I Wonder Why?

by tristero

Fortunately, Digby summarized the survey of the teabaggers so thoroughly that I don’t have to. I do want to add one thing I noticed.

The second paragraph of the article describing the poll starts off like this:

The 18 percent of Americans who identify themselves as Tea Party supporters…

Eigtheen percent of the country support teabagging – not the wholesome leisure time activity, mind you, but the toxic ideological swill in which Glenn Beck et al wallows. Does that strike you as a lot of people? Well, yes, if, as I’m so fond of noting, you’re driving on a road and you realize that nearly 20 of the cars hurtling towards you out of every 100 are driven someone so insane they think Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States or something equally delusional.

Or no, it’s not a large number, all things considered. It’s certainly no larger than the number of folks who opposed the war in Iraq in 2002/03 and probably smaller. Here’s the kicker:

Did you see the Times and CBS go way out of their way to find out much about what those opposed to Bush’s mad folly were up to? Oh, sure, there was the occasional article about MoveOn, but this poll – which must have been very expensive and time consuming – is on the front page of the Times today, above the fold, in the most prominent news position, and runs across all but 1 of the 6 columns of news-stories at the top of the paper.

Note to progressives:

Find out who the teabaggers employ to do their pr and hire them away at double their salary. The “Tea Party” movement will dry up within hours.

Okay, that’s an exaggeration. But the amount of coverage that white, often-racist, upper/upper middle-class rightwing movements receive in the mainstream press is vastly greater than similarly-sized non-racist, genuinely popular liberal movements.

I wonder why?