Fwd: Times Polls Tea Partiers, Finds Them Educated, But Also Angry and Inconsistent

Documenting and Exposing the Liberal Political Agenda of the New York Times
Thursday April 15, 2010 @ 03:17 PM EDT

Michelle Obama, New Jackie O and Sole Savior of the Fashion Industry
Some more of that hard-bitten Times reporting: "Often called the First Lady of Fashion, Mrs. Obama has a sense of style, as we all know by now, that rivals Jackie Kennedy's. She has boosted the spirits of the American fashion industry..."

Gail Collins Doesn't Get It Either: Expects Tea Partiers to Celebrate 47% Who Pay No Taxes
Columnist Gail Collins ironically asks when anti-tax groups will hold "rallies to thank the president for doing so much to reduce the burden on the half of the country least able to pay." Apparently conservatives are expected to protest only in their own selfish interests, not for what they see as the greater good of all (lower taxes for everyone)

Times Polls Tea Partiers, Finds Them Educated, But Also Angry and Inconsistent
The Times lead story by Kate Zernike on its new poll of Tea Party protesters: Good start, questionable finish: "Some defended being on Social Security while fighting big government by saying that since they had paid into the system, they deserved the benefits. Others could not explain the contradiction."

Reporter Uses Poland's Tragedy to Deride 'Crass' Post-Communist Capitalism
The Times' Eastern Europe correspondent Dan Bilefsky can't deal with the "crass commercialism" taking over Europe after the fall of Communism: "Learning the lessons of capitalism; profit nudges grief aside."

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Michelle Obama, New Jackie O and Sole Savior of the Fashion Industry

After a hiatus, the Times is back to adoring first lady Michelle Obama. Fashion writer Eric Wilson's Thursday piece in the Styles section, "Don't Get Gravy on Her Gown," celebrated  first lady Michelle Obama as a literal "fashion plate" -- she's being featured on one of those tacky porcelain commemorative plates.

That rather dubious honor didn't stop Wilson from extolling "the First Lady of Fashion."

First Lady Michelle Obama is now officially a fashion plate.

Not that there were any doubts before, mind you. Often called the First Lady of Fashion, Mrs. Obama has a sense of style, as we all know by now, that rivals Jackie Kennedy's. She has boosted the spirits of the American fashion industry with her unconventional mix of avant-garde newcomers and off-the-rack Talbots, and claimed a Council of Fashion Designers of America style-icon award along the way.

In January 2009, the headline over fashion writer Guy Trebay's story also hailed the first lady as the sole savior of the fashion industry: "U.S. Fashion's One-Woman Bailout? In Michelle's approach to dressing, a faltering industry sees hope."

Gail Collins Doesn't Get It Either: Expects Tea Partiers to Celebrate 47% Who Pay No Taxes

In her Thursday column, the non-ironically titled "Celebrating the Joys Of April 15," Gail Collins wondered why Tea Party protesters weren't happier. After all, according a new study by the Tax Policy center, 47% of U.S. households (including many Tea Party protesters) didn't owe any income tax last year.

Collins found herself puzzled by that. But isn't it generally seen as a good thing to be fighting against one's own perceived best interests and for the greater good? Apparently Collins expects conservative protesters to selfishly guard their own perceived economic interests.

The Internal Revenue Service needs to get way better at marketing.

Somehow the government tax collectors have let the country get locked into the idea that April 15 is a day of sorrow and misery, the culmination of the dreaded filing of the income tax form.

But, in fact, most people who file get money back. (Cue the horns and balloons.)

And according to one much, much-quoted study by the Tax Policy Center, 47 percent of American households didn't have to pay one cent of income tax for 2009. (Marching bands, confetti.)

Thanks to the tax credits in President Obama's stimulus plan and other programs aimed at helping working families, couples with two kids making up to $50,000 were generally off the hook this year.

Naturally, anti-tax groups held rallies to thank the president for doing so much to reduce the burden on the half of the country least able to pay. Not.

Like economics writer David Leonhardt on Wednesday, Collins evidently can't conceive of a principled conservative movement. And she got at least one fact wrong:

According to the Gallup polls, 45 percent of Tea Party supporters have incomes under $50,000. According to a New York Times/CBS News poll, Tea Party activists are virtually the only segment of the population in which a majority feels its tax burden is unfair. Clearly, these are not the kind of folks who would cancel their anti-tax rallies just on account of not being taxed.

"We're here to take our country back," said a former Missouri House speaker at a Tea Party rally at the State Capitol, where nobody appeared to be grateful for the good news about the bottom 47 percent at all.

Actually, the NYT/CBS poll shows that a majority (52%) of Tea Party members think their income tax burden is fair, compared to 42% who think it's unfair. That's n the same solar system as the rest of the population, where the figures are 62% fair -- 30% unfair.

Collins kept celebrating the fact that half of U.S. households pay no income taxes on federal programs that (theoretically, anyway) benefit all, leaving them free to support expensive programs like Obama-care in the knowledge they won't be paying for them.

Times Polls Tea Partiers, Finds Them Educated, But Also Angry and Inconsistent

Thursday's lead New York Times story on a new poll of Tea Party members (a joint effort by the Times and CBS News) got off to a promising start with a headline that probably truly qualified as news for the paper's liberal readership: "Poll Finds Tea Party Backers Wealthier and More Educated."

