The Chron still does not get it (part 4268 of a series)

Today, Lynsi Burton steps off into a latrine pit with an unsubstantiated assertion that the GOP created the Tea Party Movement, but has lost control of it.

The Tea Party Movement is not, and never was "created by the GOP". If anything, it was created in response to the GOP as it exists today. The GOP contingent in Congress has over the last few years attempted to move to the left and has become virtually indistinguishable from the Democrats. The Tea Party movement was created by the grass roots in order to show our leaders in Washington DC that the people are not leftist, we are by huge majorities, right of center. I realize she may not understand the true meaning of the words "Grass Roots" because it has been misappropriated and misapplied to groups that are in fact "astroturf" groups. Most of these astroturf groups are in fact promulgated by democrat organizations to support democrat causes. The most famous of these is ACORN and it's hundreds of front organizations, including SEIU. Let me be clear here, the true meaning of a grass roots organization is one that SPONTANEOUSLY forms by individuals, not by groups in order to give political cover to said groups. The Tea Party movement is just such a spontaneous group, as is the ACP.

The Tea Party movement was not formed by the GOP, at least not intentionally. It was formed BECAUSE of the GOP and it's shift leftward. It is not in of itself partisan, but it does lean to the right, on both fiscal as well as social issues. The ACP however IS partisan and it too was formed as a response to the GOP's shift leftwards.

Ms Burton really should do a bit more homework before she dives off into such rhetoric because she just looks like a democrat toady and hack propagandist instead of an actual unbiased journalist. Frankly her biases are showing in spades. Talking to her leftist co-workers over beers at some trendy bar is NOT research. She really should have contacted Felicia Cravens or someone else in the tea party movement before she went and stuffed both of her feet in her mouth.