Tea Parties will not be Ignored

It wasn't hardly mentioned on Google News. In fact, you had to work your way down the page to find it, but the Tea Party enjoyed a bash to remember in our nation's capital this weekend. It is the kind of event that the mainstream media has tried desperately to avoid. The numbers on how many that showed up are fuzzy, at best:

• A reporter for the Examiner said around 30,000 showed up



• ABC news reported over 60,000



• NPR called it "tens of thousands"



• CNN is even more non-committal, merely describing the numbers in the thousands



• Ironically, the closest number came from a British newspaper, the Daily Mail, which put it at approximately 2 million (actually citing Capitol Hill police)
  

I guess the British didn't have a vested interest in the numbers like the US media. American news sources are so vested in this Administration (after all, the news made history in the way it handled Obama, it didn't merely witness it). Not only has the media dramatically underestimated the numbers of those who attended, but has also presented the story with rather harsh headlines:

• The Kansas City Star notes "Angry Tea Party protesters flood D.C."


• The CNN, in its classically cynical fashion says "Health care reform critics converge on Capitol." I don't know anyone, including those in the tea party movement, who don't want to see health care reform. However, if you oppose the President's approach, you oppose reform according to the news. There is nothing like objective media.


• Another Examiner writer argues about "The Hypocrisy of Tea Party Conservatives."


• One writer finds one of the protests' more crude protesters with "Tea Party protest: 'Bury Obama Care with Kennedy.'"

The media is committed to marginalizing and dismissing the tea party movement as a very temporary fad. Ironically, that seems to be only driving the tea party movement further. As the numbers continue to be measured in terms of fractions by the media , the Tea Party provides one of the largest protests on the Capitol in our nation's history. For the Tea Party, the best days are yet to come.

Kevin Price is Host of the Price of Business, the longest running show on AM 650 (M-F at 11 am) in Houston, Texas and on AOL Radio. His articles often appear in Chicago Sun Times, Reuters, USA Today, and other national media. Steve Moore of the Wall Street Journal calls Price the “best business talk show host in the country.” Find out why and visit his blog at www.BizPlusBlog.com and his show site at www.PriceofBusiness.com. You can also find Price on Strategy Room at FoxNews.com.