National Tea Party Convention

The Media Research Center's Scott Whitlock, writing on NewsBusters, accuses MSNBC of unfairly linking Tea Party activists with Birthers:

On Thursday, MSNBC continued its quest to link conservatives with the birther movement- people who don't believe Barack Obama is constitutionally eligible to serve as President. Previewing an unrelated segment on this weekend's tea party convention, Norah O'Donnell played a clip of Obama criticizing those who raise the issue. She then compared, "President Obama sends a message to those who question his citizenship, this as the tea party movement gets ready for its first big convention."

At no point did O'Donnell explain or justify the connection, other than her apparent assumption that tea partiers equal birthers. The MSNBC host interviewed author Rick Scarborough, one of the speakers at the convention in Nashville. During the piece, this MSNBC graphic appeared in large font at the bottom of the screen: "Obama: Okay to Question My Policy, Not My Citizenship."

Again, this was not the topic of the segment and there was no attempt made to explain what it had to do with a tea party convention.

Gee, maybe MSNBC was linking Tea Party activists to Birthers because Rick Scarborough is speaking at the National Tea Party Convention and he just so happens to be a full-on Birther.

Just a thought.

It looks like everyone who decided not to shell out $550 to attend the National Tea Party Convention or $350 for Sarah Palin's speech at the event made a wise decision because organizers have now announced that several key portions of the convention, including Palin's speech, will be available via webcast:

Tea Party Nation has worked behind the scenes to arrange for the live broadcast of the opening of the of National Tea Party Convention, keynote speeches during the conference and a live broadcast of Sarah Palin's address.

Working with the internet media company, PJTV as well as FOX News, CNN and Reuters TV, the National Tea Party Convention will allow the millions of Tea Party activists who could not be in attendance to view many of the proceedings live along with special interviews of delegates and speakers alike.

...

Tea Party Nation will publish the broadcast information on the National Tea Party Convention website for viewing times and a schedule of those events. We hope you enjoy the proceedings of this historic conference.

The last few weeks have not been particularly good for the organizers of the National Tea Party Convention, as activists have questioned its cost and sponsors have started to withdraw.

And now it looks like one of the featured speakers, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, might be having second thoughts about her participation:

Last week, U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., was planning to introduce former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to a raving hometown crowd of TEA Partiers early next month in Nashville. This afternoon, she appears to be having cold feet.

"We've got it under review. We've got the request, and we'll see what happens," Blackburn said in an interview in her Cannon Building office. "It's a 'We the people' event, and I think sometimes it's become about 'I the organizer,' for the organizer."

She was referring to growing protests that the $549-per-person cost of the for-profit Tea Party Nation event on Feb. 4-6 at the Opryland Hotel is pricing some grassroots activists out. Some sponsors and supporters are fighting about the nature of the Taxed Enough Already (TEA) conservative movement and plans to showcase its stars, which include Palin, Blackburn and Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.

Blackburn said she is interested in hearing from the TEA Party groups and has addressed them at previous events.

Asked if she was asking for a review of the event by the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, the so-called ethics committee, she declined to say. But afterward, her spokesman, Claude Chafin, called The Commercial Appeal to say an official request for review by the ethics panel has been made "out of an abundance of caution." The question is "whether they would consider it appropriate for her to do," Chafin said.

And it seems as if Blackburn's skittishness is making Rep. Michele Bachmann's staff a bit skittish as well:

Another listed speaker at the Nashville event, Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., was still planning to attend.

"We just checked with Blackburn's office and according to them, they're still attending," Bachmann spokesman Dave Dziok said in an e-mail. "We still plan to attend."

He said Bachmann's advisers "are all just crossing our t's and dotting our i's to make sure everything's in line ethically" for her to attend.

The upcoming National Tea Party Convention featuring the likes of Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Joseph Farah, Rick Scarborough, Roy Moore, and others seems to be causing a bit of rancor among Tea Party activists:

In the latest sign of rancor in Tea Party circles, a convention billed as an effort to bring together conservative activists from across the country is being attacked by some leading Tea Partiers as inauthentic, too tied to the GOP, and -- at $549 per head -- too expensive for the working Americans the movement aspires to represent.

The National Tea Party Convention, scheduled for early February in Nashville, grabbed headlines after announcing that Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann would appear as speakers, Palin as the keynote. According to a message on the convention's website, the event "is aimed at bringing the Tea Party Movement leaders together from around the nation." But organizers are a long way from unifying the notoriously fractious movement.

Tea Party Patriots, which helped put together a September rally that drew tens of thousands to Washington, view the confab -- which is being held at Nashville's swank Opryland Gaylord hotel -- as the "usurpation of a grassroots movement," according to Mark Meckler, a leader of the group. "Most people in our movement can't afford anything like that," Meckler told TPMmuckraker, referring to the price tag. "So it's really not aimed at the average grassroots person."

Robin Stublen, a Tea Party Patriots volunteer, echoed that view. "This convention is $550 dollars," said Stublen. "How grassroots is that?"

Not only is the price of the convention exorbitantly prohibitive for most, but organizers don't seem to want any press coverage either.

Today, David Weigel pointed out the preliminary list of scheduled breakout topics and among them is one entitled "Why Christians Must Engage," run by Rick Scarborough.  Maybe the event organizers are afraid that the media might see Republican leaders like Palin and Bachmann sharing the stage with the likes of Scarborough:

Scarborough, who served on Mike Huckabee's Faith and Values Committee during the latter's presidential campaign, unleashed a fiery sermon more befitting a Sunday sermon than a political gathering. But since the two are essentially one in the same for Scarborough and the other participants, his proclamations that he is neither a Republican nor a Democrat but rather a "Christocrat" who will support only candidates who proudly stand up on the campaign trail and say "yes, there's a God" and who realizes that the Constitution is a godly document designed to guide this nation by Christian principles, just as the Bible is designed to guide the lives of all of mankind. He then rails against Republican failures to defund the Department of Education and Planned Parenthood before turning his attention to President Obama and "his minions" who are intent on giving civil rights to "sodomites" while banning the Bible and putting Christians in jail. Eventually he turns to the "shadow government" constructed by President Obama filled with "well-financed, well-heeled, and highly-staffed professional infidels who have dedicated their life" to destroying America.