounded the Capitol and spilled into city streets. Visitors arrived in yellow school buses from surrounding cities.

In Sioux Falls, S.D., an estimated 4,000 showed up.

"It's unreal. It's beyond my imagination," Sacramento event planner Mark Meckler told WND. "I can't imagine anything better than this."

Bozell also cited MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and her guest, Air America's Ana Marie Cox, who combined to use the term "tea bag" at least 51 times in a 13-minute segment on the air.

"At one point, Cox said there's 'a lot of love in tea-bagging,'" the MRC report said.

"Maddow's MSNBC cohort, anchor David Shuster, also uttered the vulgar phrase and made a total of 12 separate oral-sexual puns in his April 13th attack on the event," the report said.

"First the major media ignored these grass-roots protests," said Dan Gainor, MRC's vice president of business and culture. "Then when they happen, they do everything they can to demean the ordinary Americans who are exercising free speech. Real journalists care about such things."

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Related commentary:

Tea Party revolution brewing

 

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