Harry Reid: It's true, the tea party isn't violent -- "directly"

Via Twitchy, a milestone day: First Biden drops the J-word on the Tsarnaevs, now Harry Reid debunks one of the left’s evergreen smears against the tea party. Sort of: His point is that tea partiers don’t bomb public property like anarchists, they just sort of force it into disrepair by fighting spending tooth and nail. It’s not real terrorism, it’s more like … fiscal terrorism.

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Two things. One: If this guy thinks the congressional Republican leadership is making tea partiers’ dreams come true, he should talk to a few of them and float that idea. See how they react. They’ll be very surprised to learn that they’ve got Washington, which is $16 trillion in debt and counting, in an ideological stranglehold. Two: Since when are tea partiers opposed to all forms of spending? That may be true of strong-form libertarians, but it’s been a long time since someone confused tea partiers for that group. There’s been more than one poll since 2010 showing that TPers are okay with spending for Social Security and Medicare, even though the latter is a mortal threat to American solvency long-term. Tea partiers might support some cuts to defense in the name of general belt-tightening, but I’d bet heavily that you’ll find a wide, wide gap between them and libertarians on whether they’re willing to gut the military. This is a nice little self-serving fantasy/talking point he’s got going here, but when push comes to shove, tea partiers aren’t anarchists or even libertarians. They’re conservatives.

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Does this guy know any actual tea partiers?

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