When I was on the lacrosse team in high-school, we would periodically have a word of the day, typically a "cleverly" named deviant sexual practice like the "cleveland steamer" (look it up yourself, preferably not on a work computer), which we would shout to each other during drills, and everybody would laugh and the coaches wouldn't know what we were talking about. One day, which coincided with my co-MCing the junior variety show, the word was "teabag" (again, look it up yourself... try urbandictionary.com). I managed to insert the term into my bit a number of times (and even got a retired ukulele playing teacher to say it), causing my teammates and a few others to sophomorically giggle and the rest of the audience to be wildly confused.
The wingnut elements of the GOP are now standing in the stead of the elderly ukulele player. Inspired by some vague historical analogy to the Boston Tea Party, the right has been holding "Tea Parties" in some kind of vague anti-tax posture. They seem to be missing the point, because a.) taxes haven't gone up on anybody; and b.) we have representation these days. In any event, the tea parties have been followed by an even more strained metaphor of sending tea bags to Congress and the Whitehouse. This practice has been unwittingly labeled "teabagging," as in...
"Teabag the White House," declared correspondent Griff Jenkins last month on Fox News (which is zealously attaching its brand and on-air talent to Wednesday's protests). "Teabag Obama" is the name of one conservative blog. At one rally, a sign read, "Teabag the Liberal Dems before they Teabag you."
This of course leaves the buffoons open to wonderful mockery, which Rachel Maddow deftly handled last night:
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