Despite Intimidation Tactics, Area Conservatives Still Asking Questions About Tea Party

The last time the conservatives at the Hillbilly Logic radio show asked questions about the St. Louis tea party, they were met with a wave of insults, insinuations, and stonewalling from the local tea party leadership. So, it's heartening to see that they're still willing to continue asking questions about how the St. Louis Tea Party works. The latest post on the HillBilly Logic blog raises a number of interesting questions. Here are a few highlights:

First, the post starts from the fact that Dana Loesch had some bad things to say about the Tea Party Express (which Kenenth Gladney participated in). Loesch apparently said the following about the express:

I just do not like the way it is set up and I do not like the guy that runs it, he says some very caustic things...I am not just gonna not shine the light on it. I just think it is inconsistent and disingenuous.

Interesting, then, that the St. Louis Tea Party's Gateway Pundit was happy to promote the bus when it came to St. Charles, and that the tea party also promoted the bus tour when Kenneth Gladney joined it.

Another interesting observation from the post is that the Ensuring Liberty PAC (the subject of the original controversy) describes Gina Loudon as the founder of the St. Louis Tea Party (in John Loudon's profile). This is at odds with the official tea party story that the group was formed by Hennessy and Loesch. And, combined with the fact that Bill Hennessy explained that former Matt Blunt Chief of Staff Ed Martin was one of the organizations "officers" from the first week of it's existence, it pretty much solidifies the astroturf status of the St. Louis Tea Party since both Martin and Loudon are Republican political operatives.

From these observations it's pretty clear that the Tea Party still has not been very upfront about how the organization started and how the leadership decisions are actually made. The blog highlights this fact by pointed out that almost no one had ever heard of Katie O'Malley, the head of the Ensuring Liberty PAC. Hennessy further claims, "If I want to do a project, I do it. Hoft wants to do one, he does it. Burns, Loesch, Louden, Moore, Sharp, Adams. We didn't know each other on 02/09/09. We just come together to support each other." But given that the local tea party has "officers" and a leadership committee, this can't be right. They have a group that signs off on what they want to promote and be involved in.

The author mentions that Hennessy suggested that he was a "plant" for asking questions. Given that Hennessy is prone to believe wild conspiracy theories, this is not too surprising.

They also suggest that Dana Loesch shamelessly promotes herself using the tea party to give her added "cred" in Fox News world. Gee, that thought never occurred to me, so I'll have to keep an eye out to see if that sounds right.

Anyway, glad to hear that there are some conservatives who are asking for a little more transparency from the tea party. For my part, I'd just like to see Hennessy explain why he claimed there was no money being raised for Ensuring Liberty a full month after he had been asking for donations.

Former Member: STL Tea Party Leadership "On Dangerous Ground" and "Walking Into David Koresh's Lap"

As part of my series detailing how former tea partier Jay Stewart and the conservative Hillbilly Logic crew are arguing that the St. Louis Tea Party Leadership is promoting extreme rhetoric, preventing thoughtful discussion, and ultimately engaging in behavior that's both bad for society in general and even bad for the conservative movement, I offer the following discussion from Jay Stewart and the Hillbilly Logic group on last week's Hillbilly Logic Radio Show.

First, Jay Stewart speaking on the show about the St. Louis Tea Party's "Liberty Evangelism" campaign:

It's zealotry, and I'll tell you this, I denounce all political zealotry. And this whole notion that the Left is evil or the Left is the enemy, is asinine, and you should be ashamed of yourself promoting that. That the Democrats are evil and they cause the Republicans to sin. Dude, you're walking yourself right into David Koresh's lap.

Another member of the Hillbilly logic crew responds:

These same tactics...I honestly believe that if things don't change, they're going to be their own October surprise. And I wholly believe that because, if you look at how close it almost blew up in everyone's face with that whole casket stunt over at Carnahan's

Jay Stewart:

Ridiculous! (speaking about the casket stunt)

Look, here's the thing. As far as Jim Hoft and the casket thing, I've seen some things he posted, when I first read what he was talking about, I actually didn't have a problem with the idea of them using a casket...The things that I saw him talking about with the casket, I have no problem if you're going to make a commercial, or do something and say "look, this is what's going to happen to people," if you wanna be creative, I'm not against people going out on a limb. But when you start dealing with people's homes...Once you get to where your families are involved, that's when you're getting into dangerous ground. So I'm not singling any one person out, but what I'm saying is that Jim Hoft might have had a very creative idea on that situation, and I'm taking nothing away from him, in terms of what I saw, but you gotta be careful about looking like you're engaging in "guerilla tactics." That term's been coming up lately. You gotta be careful about that, because you're talking about doing things that are sort of under the barrel.

