Arnold-Imperial Leader Mocks Out of Town Tea Party Council Crashers

Patrick Martin, editor of the the Arnold-Imperial Leader, had a column this week laughing at tea partiers from across Missouri coming to the Arnold City Council meeting and trying to tell them how to run their city. The St. Louis Tea Party was angry that the Arnold City Council was voting on hiring Bob Sweeney, whom they believe is part of the secret ACORN/NEWBLACKPANTHERPARTY/CUBA plot to turn the U.S. into a Communist Dictatorship Under Sharia Law. So naturally they travelled to Arnold to scream at other people's council members for two hours. Here's the St. Louis Tea Party putting out the call to go to Arnold:



Patrick Matrin wrote up a funny response to the tea partiers, which also included this nice cartoon:



Here are some choice excerpts:

Sometimes we have problems with geography. Yes, the Arnold Rifle Range and Pistol Club is in Barnhart. Festus Ford is in Herculaneum, just like Twin City Toyta is in Herculaneum.

But this Arnold thing I don't get at all. Not a bit.

Last Thursday, a group of villagers stormed the Arnold City Council to yell about all kinds of things, though they primarily were there to loudly protest the rehiring of former and now again current city attorney Bob Sweeney.

The thing was, the villagers weren't from the village.

Ken Horton, president of the Jefferson County Tea Party, told the council, "You just made it my mission to get every one of you cowards out of office.

Horton will have to get others to pull that one of. He lives in Imperial.

Another woman, who is an Arnold resident, yelled her disapproval at city clerk Diane Waller, "I voted to appoint you!"

Waller, who does not vote on anything or have a say in the decision to hire an attorney, is appointed by the mayor, not voted on by city residents, though she did run in 2001 when city clerk was still an elective office. Maybe the woman has a long memory.

The tea party people, while exhibiting a raw anger that reflects the economic uncertainty in this country, get even madder if they are described as angry. It's all part of a conspiracy of the mainstream media, they say.

I'm not sure what the media is conspiring to do. Make the tea parters look less credible by making them look like crazy people, maybe?

If so, exhibitions like the one in Arnold last week make it pretty obvious that the mainstream media-whoever that is-isn't going to need a lot of help.

There are focused, angry people with legitimate gripes and there are unfocused, crazed, angry people who just like to be angry. The later are like thugs who look for a bar fight that doesn't concern them. then jump in just because they like to mix it up.

Anyway, pretty funny stuff. The St. Louis Tea Party, meanwhile, isn't backing down. They're still chest-thumping and bragging about how they're totally going to stick it to that Arnold City Council. We'll see how that goes.

And, given that the debate between Ed Martin and Russ Carnahan is tonight, I wonder how many of the tea party people attendance will even be from a 50-mile radius of Missouri's 3rd District. I know in the past people from all over the state and even from other states have come to yell at scream at Carnahan's townhalls.

h/t The Bone Blog for the pointer.

You can read the whole article by Martin here:

Arnold-Imperial Leader Ribs the Tea Party