This genuinely appeared in my inbox this evening:
Professor Froomkin:
Thanks for taking the time to read this email. My name is Jeff Stolarcyk and I'm contacting you to let you know about [redacted], a new online store that specializes in t-shirts designed for the modern conservative or Tea Party supporter. We're trying to get the word out about the site by asking well-regarded conservative bloggers like yourself to participate in our affiliate program. You might have already seen banners for the store on sites like AntiObama.net.
[and it went on]
I guess I should be glad that the Tea Party types are so good at recognizing their fellows…
That’s the problem with small brains.
They figured that since you were [ past tense ] British,
and the British drink Tea, [ even though most have moved on to coffee ]
that You were British, therefore a Tea Party supporter.
It still amazes me on how dumb they they are.
But of course I was never British, I just visited for a few years. And married one.
May I break in and digress?
I finally realized that the Tea Party really wants a return to “the Great American Lie”. I kept seeing, in my minds eye, the lady at a rally who in tears said “I want my country back.” And I realize she never realized that the country she wants back never existed except in the mind of political spin doctors and politicians.
We used to call that false advertising not conservative family values.
The nice thing about the Tea Party nuts is that they may very well be self defeating. They are splitting the right enough in some places to give center left candidates a real chance in a year that might have otherwise given the right a real landslide election victory.
Then again, this might just be hopeful speculation. We’ll see what happens in November.