And the other member of the Hillbilly Logic crew agreed (not sure whether it was Shane or Kevin):

If you're going to do that, do it in a public place. Stay away from people's homes.

STL Tea Party: The Ends Justify the Means Because this is "War"

Yesterday, I detailed criticism of the St. Louis Tea Party leadership from former member Jay Stewart. The basic idea was that it would be better for everyone, including tea party members, if the leadership allowed more space for thoughtful discussion rather than pumping out a never-ending stream of extreme talking points designed to demonize opponents and make their members feel victimized. Part of that critique was that the tea party appears to be focused on politics only as a zero sum game struggle for power, and as such appear to have abandoned the idea of thoughtfully debating issues or approaches, even among their own group (as their extreme reaction to Jay and the Hillbilly Logic Crew showed). Today I want to expand a little on this zero sum game mentality and the extremely negative situation it produces. Again, I'll be relying on quotes from Jay Stewart's discussion with El Apellido on the Poor Souls Society radio show.

The St. Louis Tea Party leadership appears to be using this extreme rhetoric to demonize the other side, frame this as a debate of "good vs. evil," and then argue that because they're up against "evil" they need to resort to extreme tactics. Here's Jay Stewart:

(91:20) Somebody had sent me a message (I had criticized some of the really negative, jacked-up, over the top rhetoric coming from a lot of people) and the message was, "you shouldn't say anything about that because you're being divisive. Extreme times call for extreme measures." And I said to myself, "see that's the kind of garbage...they're looking for people like that. They're looking for people who feel so disempowered that they'll surrender their integrity and Christian values to some operative who's willing to tell them "it's OK to do whatever it takes whatEVER it takes because your liberty's at stake, so I'm going to smear somebody, or you wanna try and convince, maybe, one of the black people in your group, to do something that....to smear maybe a black politician in a video or something, that person should just go along with it because that's what you do in a war.

And when people don't go along with that, I'm finding that all of a sudden there's indignation and confusion and fear on the parts of these people who were once so...they have so much control over these people who are scared. So when somebody who's not scared, they find themselves in a state of confusion. And that may or may not be the case with me; I'm just giving you an example [laughs].

Worth noting that this is the second time Stewart has referred to them asking him to make a video smearing black politicians. Here's more from Stewart along the same lines:

We're kind of getting the shaft. People are like "you're either with us or you're against us." We get that a lot. I would hope that the tea party would ask "am I more focused on the person I'm opposing or the values and the principles that brought people together....When you go home, you still have to deal with the people who don't agree with you; who don't know anything about it. You're stewards of this great movement. And I think its more important for you to gather information and disseminate information then to just preach to the choir..."I'm only gonna trust that guy over there who agrees with me that so and so is great"

It continues..

There was a memo sent to one of my friends from one of the people who had a disagreement with us over tactics...ends justify the means in terms of political engagement. And in the letter, the person wrote, "My purpose is to destroy the left." And I'm saying to myself, "that's not what I'm involved in! People aren't my enemy because they disagree with me politically." That's the type of zealotry that's extremely dangerous. "You can't trust them; we're in a war. War? No, our troops in Iraq are in a war.

This, I think, is a pretty chilling picture of the type of rhetoric the St. Louis Tea Party leadership is using with their members. If this depiction is correct, they're looking for people who feel disempowered. They're telling them that the ends justify the means because "this is war." In fact, they criticize people who are not willing to use these tactics because of their principles. Again, I suggest that this type of reasoning is corrosive for any political movement, liberal, conservative, or anything else. As Jay Stewart says, this shouldn't have to be a "war." It should be a political discussion.

