"The Tea Party protesters are being manipulated by the very same conglomerates that are causing their problems . . ." Jimmy Hoffa, Jr.

This quote from a Detroit News op-ed is just one more in a long train of smears against the Tea Party movement by political leftists in government, media and academia; and by beneficiaries of the big-spending government status quo such as union bosses like Hoffa. Other recent examples include Thomas Frank in the Wall Street Journal this week, and the MSNBC host who melted down while interviewing a guest identified with the movement, accusing it of harboring "people who want to kill blacks and Jews."

They even do it unconsciously, as when Public Broadcasting person Gwen Ifill used the pejorative "teabagger" to refer to opponents of President Obama, not knowing of the term's sexual origin, the source of it being coined as a Tea Party insult. Ifill's ignorance  - and she's not the only one in media who has displayed this example - reveals that her only information about the movement (if not the world in general) comes from sources on the left.  

This reflexive smearing of the Tea Party movement is interesting. Left-brained people just can't imagine how those who believe in limited government and economic liberty could possibly be sincere and motivated by good will. One result is that when they look at free-market friendly non-profit organizations like the Mackinac Center they presume that these are cynical agents fronting for the class interests of a corporate plutocracy.

As for grassroots Tea Party protestors, the smear-jobbers imagine that these people must be motivated by something dark including racism and other forms of bigotry. At best they are ignorant dupes, manipulated by cynical elites and tricked by "false consciousness" into opposing their own best interests.

One of my colleagues believes that the insults are part of a willful delusion. The long range implications of the alternative to the "corporate puppets" theory is just too awful for them to contemplate. Specifically, that the Tea Parties are indeed a genuine bottom-up, grassroots movement that represents a sea change in the climate of public opinion regarding the big government welfare/regulatory state.

This frightening prospect causes liberal statists and government spending beneficiaries to become not just discombobulated when disussing Tea Parties and partiers, but unhinged, a' la' Thomas Frank and that MSNBC person.