One Year Later

Rick Santelli is hardly a teabagger.

Why the Tea Party Movement Matters

If any one person is the founder, it’s Rick Santelli. A year ago, the CNBC commentator blew a gasket on the air over a plan by the Obama Administration to tackle the foreclosure crisis. Multibillion-dollar proposals were flying like snowflakes in Washington, and Santelli’s rant struck a chord with people who wondered where all the money would come from. “We’re thinking of having a Chicago Tea Party,” Santelli declared, evoking the 1773 protest in Boston Harbor. A movement was born. Egged on by conservative interest groups and leveraging Barack Obama’s digital-networking strategies, grass-roots opponents of the President’s agenda have made themselves a major factor in U.S. politics.

See also:
Tea Party here plans first anniversary
Tea Party Marks One-Year Anniversary
Tea Partiers: ‘You’re listening to us now’
CNBC Asks Santelli to React to Tea Parties: ‘I’m Pretty Proud of This’
Santelli: No need to stir ‘tea party’ pot
Tea-Party Drive Steeped in Political Novices
Unlikely Activist Who Got to the Tea Party Early
Boehner lauds Tea Party ‘great patriots,’ says GOPs must ‘walk among them’
Local lawyer emerges as face of Tea Party movement
Tea Party is just getting started
No rainout for tea partyers

Deride them as teabaggers at your own risk.

/whistle past the graveyard while you’re at it