In case you haven't been keeping up on cable news or Glenn Beck's on-air descent into insanity, tomorrow is Tea Party Day, the day when incoherent right-wing outrage is marshaled into protests by conservative movement leaders.  I say incoherent because nobody can quite explain what they're protesting.  It probably involves taxes though, given the choice of day and name.  Which is actually pretty interesting since dissatisfaction with taxation rates is actually at a record low, with a 61-35 majority of people feeling their taxes are fair.

So what is it actually a protest for?  Explanations I've seen include the 39% tax bracket, bailouts, bankers, budget deficits, the idea of a progressive income tax, and the very idea of an income tax all together.  Their mission statement: "The Tea Party protests, in their current form, began in early 2009 when Rick Santelli, the On Air Editor for CNBC, set out on a rant to expose the bankrupt liberal agenda of the White House Administration and Congress. Specifically, the flawed 'Stimulus Bill' and pork filled budget."  However others like one host in San Antonio claim: "We're tired of the government spending all our money. We're not anti-Obama, we're not anti-Republican or anti-Democrat, we're anti-arrogance. We don't approve of the fact that the government thinks we're stupid."

The real answer?  People are very angry about the economy in general, and Glenn Beck and the friendly friends at Fox News are whipping them up specifically against Obama.  Meanwhile,  former majority leader Dick Armey, now with Astroturf group FreedomWorks, has been using them for his own purposes.  In fact, the idea originated out of the ashes of the Ron Paul campaign before getting coopted by the usual conservative movement suspects.  Say what you want about the Ron Paul people (personally I like to point out that they favor an endless cycle of human misery and death), but at least they stood for something. 

But all this is really an excuse to post this amazing video clip of what David Schuster said on MSNBC last night.  Watch the whole thing, but the punchline is priceless:

"If you are planning simultaneous teabagging all across the country, you're going to need a Dick Armey."