Internal Criticism of the St. Louis Tea Party

I was going to call this post "More Tea Party Infighting," but that really doesn't do justice to some of the information that's about to follow. "Infighting" is more like what I reported on last week, where Kevin Jackson called John and Gina Loudon "crooks" and "scoundrels," and said that Gina Loudon had accused him of hitting on her. Now maybe there is substance behind what Jackson said, but the only publicly available information was not much more than name-calling.

However, over the past two weeks, Jay Stewart (aka James Greyfalcon) and the folks at the HillBilly Logic radio program have been developing a more substantive critique of the tea party. What makes it very interesting is that this group is basically committed to the very values that the St. Louis Tea Party claims to stand for. Yet they (and particularly Jay Stewart) have come under fierce attack for daring to question the self-appointed leaders and political operatives who run the St. Louis Tea Party, in a way that largely illustrates part of their critique.

As I'm sure you guessed, I don't really agree with much of Jay Stewart's or the Hillbilly Logic crew's political positions. In fact, I would say that some of their factual claims about various bills or events are simply false. However, I think their approach to the issues is admirable in a way that transcends the typical liberal/conservative arguments. Ultimately, one hopes that agreement on the "right way forward" can be arrived at through thoughtful, rational debate. It is precisely this kind of debate that the St. Louis Tea Party has prevented by viewing all politics as nothing more than a zero sum game struggle for power (or "war" as they put it). When the only thing you're interested in is putting out talking points that make "your side" more likely to win, it is impossible to have a meaningful discussion.

I would even go so far as to say that if the Tea Party retained the exact same policy positions it has now, but was led by people more like Jay, I would view them as a force for good in the world even though I'm someone who completely disagrees with them on pretty much every policy issue. Why? Because Jay, El Apellido, and the Hillbilly Logic Crew facilitate the kinds of discussions that are needed for people to develop thoughtful approaches on how to move forward. People engaged purely in a zero sum struggle for power will never arrive at the truth: but people engaging in open-minded, thoughtful discussions at least have hope of finding some common ground.

Anyhow, there's an awful lot to digest from both the Poor Souls Society and the Hillbilly Logic radio shows from this past week, so I'm going to have to break the content up into several pieces and hopefully organize it all afterward. For now, I'll focus on a part of the critique that fits the theme of this post: the St. Louis tea party leadership's cynical approach to politics is harmful to both society as a whole and also to the conservative movement. The reality is that even the furthest left liberals and the tea party do have common ground: namely, to facilitate intelligent discussions on the issues; and it is precisely this kind of discussion that the current tea party leadership is preventing with their rhetoric, talking points, and general approach to organizing.

So just a bit of background first. Jay Stewart spoke at the St. Louis Holiday Tea Party, the 2010 Tax Day Tea Party (among many others), and has been a guest on Neil Cavuto's show as a Tea Party activist. He definitely has had a close up view of how the St. Louis Tea Party leadership operates.

As I mentioned earlier, the St. Louis Tea Party's rhetoric stands in the way of serious debate. Here's what Jay Stewart had to say about that on the Poor Souls Society radio show:

(~31:00) You put yourself in the same boat as the guy you attack when you take it too far to the other side. But that being said, when you talk about the clown show, I don't have a problem with Rush Limbaugh or Chris Rock or South Park making fun of our elected officials. I don't. It's part of American culture: we've always done it. What I'm saying is that in this climate, I think it is imperative that the people who are in office forgo the desire to say outrageous things to get the base all riled up or to get fundraising...When Michelle Bachman says, "gangster government," that creates certain problems for me. She's governing. When Jim DeMint says, "We'll break him" yeah, ok, he's tongue and cheek, whatever, but you have to understand where that puts us when you as a Senator make a statement like that. The Joe Wilson thing, "you lie!" It's not necessarily technically a racist thing ,but you have to understand how people are going to feel when you say, "that's a good thing that he did because he did lie." [Ed's note: the St. Louis Tea Party site, Gateway Pundit, and Dana Loesch all made this claim] You can accuse every president of lying...

