Anatomy of a STL Tea Party Smear

We all know that the St. Louis Tea Party is willing to viciously attack, with nonsense and falsehoods, anyone on the left side of the political spectrum. But it still was a little surprising to see the fury with which they attacked a conservative on Twitter who started asking questions about whether the St. Louis Tea Party leaders were using the movement to make profits and curry favors from politicians. Ryan Witt at the Political Buzz Examiner reported earlier on some of the tweets conerservative activist Jan Simpson was putting out:

Uh OH @whennessy the Leader of the St Louis Tea Party - What type of corruption r u into? The ties that bind eh? http://bit.ly/9DUR8X"

Thought: Leadership of Tea Parties benefiting their own pockets? St Louis Tea Party supporting Communist Tom Schweich? http://bit.ly/9673UW"

Hello @barackobama Are there ANY sane ppl in your cabinet? Sounds LIke someone the St Louis Tea Party Supports http://bit.ly/cm7Y1f"

Looks like @whennessy and Loudons trying to make money off Tea Party site by selling space to companies (Ford) and politicians. @JanSimpson"

Now, I have no idea what prompted Simpson's tweets. But it seems to me like the natural thing to do for the Tea Party leaders if they were being unfairly attacked would be to simply state, "we're not getting any money from Ford or from any politicians to write positive stories about them." Instead, they freaked out and went full-bore on the "politics of personal destruction" by making ridiculous personal attacks on Simpson. And, unsurprisingly, at the forefront of the attack was Dana Loesch.

Loesch, Hennessy, and Gina Loudon had been using the #youmightbeacommunist hashtag to mock Simpson's claim that the Tea Party was supporting a "communist." The two sides were arguing back and forth, and the Loudons' teenage daughter (whom I'm not going to name because I know they'll use the same freakout tactics on me) got involved in the conversation. At some point in the conversation, Jan Simpson tweeted the following to all of the people who were arguing with her:

Thanks 4 Proving me right - My information is correct - Scared? LOL @whennessy @BulletMagnetEd @lydaloudon @drginaloudon @faith4liberty

That's when the Tea Party Attack/Distract machine kicked it into high gear. Dana Loesch used the only victimization card she had not yet played in her life, and said the following:

Get that? Simpson had sent a relatively benign tweet to a group of people she had been arguing against, and Loesch accuses her of "picking on a teenager." Loesch's sycophantic followers unthinkingly picked up on the meme, and screamed about how Simpson was "attacking," and "harrassing" and "bullying" a teenager with the comment. They even posted a story about a teenager who had killed herself after being bullied. All because of Simpson's above tweet: "Thanks 4 Proving me right - My information is correct - Scared? LOL"

Like I said, I have no idea if anything Jan Simpson claims is true. I guess, based on her tweets, the thing to look for is whether Gina Loudon's marketing company Legacy Group of Missouri or some other St. Louis Tea Party group has any official relationship with Peter Kinder, Tom Schweich, or Ford. But whether or not Simpson is right about the operations of the St. Louis tea party, the way in which they responded is instructive. They will stoop to any level to personally attack anyone they find threatening, even using children as political props.