Me, myself and I
Editor, The Times:
After reading the article on the tea-party followers [“Poll tells us who tea-party backers really are,” page one, April 15], the thing that jumped out at me the most about their beliefs were: “Me, myself and I.”
And why not. They love Sarah Palin and that is what she is all about. Nothing about caring about America, other people in America or the welfare of all states. Just themselves. Kind of the nobility get it all and the rest of the country — well that’s just too bad, huh.
They can’t stand President Obama because he is a “socialist,” who in my mind passed a Republican health-care plan.
And they can’t stand Obama because he is a “Muslim” because he hasn’t found a church to go to in the year he has been in office. I have news for them. I haven’t found a church to go to in more than 15 years, and believe me, I am not a Muslim.
The president is spending too much money on things they don’t like. Well I have not been too happy spending money on two wars their hero George W. Bush got us into. Oh, and by the way, I am also well-educated and in the upper levels of income. Not rich but far from poor.
Sorry tea-partyers. You are just another bunch of self-centered, spoiled-rotten brats.
— Lucy M. Oaks, Redmond
Brainwashed hypocrites
There is one statistic that was left out from your tea-party article Thursday: the percentage of tea-partyers who are hypocrites. How many denounce Social Security and Medicare yet receive benefits from those programs?
It is clear that the tea-party group is really just those who still are brainwashed by the Bush administration. They probably still think there are WMDs in Iraq.
— Page Russell, Burien
A cynical cabal
There is nothing patriotic or grass-roots about the so-called tea-party “patriots.”
Cleverly bandying the word “elite,” the real force behind the movement is, as your Thursday article points out, the worst kind of elite: a small, educated and supremely cynical cabal of superrich who use frustrated demonstrators as pawns in their ongoing bid to eviscerate the middle class and destroy America’s proudest achievements.
Their “patriotic” goal: to keep as much of their money as they can for themselves. Offshore bank account, anyone?
— Kurt E. Armbruster, Seattle
Tell us your plan
As they cross the country on their crusade of fiscal responsibility, riddle me this: Where were they the entire eight years of the previous administration?
And their Republican cheerleaders, where will they be should they regain a congressional majority and/or the White House?
The possible answers to those questions lend a hollow ring to the vociferous protests of the tea party.
Everyone who insists they have legitimate concerns to raise might do us the service of at least a detailed accounting of the origins, demographics of, and possible future of the tea party in these regards.
— Mike Moore, Kent