David Shuster: GOP "Going Nuts" For Teabagging, But They "Need A Dick Armey"

HuffPost has comprehensive coverage of the Tax Day Tea Party protests. Click here for the latest photos and video.

Media Monitor Julie notes that making fun of the Tax Day Teabaggings is not just for Rachel Maddow and Ana Marie Cox anymore, and sends along a clip from last night's Countdown, in which David Shuster and Lawrence O'Donnell trotted out their own teabagging material for the MSNBC audience. They had the natural advantage of being familiar with the equipment used in a good teabagging -- steeped in it, if you will -- but the resulting conversation...well, let's just say that it proved somehow even more unsubtle that the Maddow/Cox version, thanks to the use of words like: "lick," "teabag mouthpieces," "nutshell," "uprising," "firm," and "David Vitter" who has "tight lips." It just goes on and on. And yes, props for this line, David Shuster:

And in Cavuto's defense, if you are planning simultaneous tea bagging all around the country, you're going to need a Dick Armey.

Also, O'Donnell has a number of very well thought out points about how this "teabagging" movement is, at its core, ridiculously incoherent in its politics.

Anyway, now the stage has been set for Chris Matthews to attempt to claim teabag supremacy.

[WATCH.]

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"Tea Bagging" Rallies Ruthlessly Mocked On Maddow Show

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Comments

[afgail]

The right wing nuts just can't accept the fact that in November this country rejected their Republican dogma. Their tax protest is so completely off the mark it is pathetic. Politically they have been reduced to baying at the moon.

[BOin08]

Any wonder why no one over 18 watches MSNBC for news value anymore?

[livesinreality]

Ever wonder why only the brainwashed sheep watch the Fox new channel?

[BOin08]

Sophomoric commentary from Shuster and Olbermann is par for the course, thier sober adult audience left months ago, but jumping into the tea bagging vulgarities was so unoriginal and especially insulting coming from an educated woman like Maddow. We expected so much more from you Rachel. Shame on you.

[HighInfoVoter]

However sophomoric you may wish to paint the commentary, it's simply illuminating the cluelessness of the teabaggers. They don't have any grasp of our political or economic system. The teabaggers chose a term that reinforces how braindead and disconnected from reality they are. While some may have innocently tried to modernize the tea party with tea bags, there should have been someone with the savvy to consider that the most innocuous words do gather secondary, often crude, redefinitions.

What is stunning about this segment is how straight-faced Shuster is able to deliver such a hilarious flow of double-entendres. How many times did he have to rehearse it to not only keep himself from rofling, but the studio crew too?

Now that these conservatives have gone from being the sore winners of the past, to rightfully losing, they have become their own worst enemies. Having defunded education and elevated

[HighInfoVoter]

(continuation)

Having elevated anti-intellect so highly, conservatives don't have anyone left to form cogent arguments or lead a meaningful, constructive, opposition.

You can decry the sophomoric nature of the ridicule conservatives have invited upon themselves, but if they actually had some logical arguments those might get played. However, the teabaggers are just throwing tantrums. The ideal of freedom in the United States has been expanded again, against their retro-world wishes, so they through a tantrum fueled by ignorance.­.. much like a child protesting being kept away from a hot burner.

[donnyquixote]

Vulgar. Clever, yes, but so vulgar that I'm embarrassed that Shuster and others' behavior is considered to be acceptable. I couldn't imagine Bill O'Reilly getting away with calling Democrats "D-bags," or Sean Hannity referring to lesbians as "carpet-munchers" without reactions of outrage pouring from every outlet of liberal media. So long as the targets of the vulgarity aren't liberals, democrats or some other self-victimized group (sorry white males, you can't claim to be the victim of anything) there's no outrage-there's not even any reporting of the arguably inappropriate puns/double entendres! So yes, the satire was all brilliant and hilarious, but the fact that it came from so-called "respected" members of our news media shows how tasteless and classless they are.

[HighInfoVoter]

before assuming that billo and innanity don't use equally and more offensive terms, you should review the utterances which you give blanket defense to.

[Bridges1963]

I just watched this MSNBC clip. Never mind the issue this organization has with the intent of the Tea Parties, it is the most disgusting thing I have ever seen on prime time television. It is no wonder that the country is in the state it is in. The sexual innuendo used in every sentence was lewd and vulgar. You should be ashamed of yourself.

[PitBull6]

Shuster reminds us why the pun is the lowest form of humor. So now he's stooped to high school jokes about protestors that he wouldn't dare say regarding an anit-war march?

[Girl28]

When he said tongue lashing I almost rolled off the couch laughing.

[DefeatedAnOfficer]

I saw this when it aired... watching it again it's ten times funnier. I cannot believe Shuster made it through the first twenty seconds without laughing. Hell, the entire segment without laughing. Amazing.

[denicci1977]

I was in tears laughing trying to picture Faux False and Biased News in the middle of the Million Man March....W­hat a liar LMAO !!!

[DHC]

This is a brilliant piece and Shuster did it with a straight face. "One can only imagine why Cavuto thought of the million man march when discussing teabagging­." Priceless -- up there with Colbert and Stewart.

[RJII]

I met a teabagger last night while bar hopping.
He started blaming Obama for everything me and my friend were discussing.
For instance, according to him, its Obama's fault for the gentrification of the businesses in my neighborhood.
The guy was older, white, and scruffy looking and kept saying, "its rich people who have hired me, all my life." Over and over again.

[ayisha]

my mom always says, there are some people who can only function when they have someone standing over them telling them what to do. i think they are people in this country who really like feudalism and really want hand-downs. that's great, cause i will definitely be looking for someone to scrub my toilet one day.

[RJII]

I saw this segment and nearly choked on my b-b-q chicken.

[garymc8]

THERE NOT GOING NUTS OVER THE TAX THING. THEY ARE GOING NUTS BECAUSE THEY LOST BIG TIME AND THEIR "CROOKED FINANCIAL SYSTEMS ARE DOOMED" BASICALLY THEY ARE JUST GOING NUTS.

[tandrmcdonald]

OMG! Shuster and O'Donnell are going to bring a whole new interpretation to the old "Would you like a spot of tea?" To say nothing of their impact on the sudden upsurge in the Depends retail market.
I like Rachel Maddow but she's just a bit goosey, no pun intended, about the subject.
By the way, can someone persuade the honchos at MSNBC to jettison the Johnny Whitaker look-alike who shows up on her show like a bad rash? He ain't that funny.
Gramma Rose

[ICU1225]

Can we have a Corporate Interest Rate (30%) Day, or Corporate Fee Day - Demonstration?