I always find it interesting to see how some of these so called journalists react when they're asked questions that don't fall into their scripted talking points of the week. C-SPAN aired Politico's weekly "Turn the Table" Sunday show preview which featured David Gregory, Candy Crowley, Bob Schieffer and Christiane Amanpour. A woman who identified herself as someone who works in alternative media asked the panel these questions.
Q: One, the Tea Party, are they Republicans? Because, have I seen where they have been placed on the ballot as a separate party like the Green Party or the Communist Party; is the Tea Party Republican? And a question to all of you in the media that I've not heard mentioned at all, the two largest embassies that have been built in the world in Iraq and Haiti, I've not heard any of the media, in terms of mainstream media talk about those at all. That's a lot of government and money.
David Gregory dismissed the size of our massive embassy in Iraq and simply said that if she was concerned about that the bigger issue is how much money we're spending on the "wars" and that the embassy was "just a symbol of that" and the concerns should go well beyond those buildings. While I don't necessarily disagree with that it doesn't excuse the lack of coverage over the waste and other problems involved in building the embassy in Iraq, the costs, and what it means in terms of our endless military occupations.
Gregory and the other panelists then said this about the so called "Tea Party":
GREGORY: I think the Tea Party's goal in life is to rehabilitate the Republican Party, so yes, they're part of the Republican Party.
SCHIEFFER: And they ran as Republicans. I mean they ran in the Republican primaries and I think one of the things that there was a sigh of relief for Republicans is they did not try to run as independents.
HARRIS: Yeah, Bob implicit in that question and I think is a pretty valid point is it seemed like many of the Tea Party activists, the people most motivated in this election care a lot more about their ideological agenda than they do the Republican brand. In many cases it seemed to me that they were as contemptuous of Republicans and sort of Washington political professionals as they were Democratic political pros.
SCHIEFFER: But they ran as Republicans.
HARRIS: Right.
SCHIEFFER: I mean they ran in Republican primaries and they were elected as Republicans.
HARRIS: Right...right... right.
SCHIEFFER: Yes, they want to change the Republican Party.
AMANPOUR: Jim DeMint said, and maybe he said it to you "We'd rather have people with principle" than just any Republican.
CROWLEY: Well it was something like that. Thirty true believers and sixty are Arlen Specters.
That's more of an admission out of any of them than you normally get on the air where they're more than happy to help the Republicans out by participating in their re-branding effort and pretending that the "Tea Party" is not just the far right wing of the Republican Party and ignoring their corporate backers like the Koch brothers.