(33:45) My whole point is I expect a level of professionalism from my opponents. Barney Frank can snap, screamed at people for asking questions, To me, if someone asks you a question and you go, "that's a stupid question, you shouldn't ask that," to me that indicates that you're scared and you have something to hide. And I say the same thing for the right. I think there's a difference between being conservative in terms of your relationship with the American experience, and being right-wing in your rhetoric. I think right wing rhetoric, as we discussed before, it pulls...the left is being pulled one way the right is being pulled another way....and you're going to find a lot of these people who are talking immigration...who are giving money to these candidates who are so tough on immigration, you'll find that some of them are also greasing the palms of the people who are supposed to be busting their businesses, and I think that's an example of what you and I discussed. The effectiveness of getting people so polarized on the right, so polarized on the left, that they're not discussing the essence of the issue.

A little later:

This time of year when it's elections, you get into fundraising season. And it seems like how you fundraise is by doing something that's provocative. But when you have the people who are supposed to govern making provocative decisions, like they're a guy trying to do a promo for a rock band, I start to have difficulties. Perfect example is with Bob McDonnell...

You're in this climate that's so politically charged...and I think it's not quite fair to blame the tea party. I don't blame the tea party. I blame some of the people who have emerged as tea party...there's been sort of a synthesis between the tea party leadership and the political leadership in the GOP that identifies themselves as "the base." People try to say the base is kind of your average conservative; I don't...I think the base is those people who try to create an image of what the average conservative should think. That's to me what the base is; it's almost like the stereotype.... that's what'd I say is the difference between the base and the grassroots....

I don't think Republicans can win by catering to the base because the base represents such a small part of the American experience. (~80) They're really party elites creating an arch-type of what a conservative does. And that's great for raising money for buying commercial time,...to create Karl Roves and Dick Morris's and what-have-you.

And finally:

(1:30) Glenn Beck's ratings might be good. But I don't think he's getting Democrats who voted for Obama to turn around and vote for Bachman. And I think people are confusing commercial support with political momentum.

Thought Stewart is focused a lot on elections, I think he's correct on a more abstract level. Ultimately, the kind of rhetoric the St. Louis tea party has been using (saying Obama wants to turn your children into "Nazi snitches," personally attacking local prosecutors, etc.) and the kinds of actions they've been engaging in (carrying a coffin to Carnahan's House, throwing shoes and hitting a Carnahan effigy) are not helpful for the conservative movement. If people really believe in conservatism, then they should be thinking of ways of presenting it thoughtfully and honestly such that other people can see the value in it. The St. Louis Tea Party, in contrast, seems to be more focused on trying to grab power in their "war against evil" then in actually showing why people would like conservatism (by the way, though I obviously am not a conservative myself, I actually do think that once you abstract away from the tragedy of the current group of people who claim to stand for conservatism and from some other peripheral issues that people have attached, conservatism at least is a position that has some respectable qualities). They basically are approaching this as a struggle for power rather than as an intellectual debate. Now, I'm no pure idealist. I realize that those who ignore the power struggle of politics will inevitably lose no matter how brilliant their reasoning is. However, if you only have the blind pursuit of power, if you sacrifice your values in this struggle for power, if you deliberately stifle discussions that approach the intellectual issues because you see them as a threat to this quest for power, than your movement will inevitably be corrupted, whether you are a liberal or a conservative or anything else.

Also important to note: Jay Stewart is very careful to differentiate between the St. Louis Tea Party Leadership and the St. Louis Tea Party members and to emphasize that he's only criticizing the former:

Basically, I'd just like to say that, as far as the tea party's concerned, I see the tea party as being a citizenship movement where 99.9% of it's existence and viability is in the people who show up that day, and their spiritual and personal connection with one another.

Now some of the things that we were discussing before that were turnoffs to many of the people in the black community, or people who are not in the political community, my opinion is that the overwhelming majority of that, some of that are legitimate concerns that we should address, comes from I think leadership...

The issue is does that cultivate or does that insulate some groups inside of it. And I would say it's not supposed to, but there are those people who try to take advantage of *any* popular movement. You had the civil rights movement, you had certain people who tried to take advantage of the civil rights movement or the women's movement. There's always someone who's going to try to do that.

Jay Stewart clearly has common cause with the Tea Party members, if not the leadership. And whether they agree with me or not, I think I have common cause with them as well. In fact, I think everyone would benefit if this movement stopped their approach of extreme antics and personal attacks, and focused instead on laying out a positive case for their position. On a deep level, people have a lot in common, and any group, including the tea party, can be a force for good in the world if they work on finding these connections.

