According to the New York Times, President Obama recently used a sexual term to refer to Americans attending tea party rallies across the United States:
Both Mr. Obama and the House leaders showcased Democrats’ newest colleague, Representative Bill Owens, who last Tuesday won a special election in an upstate New York district that Republicans had held since 1872. In the campaign, Mr. Owens gave unabashed support to the pending House health care bill, despite the opposition of national conservative groups, including the new Tea Party Patriots, who backed Mr. Owens’ conservative rival.
Mr. Obama, during his private pep talk to Democrats, recognized Mr. Owens election and then posed a question to the other lawmakers. According to Representative Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, who supports the health care bill, the president asked, “Does anybody think that the teabag, anti-government people are going to support them if they bring down health care? All it will do is confuse and dispirit” Democratic voters “and it will encourage the extremists.”
This is a quote attributed to the President by a third party who either agrees with the term being used and sees no problem with the President using it or doesn’t understand the negative, sexual usage of the term to disparage the protestors who decry the bankrupting of America and the dramatic left turn the country is taking.
Either way is troubling.
