And by "teabagger," I mean "imbecile."

Via Chet, we have the incomparable Matt Taibbi:

It’s amazing, literally amazing to me, that it wasn’t until Obama pushed through a package containing a massive public works package and significant homeowner aid that conservatives took to the streets. In other words, it wasn’t until taxes turned into construction jobs and mortgage relief that working and middle-class Americans decided to protest. I didn’t see anyone on the street when we forked over billions of dollars to help JP Morgan Chase buy Bear Stearns. And I didn’t see anyone on the street when Hank Paulson forked over $45 more billion to help Bank of America buy Merrill Lynch, a company run at the time by one of the world’s biggest assholes, John Thain. Moreover I didn’t see any street protests when the government agreed to soak up hundreds of billions in “troubled assets” from Citigroup, a company that just months later would lend out a jet furnished with pillows upholstered with Hermes scarves to former chief Sandy Weill so that he could vacation in Mexico over Christmas...

The really irritating thing about these morons is that, guaranteed, not one of them has ever taken a serious look at the federal budget. Not one has ever bothered to read an actual detailed study of what their taxes pay for. All they do is listen to one-liners doled out by tawdry Murdoch-hired mouthpieces like Michelle Malkin and then repeat them as if they’re their own opinions five seconds later. That’s what passes for political thought in this country. Teabag on, you fools.

Chet sums it up nicely:

It's not that the "teabaggers" don't mind funding Lou Gertsner's stock options et al.; it's that they don't know. They don't know anything. The reason they were out in the streets in (tiny) numbers yesterday is that the corporate groups that organized the rallies were just fine with bailouts of themselves; it's aid to ordinary people that the corporate astroturfers oppose. And, unfortunately, in a country of 300 million, it's not that hard for the astroturfers to find 100,000 dunderheads willing to go along against their own interests.

And if one needs proof of this, one need only head over to Canada's Blogging Tories, whose enthusiasm for an utterly faux "grassroots" protest can be found, say, here:

Americans are not accepting Obama's tax and spend policies lying down. They've taken to the streets in 2500 different locations in all 50 states in an amazing feat of grassroots activism by common citizens.

Chet is exactly right -- what we're hearing is hilariously uninformed bleating from people who know nothing. Truly, absolutely nothing, but what they're spoon-fed from their corporate handlers, or Michelle Malkin, or Matt Drudge, or whoever. Mindless stenographers, the lot of them, but here's the real irony:

Shouts rang out from Kentucky, which just passed tax increases on cigarettes and alcohol, to Salt Lake City, where many in the crowd booed Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman for accepting about $1.5 billion in stimulus money.

"Frankly, I'm mad as hell," said businessman Doug Burnett at a rally at the Iowa Capitol, where many of the about 1,000 people wore red shirts declaring "revolution is brewing." Burnett added: "This country has been on a spending spree for decades, a spending spree we can't afford."

That's right -- a spending spree for "decades." But, curiously, it's only a couple months after a black, Democratic president takes over that all these people suddenly decide they're "mad as hell" and aren't going to take it any more. What deliciously convenient timing, wouldn't you say?


And George W. gets a free pass. Again. I'm sure you're shocked.

PURE COMEDY GOLD. Jonathan Strong inspires pants-pissing hilarity with this gem:

When individuals are left to pursue their own interests free from government intervention, wealth is created, ingenuity flourishes, and prosperity booms.

Yes, Jonathan -- an overabundance of "government intervention" is exactly what caused the current economic catastrophe. Honestly, how is it that people like this are even capable of putting on their underwear the right way in the morning?