More Kevin Jackson on the Loudons

I wrote previously about how Kevin Jackson called St. Louis Tea Party leaders John and Gina Loudon, "the biggest two crooks in St. Louis." Jackson was a frequent speaker at Tea Party events, and was the emcee at last year's tea party rally on April 15 in Kiener Plaza. I've tracked down some additional comments from Jackson about the Loudons and his thoughts on the Ensuring Liberty Political Action Committee at the heart of the controversy.

First, after the initial Hillbilly Logic radio show where questions were raised about the Ensuring Liberty PAC, Jackson commented to "Hillbilly" Jay Stewart: He later added:

Jackson was also quite actively attacking the Loudons on his Twitter account:












Geez, you think Jackson is mad at his former publicist? One last note about the conflict. Someone named Clive Rangler commented on Kevin Jackson's post that Gina Loudon had been riding Dana Loesch's coattails to success.
Jackson responded by noting that this was happening while Loudon was supposed to be working as his publicist:

Jackson further added that the Loudons started it:

Wow. The tea party is usually pretty good about circling the wagons and trying not to let anything out to the public. But I guess when the cracks appear there's lot of animosity waiting to burst out!

Bill Hennessy Dodges Ensuring Liberty Questions

As has been documented here, several prominent local conservatives, including 97.1 radio host Jamie Allman, author Kevin Jackson, and the Hillbilly Logic radio crew, have raised questions about the transparency of the St. Louis Tea Party's Ensuring Liberty PAC. This is on top of allegations a couple weeks ago from @JanSimpson that the tea party was using their organization to make money from political candidates.

St. Louis Tea Party leader Bill Hennessy wrote a post in the last couple days purporting to explain the operations of the PAC. Here specifically is what he had to say about the monetary aspect:

Ensuring Liberty is a 501(c)4, and its affiliated PAC, the Ensuring Liberty PAC (ELPAC) were formed to address the next step in the growing impact of the conservative movement through issue advocacy, fund raising, candidate recruiting and most importantly, the development of a Congressional Caucus of like-minded representatives that stand for our First Principles.
As we have decided until primary issues have been resolved, the PAC has not yet been established, candidates have not yet been chosen and thus no money has yet been raised or distributed. Transparency for the PAC is required by FEC rules and will be followed to the letter and spirit of the law once established.

Here's what's interesting: Hennessy suggests that they haven't started raising any money for the PAC and thus there is nothing to be transparent about. However, this really dodges the issue, because the reality is that Ensuring Liberty has been raising money for their nonprofilt organization, even if they havn't been raising money for the PAC specifically. From their Ensuring Liberty website, you can see that they have a donations page set up already:
You can also see via their facebook page that they've been raising money for the nonprofit since March 19:


So did Hennessy really address the questions? It sure seems to me that the people asking questions were really interested in transparency for the organization in general, not just for one particular facet of it. Any of the problems you might have from raising money for a PAC would surely be at least as prevalent in raising money for a nonprofit corporation. Does Hennessy really not recognize this, or is he being deliberately opaque?

Jamie Allman's Proposal For St. Louis Tea Party

Via facebook:

Dissent not patriotic is it? Obama likes to close down parks during protests. You want to close down conversation?

My solution is this and I'll present this to Bill and Gina. Let's see ALL the paperwork from the PAC and let's see ALL who contribute and let's see ALL who receive and let's see ALL receipts. Let's see it now and let's see a pledge to make it available to the public from here on out. That way innocent, hard working people will not be harmed by suspicion or innuendo. And that way good people who have the same expectations of the TP leadership as they do of the U.S government won't be smeared and threatened with lawsuits and otherwise trashed in this little game of high school.

Seems reasonable. If they have nothing to hide, then why don't they simply answer his challenge? Also check out Allman's clincher:

Bottom line: Don't F*** with me. I ate political BSers for breakfast for 14 years and I smell bacon again.

Wow!

Here's the screenshot:

Hillbilly Logic: Adam Sharp Flown to Memphis for Covert Hit Operation Training? Jay Stewart Refuses to be Used by the Movement.

