Jennifer Harper: Tea Party Pile On

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Jennifer Harper, in Wednesday morning's "Inside the Beltway" column in the Washington Times:

There's a media pile-on afoot. Led primarily by the New York Times, a variety of news organizations are attacking the National Tea Party Convention, scheduled to begin Feb. 4 in Nashville, Tenn., with Sarah Palin as the keynote speaker. The Times claims the event is a "profiteering" enterprise, suggesting that the convention violates the grass-roots nature of the "tea party" movement. "Fractiousness," territorial disputes and suspiscions have cast a shadow over the effort, the paper says.

Yet the event is sold out. There's a waiting list, even among those seeking entrance to Mrs. Palin's speech alone. Eight sponsors include Judicial Watch, the Eagle Forum and the National Taxpayers Union. The convention center is ready, the surf and turf waiting.

"It is going to be a great event. We have a lot of people who are coming who are very excited about the event, and I think they are going to leave inspired and with some great new tools to take back to their groups," organizer Judson Phillips tells Inside the Beltway.

He adds that few journalists "have bothered" to get his side of the story, which has been ramped up in the last 48 hours by the Los Angeles Times, Politico, CBS News, MSNBC, the Atlantic, Media Matters for America and other sources.

It's a classic — and convenient — media frenzy.

"A lot of individuals want to get involved in the political process, in the organization of the tea party movement. And now we find that the news media is seizing on this, and extrapolating that the tea party is in trouble or divided," John O'Hara tells The Beltway.

He is the author of the new book "A New American Tea Party," and contends that tea party believers, while representing a spectrum of ideas, are united by the same motivation: the well-being of the nation.

"The press has tried to marginalize the tea party movement from the beginning. They recognize it as a potent political force, and they want to do it in. A little less than a year ago, these same journalists were dismissing the tea party as a 'fringe' phenomenon, not even worth their time," Mr. O'Hara says.

"Now they smell blood," he adds.

If only it were just the lamestream media piling on...

- JP