Stealth Tactics

Regarding the Rachel Maddow segment "ODonnell the latest in a long conservative tradition":

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/39223620#39223620

Guest: "i think what sharron angle shows and christine o'donnell, there was a moment when the mainstream press fell for it that this tea party was this totally new thing and this never happened before in american politics. these are the same cultural warriors. the same -- in some ways the exact same people. the 1964 goldwater people. the same that came to washington under ronald reagan and that pursued impeachment against bill clinton. christine o'donnell got her start working for phyllis shafly's organization. the notion that the tea party is a brand-phenomenon has been there, it's always been there. i think angle and o'donnell demonstrate that. they give lie that this is a totally new phenomenon in american politics."

It seems to me that this is the same sort of attempt to dress the conservative culture war in politics as a more acceptable, "reality-based" shell as the recent Intelligent Design movement was for battling evolution in the school system.

The "creation scientists" came up against the legal restrictions of church vs. state in the trials of the 80's and 90's, so they literally made up a new phrase to be less "church" to see if they could get *that* idea passed into the school system. They actually cut "creation science" out of a text and pasted "design" in:

http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/11/missing-link-cd.html

I agree with Rachel and her guest that some part of the Tea Party movement seems to consists of these same Christianist actors joining a supposedly "fiscal only" movement to stealth into government. Like Governor McDonnell outlined in his thesis, but then disavowed that agenda, but *then* legislate to it:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/virginiapolitics/2009/09/bob_mcdonnells_1989_masters_th.html

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/09/27/mcdonnell-radical-agenda/

The theme seems to be: we've taken this as far as we can "above board", now we have to go more "underground"...