What do tea parties and evangelicals have in common?
Tea parties and evangelicals parting ways?
A Politico story points to the growing divide between right wing evangelicals and the tea party movement, which lately has been up-staging the faithful as the darling of the GOP. Clearly, the two are strange bedfellows: evangelicals reluctantly got into politics in a big way in 2000, wooed by Karl Rove’s tactical promise that a born-again president would implement the two simple things the Christian right craves: outlawing abortion and preventing the spread of gay marriage. Over the course of eight years, they got exactly nothing: a temporary speed bump on stem cell research, a ban on distributing condoms in Africa … some incremental stuff on the rarest of abortion procedures. But on the whole, what evangelicals got from eight years of Bush, and six years of total Republican control of the federal government, plus a majority of governorships in the previous decade, was a red hot bowl of nothing.
Fast forward to 2010, and evangelicals have been pushed aside by a new GOP favorite: the tea party movement. Read more
Tea parties turn on Ron Paul: is this the beginning of the end?
Allahpundit asks: if Ron Paul isn’t safe from the tea party movement, who is? And it’s a good question. The tea party movement began as a sort of Libertarian/conservative uprising, focused on shrinking government, ending bailouts and cutting taxes. It definitely had an element of Obama Derangement Syndrome grafted onto it, but in theory at least, it also was anti George W. Bush. Clearly it has morphed into something else — a confederation of people who reject the results of the 2008 election, mainly Palinites (the angry mobs who shouted “kill him!” and “off with his head!” at Palin’s ‘08 rallies look an awful lot like those making up the tea rallies these days…) George W. Bush defenders, neoconservatives (who really don’t seem to fit in, but whose beef with Paul is that he opposes foreign adventurism, a la Iraq) plus the well-documented fringe of racists, nativists, birthers and just plain angry white people. Throw in Tom Tancredo leading the lobster-gobbling, pinky in the air Nashville conventioneers and you get a strange gobbledygook of race baiting and snobs who can afford to pay $800 to hear Sarah Palin say what you can hear her say for free on Fox News, and what you’re left with is a very strange brew. Read more
You can go home again: Stossel rides the ABC-Fox pipeline
Stossel, whose world view can basically be summed up as “breast implants are safe, dioxin is safe, organic foods are no healthier than regular food and in fact may be more dangerous because they have more bacteria, government handouts are bad, flood insurance is bad, high salaries for corporate CEOs are good, privatizing housing projects is good, banning smoking is bad, legalizing drugs is good” has been spouting Libertarian stuff for years on 20/20 as the side guy. Now, he’s getting his very own show, but he’s winding up at the sad, sad Fox Business Network (with Don Imus…) plus “specials” for Fzux. What’s up with that??? Anyway, I think Stossel will feel more at home in the Murdoch family, which is right wing like The House of Mouse, only all the time (with no breaks for “The View” and “Grey’s Anatomy.” TV Newser expands on the pipeline:
At Fox, Stossel will join another ABC alum, Chris Wallace who made the jump from broadcast TV to Fox in 2003. Last year, ABC News veteran producer Michael Clemente joined Fox News as SVP of News. Clemente had worked as a senior broadcast producer with Stossel on “20/20″ during his 11 years at ABC.
Perhaps FNC’s most notable ABC hire is Brit Hume, who spent 23 years at ABC News before joining Fox News when it launched. Hume stepped down from his daily “Special Report” anchoring last year and now appears as an analyst on the network.
Get in where you fit in, John.
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