Ben Domenech writes an eloquent defense of the Tea Party movement on RedState in the face of yet another Rolling Stone article filled with gross negligence.

The article by Matt Taibbi, which really only serves as a convenient side dish to the tongue-bath interview with President Obama by Jann Wenner, launches numerous ridiculous charges against FreedomWorks. I guess it's not enough to lob softball questions to the president, when you can really give him a boost by providing his position some "journalistic context". 

Domenech on FreedomWorks and Taibbi's research:

He [Taibbi] saves particular bile for FreedomWorks, the Dick Armey-led group which has been a major policy source for Tea Partiers.

Here’s where it just gets silly. Taibbi writes that FreedomWorks was “conspicuously silent during George Bush’s gargantuan spending” — uh, did someone never learn how to use Google? FreedomWorks has long been known as an organization guided by libertarian principles and an emphasis on small government. Any schoolchild with access to Google can see an immense paper trail of FreedomWorks opposing big government approaches under Bush, Clinton, Bush, and even Reagan. FreedomWorks was one of the most vocal opponents of Bush’s spending initiatives from the right, including Medicare Part D and the TARP Wall Street bailout (which other less principled outfits supported). If Taibbi is revealing anything here, it’s that he himself was never much interested in critiques of big government until he was compelled by party loyalty to try to discredit them.

This type of inaccurate reporting goes beyond laziness — it’s so wrong, and so easily correctable, that I can’t think it is explained by a series of unintentional mistakes. It’s just a blatant lie, one the fact-checkers let stand.

I recognize that Taibbi was a tabloid journalist in Russia covering sports and gossip in the early 1990s while FreedomWorks was protesting HillaryCare at every speech where Clinton promoted her plan, but saying that anti-big government activists “only took to the streets when a black Democrat president launched an emergency stimulus program” is just flat-out wrong. Any honest Capitol Hill staffer will tell you that the real pushback started in September 2008, when the yet-unnamed Tea Partiers let fly against the Bush-Pelosi-Reid bailout, and exploded in the late summer town halls of the following year, primarily in response to the President’s health care bill. Yet somehow Taibbi credits this movement to Ron Paul + secretive Republican manipulators + those Jewish bankers he’s always yammering about? (And a hint to Taibbi: if your conspiracy theory involves the Paul family collaborating with Goldman Sachs, that tinfoil’s screwed on too tight). 

Domenech then asks FreedomWorks Vice-President of Public Policy Max Pappas for his thoughts:

“Few in the GOP establishment would agree with his claim that the tea party movement has been ‘deployed’ to their advantage by groups like FreedomWorks. Rather, it’s been a hostile takeover resisted by the GOP establishment at every step,” Pappas said. “This genuine grassroots movement is the people reasserting themselves against the members of both parties who make up the arrogant political class that has abused its powers for too long… something the once-upon-a-time anti-establishment Rolling Stone may have sided with, rather than defending the powers that be.”

But my favorite part, is the Bob Dylan quote Domenech uses to call out Rolling Stone:

“Once you wanted revolution/now you’re the institution/how’s it feel to be the man.”

(emphasis mine)

To read Domenech's article click here.