The story by Kate Zernike and Megan Thee-Brenan also began on an upbeat note (Zernike has evidently taken L.A.-bound reporter Adam Nagourney's place on the poll-watch beat):

Tea Party supporters are wealthier and more well-educated than the general public, and are no more or less afraid of falling into a lower socioeconomic class, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

The 18 percent of Americans who identify themselves as Tea Party supporters tend to be Republican, white, male, married and older than 45.

They hold more conservative views on a range of issues than Republicans generally. They are also more likely to describe themselves as "very conservative" and President Obama as "very liberal."

But by paragraph four, the Times began to portray the movement as "angry," paranoid, and possibly anti-black.

And while most Republicans say they are "dissatisfied" with Washington, Tea Party supporters are more likely to classify themselves as "angry."

Especially when a pollster asks them if they are angry, as the Times did.

Tea Party supporters' fierce animosity toward Washington, and the president in particular, is rooted in deep pessimism about the direction of the country and the conviction that the policies of the Obama administration are disproportionately directed at helping the poor rather than the middle class or the rich.

But is the Tea Party movement really about getting the government to "help the rich"? Isn't it more about trying to get the government to leave everyone alone, rich, middle class, and poor alike?

The overwhelming majority of supporters say Mr. Obama does not share the values most Americans live by and that he does not understand the problems of people like themselves. More than half say the policies of the administration favor the poor, and 25 percent think that the administration favors blacks over whites -- compared with 11 percent of the general public.

They are more likely than the general public, and Republicans, to say that too much has been made of the problems facing black people.

....

Some defended being on Social Security while fighting big government by saying that since they had paid into the system, they deserved the benefits.

Others could not explain the contradiction.

"That's a conundrum, isn't it?" asked Jodine White, 62, of Rocklin, Calif. "I don't know what to say. Maybe I don't want smaller government. I guess I want smaller government and my Social Security." She added, "I didn't look at it from the perspective of losing things I need. I think I've changed my mind."

MRC's Brent Baker noticed that CBS News, the other poll sponsor, also couldn't resist knocking the Tea Party movement for "inconsistency."

Here's a snide aside from the original nytimes.com posting that didn't make it into the print edition:

Tea Party supporters are also more likely than most Americans to believe, mistakenly, that the president has increased taxes for most Americans.

Following is a sample of poll questions. Notice how the Times injected its own favorite description of the Tea Party movement -- "anger" -- into the poll, and not surprisingly ended up with a lot of self-described Tea Party members agreeing with the characterization. (You can read a .pdf version of the poll here.)

24. Which comes closest to your feelings about the way things are going in Washington -- enthusiastic, satisfied but not enthusiastic, dissatisfied but not angry, or angry?

The results of Question 49 may have surprised, though Zernike didn't make much of it. When specifically asked if Obama was moving the country toward socialism, most respondents, not just Tea Party members, answered in the affirmative. (Admittedly it was a leading question, just like the one about "anger.")

49. Some people say Barack Obama's policies are moving the country more toward socialism. Do you think Barack Obama's policies are moving the country more toward socialism, or are his policies not moving the country in that direction?

Here was the response:

General Public:    Toward socialism 52% Not toward socialism 38%

Tea Party Members: Toward socialism 92%  Not toward socialism 6%

Question #104, asked "for background only," suggested liberal paranoia on the part of the Times:

104. "Do you or does any other member of your household own a handgun, rifle, shotgun, or any other kind of firearm?"

The last questions worked the hypocrisy angle, asking Tea Party members if they or a family member benefitted from Medicare, Social Security, or public schools, as if Tea Party members would not be entitled to withdraw benefits for a program they've been legally obligated to pay into.

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Reporter Uses Poland's Tragedy to Deride 'Crass' Post-Communist Capitalism

Eastern Europe correspondent Dan Bilefsky seems obliged to make anti-capitalist cracks whenever he can fit them in, and did not falter on Thursday. Writing from Warsaw, Bilefsky used the plane crash death of Poland's President Lech Kaczynski to mourn "crass commercialism" in Poland: "Vendors Turns Poland's Calamity Into an Opportunity."

The text box: "Learning the lessons of capitalism; profit nudges grief aside."

Candle sellers reaped handsome profits as mourners bought thousands of brightly colored candles -- about $2 each -- creating an instant memorial throughout the capital.

Poland's calamity has unified the country and spurred a genuine outpouring of grief and solidarity seldom seen since the death of Pope John Paul II, five years ago. For the past two days, a line of grieving mourners over half a mile long has assembled near the Presidential Palace.

Yet some Poles said the crass commercialism that also greeted the tragedy showed the extent to which Poland, 20 years after the revolution that overthrew Communism, had become a healthy capitalist economy, even as the free market was challenging the Roman Catholic Church as the new religion.

Others who knew Mr. Kaczynski, an advocate of social justice who railed against the excesses of the market economy, said he would have recoiled at the sight of T-shirts bearing his image.

Ryszard Bugaj, Mr. Kaczynski's senior economic adviser before the president's death, said he was not surprised that some were trying to profit from the misery of others. "It's a natural thing that such traumatic events are followed by extreme behaviors, both very good ones and, like in this case, the worst ones," he said in an interview. "I find it sad that people are exploiting other people's grief. This kind of behavior is typical of capitalist morality, when people don't care about what's appropriate anymore and are blinded by the sheer prospect of financial gain."

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