Hardly.

One of the visitors to the Traverse City Event was singer songwriter Lloyd Marcus, an American who is black.  He typically starts off part of his performance with a "I'm Not an African American..." and pretty much renounces the hyphenated separation that seems to have become the norm in this country.  He rejects it, and says he is "an American."  So is he wrong in doing so?  Apparently some in the press seem to think so..  He writes:

After my performance at a tea party in Traverse City, Michigan, a white reporter approached me for an interview. The upbeat, mostly white audience loved me and my patriotic performance. Smiles were everywhere. With a stony face, the snooty female reporter asked me a series of annoying questions straight out of the liberal playbook.

But what really got my blood boiling was when she asked me the following question with the trademark liberal condescending edge: "Mr. Marcus, don't you think by calling yourself an unhyphenated American, you are encouraging white people to feel comfortable with their racism?"

I wanted to say, "Lady, what the heck are you talking about? You are obviously one miserable, bitter, and unhappy human being. Get away from me." Instead, I replied, "With all due respect, I strongly disagree." I turned and walked away from her, abruptly ending the interview.

Perhaps I should have stayed and argued my point of view. But I have lost patience with arrogant liberal reporters who think that they are so much smarter than us. This negative-spirited reporter had decided the spin of her story before interviewing me. My answers to her questions would not have made a difference.

Perhaps it would not..

Perhaps the news reporters often will get cues from the left because of the tactics used to separate us from each other.  "identify, isolate, freeze and escalate." which is Alinsky rule #13. I should hardly have to explain how effective it is to make someone a marginal player. There is strength in numbers, and the left will attempt to use the race issue to separate good patriotic Americans from each other by race, level of extreme beliefs, ("birthers" "truthers")and simply by saying "home grown terrorist" in the same sentence or paragraph when discussing Tea Party activities.

"News" defined, is anything that is not previously common knowledge, or is a reporting of recent events.  It is documenting the activities, and experiences we share..

It is also something that has real effect.

 "Alarming news" has upended nations, "sad news" has elicited mourning, and "Disastrous news" has empowered many to pull together for the repair of communities and our friends abroad.  It was the very presses of the day which allowed the patriots in the colonies to gain support for the very revolution that spawned the greatest country to ever have existed.

Its effect is very well known to the left.  Which is why influence of the press and news outlets is so crucial to the efforts of progressives.  It is a tool where one group can be shown as opposed to the interests of another.  It is where we can be reported as separate and adversarial.  It is where our goals will seem to be conflicting if documented that way.

The Tea Parties have run the gamut of vetting throughout a year and some months worth of news reporting.  First they didn't exist, then became a cause of humor for a word used in a most juvenile manner, then found little truth in the reporting of numbers who were interested in this cause of liberty.  In the last several months, the attachment of racism tags to the coverage of Tea Party Rallies have been the attempted "coup de grace" to an effort to hold our government accountable.  Even a now debunked claim by black congressional members that racial epithets were used in DC reveal the uncontrollable angst in the left's attempts to frame a certain group which has both white, black, and all shades in between, as racist.