Scenes from the Audit the IRS Rally

At Instapundit.

I was wondering why the media freaked out so hard over the Tea Party in 2010. This is my guess (and honestly, this is a half-hour theory so if I'm wrong let me know):

Apart from the obvious (they want Obama to succeed and were determined to play Let's Get on the Bandwagon social coordinator for them), the media justifies its bias by telling itself that it's on the Side of the People. See, they're not just picking sides in a political battles; they're on the Side of the People, the great mass of people, so that makes their bias more "objective." Because, you know, if The People want something, who could stand against them?

When the Tea Party burst out on the scene in 2010, the co-opted techniques used by the left to show that they were The People. Popular revolt, demonstrations, rallies, all of it-- all of it from the left's playbook.

This wouldn't do for the media for many reasons. They immediately attempted to claim the Tea Party was astroturf, artificial. Of course it must be! After all, the media is on The Side of the People, and if we have 30,000 people demonstrating here against the media's agenda, why, that would mean the media is not on the Side of the People, and that can't be! So this must be a corporate astroturf campaign paid for by the Koch brothers.

The media continues to despise the Tea Party for putting a lie to the media's claim that they're Just on the Side of the People. And they doubly hate the Tea Party because the media are among the people to whom that lie has been exposed. They hate that the Tea Party stole some of their Heroism and Self-Worth away from them.

And... Open Thread.

posted by Ace at 08:36 PM

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