Mark K: Most of the

Mark K: Most of the reporting on the various tea-party gatherings yesterday treated them with the predictable corporate media kid gloves; it was maddening listening to the most simple-minded, self-victimizing assertions given the same status as a pronouncement from God. But while Thom still seems conflicted about these people, yesterday Norman Goldman gave the tea-partiers their proper due by taking a verbal two-by-four to their obvious and sundry mendacities.

Another man who has a plentitude of gonads is former NBA star and current basketball commentator Charles Barkley. Unlike the mostly white fans who find him a little too uppity, he is no hypocrite; he doesn’t hide behind falsity. Obama and the Democrats could take a tip or two from his view of how the world works. He stated in a radio interview last week that he had only had two problems with Tiger Woods and the way he has dealt with his current problem. “Number one, I told him years ago to quit saying you’re not black because all these people who smile at your face, when you screw up, you’re going to be black. And that’s come back to bite him in the a#s. We kept telling him not to say that. These people are not your friends… And secondly, I wish he would get to the point where he says, ‘Hey listen, I’m not going to walk around on eggshells anymore.’”

Admittedly, “He’s not the kind of guy who is going to fight back. That’s why he needs to surround himself with some people who got his back, who are going to be his friends through good and bad. He has not done a good job in that aspect. I got his back. He’s just got to start fighting back. He can only keep going backwards. I know all these idiots in the media running these shows like Inside Edition and Access Hollywood, they got no life. They just got to talk about celebrities. You got guys on TV. You got Skip Bayless, who’s a punk (he is). You got Jay Mariotti, who’s a punk (him too). There’s always going to be guys on TV because they got no talent, they just got to talk about famous people. But, at some point, he needs to stop and like you know, ‘I’ve apologized to my family. I’ve apologize to my wife. I’m not going to take abuse from you jacka#$@s.’”

Obama and the Democrats have admittedly missed most of their shots while not making proper use of their current home court advantage. For an entire year they allowed themselves the false hope that they had one or two “friends” amongst the Republicans, and seemed utterly reticent in defending themselves against the relentless onslaught of often hysterical hyperbole from the right. The Democrats have to realize that liberals and progressives (the latter albeit reluctantly) have their “backs.” They ought to feel free to bring the hammer down on Republican hypocrisy, such as on “fiscal responsibility.” They need to hammer on Republican policies that created a mere net of 2 million jobs during the Bush years, as opposed to 22 million during the Clinton years (I’m not as down on Clinton as Thom is). They need to point out, for example, that Clinton’s earned income tax credit policies that put more money into the hands of working class consumers helped create those jobs, while the Republican tax cuts for the richest Americans created almost no jobs. They need to hammer on the inherent hypocrisy of Republicans’ alleged concern about the wellbeing of the average American—opposing health care reform, economic stimulants and delaying unemployment extensions, while seeming to care a great deal for the “wellbeing” of their corporate paymasters, who pay little or no taxes while accumulating mind-numbing profits. They need to hammer on what is really “unpatriotic”: the failure of corporations that benefited from taxpayer money (most of whom paid little or nothing themselves) to use that money to keep America strong by maintaining a aviable employment climate rather than keeping all that money for their own enrichment, and the right-wing media creating a deliberately divisive civic atmosphere for destructive ends seemingly for “fun” and personal profit.