Tea Party leader warns movement is being hijacked by the GOP

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

What was his first clue? The corporate sponsored Astroturf from FreedomWorks? The 24/7 corporate sponsored advertising disguised as "news" from News Corp/Faux News? This guy is a little slow on the uptake.

Dale Robertson, the founder of TeaParty.org, is just the latest Tea Partier to express concern that the movement is being hijacked by the GOP. He is warning that the movement "is becoming nothing more than a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party," and slamming Sarah Palin as representing "a growing insider's attack to the heart of the Tea Party." 'Warning: Tea Party In Danger': Leader Slams Palin As 'Wolf In Sheep's Clothing'

In a lengthy statement — entitled "Warning: Tea Party In Danger" — posted yesterday on the TeaParty.org homepage, Robertson instructs his felllow Tea Partiers to "[b]e alert to turncoats and deceivers being herded into the Tea Party by usurpers from the weakened Republican Party for the sole purpose of capturing our populist movement."

Robertson continues:

[W]hat I am witnessing is an attempted defilement of the concept of what the Tea Party's purposes are and where we are going. The bastardization of our message I find bilious and disingenuous on its face.

Tea Party members are being eyed as just another piece of voting meat. Tea Party members are targeted for filling the rank and file of minion laden political operations, most of which are lead (sic) by failed Republican hacks.

As for Palin, whose appearance last week at a controversial Tea Party convention appears to have given her a claim to be the de facto leader of the Tea Party movement, Robertson derides her "neo-con flippant viewpoint" and calls her "a duck out of water among true constitutional conservatives."

He adds:

She represents a growing insider's attack to the heart of the Tea Party. Very much like a wolf in sheep's clothing entering in at the gate as an ally, but for all intents and purposes there to seize and capture, not only one or two stray sheep, but the whole flock!

The Houston-based Robertson rose to prominence in the movement last year when he helped organize local rallies and founded Teaparty.org, a for-profit conservative activist site. But his influence within Tea Party circles is open to question. The Houston Tea Party Patriots distanced themselves from him after a photograph emerged of him holding a sign that compared taxpayers to "niggars."

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Robertson is hardly alone in warning that Republicans are trying to hijack the Tea Party movement. Several grassroots Tea Partiers have sounded similar alarms — some to TPMmuckraker — partly in reference to the convention at which Palin spoke.

You can read Robertson's full statement here.

Keith Olbermann had some fun with this parody of the Carly Fiorina "demon sheep" ad in this segment of Countdown (at 1:48 mark).

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Bonus Points: (Not named) Joe the (not a) Plumber, a monster created by the McCain-Palin campaign, once again has attacked his creators. PoliticsPA: Joe the Plumber takes aim at Palin:

Samuel Wurzelbacher, aka “Joe the Plumber,” took aim at former Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin during a campaign event Saturday afternoon for Republican gubernatorial candidate Sam Rohrer.

The 2008 presidential campaign phenomenon said Palin is not the leader of the conservative Tea Party movement.

“She’s backing John McCain,” Wurzelbacher said. “John McCain is of the Republican machine. That’s not what the Tea Party is all about.”

Wurzelbacher, who acknowledged his remarks about Palin might not be popular with the crowd of 400 mostly conservative activists, later said, “I’m hear to tell you John McCain is no public servant.”

That's some gratitude.