Following up on my previous post, the audio for the Hillbilly Logic radio show is now up here and here. There aren't huge fireworks except for Jay Stewart's discussion in the 2nd half. But here are a couple really interesting details:

First, Adam Sharp was originally going to be a guest on the program but was flown (1:30 in the audio) to Memphis for some kind of national Tea Party activity. He said he was taking care of some "movement business" which they described as "covert." At 28:30, they ask why Adam Sharp is in Memphis given that the St. Louis Tea Party says it's not affiliated with any national organization. Gina Loudon responds by saying that the tea party was involved in "things like" the undercover (read: heavily edited) videos that destroyed ACORN and that they're "constantly working behind the scenes" to do more projects like that. She also said her guess was that Sharp was working on something like that, but that Sharp wouldn't be able to tell them that much.

Shortly after, one of the hosts says (31:00):

I have no problem with Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, who I'm not a big fan of anymore, or Rush Limbaugh...I have no problem with them making money...And I have no problem with somebody, even in the tea party, making money. The problem I have is if I feel like somebody is saying, "Well I'm doing this for liberty and this or that...and really what they're trying to do is establish themselves as being a political hit man to show someone, hey, a year from now if you wanna take someone out...It's almost like a bad guy in a movie, "why are you blowing up that city?" Well, I wanna show this guy because that way we get paid $10 million dollars...I can take this guy out. Here's the money.

I would rather lose doing it the right way than win saying, "oh, let's uncover this about them."

They also asked Gina Loudon about the structure of the tea party steering committee (18:20), and she largely avoided their question.

Also, in the 2nd half, Jay "Greyfalcon" Stewart severely criticized the Prop A campaign and suggested that the tea party was trying to get him to shoot a video attack piece on County Executive Charlie Dooley (I can't find the times, but it starts about 2/3 of the way through):

[on Prop A] You know why black people thought that you guys were doing it? Because they thought that you were trying to keep them out of West County. So what sense does it make to try to make a video to slam Charlie Dooley. What the hell sense does that make? What sense does it make to ask me to do something like that?? That's the kinda thing that's keeping black...I'm involved in it...you're like, "hey, let's try to infiltrate this and blah blah blah and Lacy Clay." And I'm a person who's a die-hard conservative. And when you got people trying to hang stuff on people and trying to play dirty and they find out about it....I'm like, "What they hell's up with that?"

Conservatives Blast STL Tea Party for Astroturfing, Profitizing and Radicalizing the Movement

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about how the Jefferson County Tea Party was following the St. Louis Tea Party's lead by holding an astroturf pep rally for disgraced Republican Chief of Staff Ed Martin. Well, it looks like that rally set off a wave of criticism of the St. Louis tea party from fellow conservatives that calls into question the motives of some of their leadership.

I don't have the audio yet, but the controversy was apparently kicked off by an episode of the radio program HillBilly Logic. The show hosts, themselves avid supporters of the Tea Party's stated principles, had St. Louis Tea Party leader Gina Loudon on the show as a guest. They were surprised about the many ways in which the leaders use Tea Parties to move money around, and frustrated by the way Loudon, Hennessy, and Loesch push responsibility around for decisions (at times claiming that they are the leaders, while at other times acting as though decisions were made by the entire movement).

The hosts of HillyBilly Logic were scheduled to appear on 97.1 radio host Jamie Allman's show the next day, and Allman previewed the show as follows:

Has the St. Louis Tea Party been "hijacked" by the Republican Party? Or are some organizers franchising it like McDonald's franchises it's restaurants Are there some people angry about money being thrown around in the McTea Party? You want some ketchup with those who may be fired?

On Allman's show, which you can listen to here, the HillBilly crew criticized the Tea Party for a general lack of transparency about how their group is organized and how the money is changing hands, and for their bungled handling of the Proposition A campaign. Tea Party leader Bill Hennessy called in at the end of the show, and claimed they had, "shot an arrow in his back."

I'll say more about the reaction from Hennessy and Loesch, but for now let me get into the specifics of the criticisms. Here are some of the complaints of the HillBilly Logic crew;

The Arnold "Tea Party" was more like a political rally, with most of the time being consumed by political candidates for office.

