ROTTEN APPLES

You knew it wouldn't be long before the Progressives to find a way to dismiss the Tea Party movement. The "astroturf" language didn't work. Calling them "the radical right fringe" didn't work. They wanted to show them as troublemakers or racists or something, but that proved harder than they thought because the Tea Party protest rallies have been so uncharacteristically non-violent for a protest.

Well, I think they may have found a ploy. As the saying goes, "one rotten apple can spoil the whole barrel." From an article from PajamasMedia,

Houston has a problem.

Rather, the Houston tea party groups have a problem — a character named Dale Robertson. He is a self-appointed “leader” of the tea party movement, most famous for carrying a sign at the 3/27 tea party in Houston with the word “niggar” on it.

It reminds me of the big Tea Party Protest in Washington D.C. where CNN tried so hard to frame the Tea Partiers to be something they're not. Now, they have found someone to back up their preconceived conclusions.

Unfortunately, the press seems to find him newsworthy. He continues to show up in mass media professing to be the “founder” of the tea party movement. From his website:

"Dale, is the founder of the modern day Tea Party. Dale Robertson, a public speaker, a family man with a wife and 5 children, has lead Tea Party rallies across America from its inception."

He owns the website TeaParty.org and has even hired publicist Tim Bueler to increase his profile.

So, they've got someone on the inside who can make the Tea Party movement look like it's made up of racists.

Divide and conquer. If infiltrators like this show up, the Tea Party could start to divide itself, trying to separate itself from such garbage. Hopefully, true Tea Partiers can clear the record before that happens. They're trying.

Unfortunately, Dale is very much not a hero to those who first encountered him in February of last year. He has been described as a fake, a con artist, and worse by frustrated tea party groups across the land. Houston’s, in particular, is so upset at being associated with the man that they sent out the following press release:

1. He is NOT a member of our Leadership team.

2. He owns a website with which we have never been affiliated.

3. He has never been a part of organizing any of the Tea Party rallies in the Houston area, or any other area that we can find.

4. We addressed some issues involving him back in April. Here it is on our website, where Mr. Robertson himself comments: http://houstontps.org/?p=318

5. We do not choose to associate with people that use his type of disgusting language.

It seems to be helping, at least with the Tea Party types, who get most of their news from the blogosphere.

We shall see how long it takes before the tea party movement finally gets the mainstream media to avoid this man. They have, for the most part, corrected the blogosphere. But they have a lot work left to do to marginalize this man.

Here is the full story.