Was President Obama the first Tea Partier?
In 2009, President Barack Obama reportedlycalled members of the Tea Party "teabaggers." It turns out that our fourth greatest president,first in so many things, may have been the first "teabagger" himself, as seen in the 1997 photograph above. Yes, that really is Barack Obama wearing a regimental coat and carrying a tricorn hat in his hand. And that flag behind him really is a Gadsden flag, with its serpent and its "Don't Tread On Me" slogan. You may want to let all of this sink in a bit, especially if you're a Tea Party-bashing progressive.
Neither Democrats nor the media have been particularly kind to the Tea Party. There is hardly space to go through all the times theTea Party has been compared to terrorists (including by the Vice President) or fascists, or the many times it has been accused of racism by progressives in supposedly mainstream news outlets. That's a book-length story of its own.