LOTS of people were seen leaving the Arnold Tea Party Rally early, presumably turned off by the speaking lineup.

The St. Louis tea party is not up front about all of the ways in which they are making money

The leadership structure of the organization is unclear, even after questioning.

The tea party uses extreme rhetoric that seems more likely to draw donations than to draw new people. Their knee-jerk attacks against all unions and screaming rhetoric about socialists is turning people off.

Some tea party speakers, like Jay Stewart, do not ask for any money. But others apparently will only speak if they are paid.

Proposition A was a poorly chosen campaign, and didn't really map well on to the "liberal/conservative" spectrum. But even so, the leaders of the St. Louis Tea Party movement attacked other people in the movement for "not doing enough." (The reality is, IMHO, the small group of Tea Party leaders picked this issue while in Nashville without consulting their membership, and then were surprised to find out that no one else cared about it the way they did -Adam.)

Here are some more specific criticisms from Kevin on the HillBilly Logic blog:

Some of us are not surrounded by supportive conservative minds all day and actually try to reach out to those that support a more liberal agenda with the hope to have them be more open minded to conservatives. Which I might add we often have our legs cut out from under us by so many of the "supposed brightest conservative minds" with their thoughtless blanket typecasting and meaningless diatribe or continual name calling. I drive onto a union lot everyday with my Ed Martin bumper sticker while trying to intelligently reason with my fellow workers only to see anything that I may reach them on discarded by a St. Louis Tea Party organizer's post on Facebook asking everyone to buycott (or buy at) a particular Dollar Tree store because the union has pickets up! You can catch the same kind of reasoning on a particular local radio show on in the afternoon (hmmm, wonder who he might be talking abot - Adam)...Please stop this kind of high school behavior as you are not winning ONE heart with these tactics and helping to turn others away, and making it almost impossible for those not preaching to the choir to influence others.

A little later:

Unfortunately, some seem to have started to become that which they oppose as any criticism has been handled as a personal attack with a circling of the wagons and the threat of retribution to follow. Let's see... Republicans cannot criticize Republicans, same goes for Democrats, and now it appears the same goes for the St. Louis Tea Party. And the St. Louis Tea Party is different how?

More:

I have been to three Tea Party gatherings and I have never seen one flyer that contains any background information or lists the board members (or organizers) names and contact info. You cannot just assume that everyone is in your little bubble of influence or take for granted that others may be attending their first event and may not be tuned into your shows. Too many people do not know what or who makes up the St. Louis Tea Party directors. That is the organizers fault, not ours! Once again I will leave you with some advice. Do not leave the calling of the shots to the few unless the few develops thicker skin and is willing to accept criticism, and not act like a bunch of liberals by becoming self proclaimed victims.

And finally closing with the kicker:

From what I see the level of professionalism displayed by those willing to admit they are in a leadership role is let's see... as Jed Clampett would say PITEEEEFULL! You all don't have to worry about others bringing the St. Louis Tea Party movement to it's knees; You are doing a darn good job of it yourselves.

In a previous blog post, immediately after the Arnold Tea Party, Kevin had this to say:

First and foremost I want to say that I am a supporter and friend of the TEA Party movement. With that said I saw some troubling signs at the Arnold Missouri Tea Party event. I am afraid that we may have some nice and well intentioned individuals in key places of the TEA Party movement, but some appear to be making the same mistakes that some of the small station programming directors I was speaking of did. I am afraid that because this is a grass roots movement many may lack the experience to handle the individuals pushing for the promotion of themselves or someone they represent....Having fewer speakers (and less politicians) can keep the wheels greased and rolling.

On facebook, Kevin had this to say to Dana Loesch, who attacked him on her radio show (see below):

You claim conservative but act just like a liberal in your arguments. While you are in your Bible check for a passage on bearing false witness!

I have six years of broadcast radio experience and I can tell you that of all people you should start pointing your posts at yourself. You tell me where I was wrong about anything. I am more than happy to debate you on any live format that you want. For you to accuse anyone of a vested interest when the one thing that ALL of your National appearances have in common is the Tea Party. I would say that you have a vested interest to protect.

The reaction from the Tea Party leaders was absolutely vitriolic. Dana Loesch spent yesterday's show railing on the HillBilly group. She alleged some conspiracy involving state auditor candidate Allen Icet:

Wondering ... if all this faction-ing lately has anything to do with a whole mess of folks heavily promoting Allen Icet on FB, Twitter?

Loesch's decision to attack Icet is particularly interesting in light of Jan Simpson's criticism of the Tea Party a week ago that claimed they were supporting Tom Schweich's candidacy.

But conspiracy theroizing was hardly the most vicious of Loesch's criticisms. She repeatedly attacked the HillBilly Logic Crew for having to pay to be broadcast:

Um, excuse me Kevin? Maybe you can get away with baseless, factless punditry on the show you pay to air but don't be shocked when you defame a group of people on air if they defend themselves. You got called out. The honorable thing to do would be to apologize to those you smeared for your lack of professionalism.

Six years and you're still not on air anywhere? If that doesn't tell you anything, I don't know what will. I don't have time for false patriots who defame others and you can stop with the defamatory "vested interest" crap - you're the one who ran your mouth and couldn't cash it.

Sad to see people I thought were on the same side buying the liberal narrative of tea party and money. Here's a thought: don't accuse others of benefitting from a movement when you used the stake in the back of that movement as a way to pull your pay-to-play show up on a radio station and attract attention by way of reporting that would make Jaco proud.

Ironic that Loesch, who likes to rant about "elitists" is so willing to pull the, "my radio show is higher status than yours" card so easily. Loesch also suffers from a bit of egomania. When Kevin offered to debate her (without saying anything about where or when), this is how she responded:

Now you want airtime on my show after that hatchet job? That's rich.

And while Loesch attacked the HillBillies, her fellow St. Louis tea party founder Bill Hennessy went after Loesch's mentor Jamie Allman. Hennessy, in a post that he later deleted, called Allman "talk radio's stammering, pausing idiot." More from Hennessy's angry rant:

NEVER trust a hyperventilating man. Allman’s no exception.
Jamie is less than happy about the fact that he IGNORED my email to him on February 21, 2009. He ignored my email, but his colleague, Dana Loesch answered. Dana stepped up and led. Jamie laid back and waited like a timid little puppy. (I might have been dangerous. The Tea Party at the Arch might have been lame. How would that make ME look? )
Anyway, Jamie Allman started Wednesday, April 21, 2010, on friggin’ FIRE! He had the St. Louis Tea Party by the . . . by the . . . nads? “Blood in the water,” he tweeted. I am a REAL journalist! he yelled into the mirror. Take THAT, CBS.

More:

Whatever. So Jamie Allman—ace reporter formerly of KMOV—jumped on The Story.
“Money changing hands at the St. Louis Tea Party!” he declared with glee.
With the piety of St. John Vianney, Jamie explained that “I strongly support the St. Louis Tea Party” and that he was exposing its Mortal Sins for All the World to Judge before the evil Post-Dispatch could get to it...But Jamie Allman is a man free of scruples.

Hennessy closed with this:

“I’m not really worried about the money, Jamie,” said Fredo.
Of course not. Nor was Jamie. But Jamie’s got some envy to settle.
In the end, Jamie Allman wrote a check his guests couldn’t cash. But Fredo and Rubes were revealed as publicity hounds who would do unnatural things to a dog like Allman in exchange for 5 minutes of air time.

So for asking questions about the tea party, Jamie Allman is called envious, unscrupulous, stammering and stuttering by Bill Hennessy. (By the way, has Hennessy ever explained how the leadership of the St. Louis Tea Party is organized? I mean, even if they want to claim that they're "leaderless," they could at least explain who gets invited to the meetings where they make decisions)

Finally, Gina Loudon gets in on the action by declaring:

Friends deceive. There is a newsflash. The conservatives eat our own, every time. Then we have no one to blame but ourselves.

No reflection or constructive criticism in this movement, thank you very much! We've got books to sell! Er... I mean, revolutions to win.

Anyhow, another instructive set of events that shows how the St. Louis tea party leadership responds to any kind of criticism or reflection. They set up the movement, and they don't want anyone else telling them how it should work. I'm hoping that the same people stay in charge, because as long as they are the tea party will be about as effective at organizing as they were on Prop A, for the very reasons mentioned by Jay and Kevin.