Zombies Love Tea
by digby
Dave Weigel is attending the tea party convention and reports that yet another 90s wingnut zombie has emerged from the crypt, none other than ex-secret service loon Gary Aldrich, last seen accusing the Clintons of hanging pornographic Christmas ornaments on the White house Christmas tree:
"This is a typical liberal," said Aldrich at his morning session, pointing to a slide of Hannibal Lecter. "They're some of the nastiest people you could possibly imagine." He switched up the Lecter photo with photos of enemy reporters, like Chris Matthews, "perky"Katie Couric, and Rachel Maddow, pausing briefly to make fun of Maddow's haircut. And on the way into the room, he said, he browbeat a reporter for filming an interview with a goofy-looking tea party activist who was carrying a gun. "That's what's going to show up on the nightly news," he said. His audience nodded their heads knowingly.
And so Aldrich's advice to activists fit cleanly under the heading of "ways to seem paranoid." Don't travel alone, he said: He himself had advised a prominent Tea Party leader to stop traveling solo around the country. Choose friends wisely, because allies can betray you and leak to reporters. Demand conditions from the media before agreeing to interviews. Also, learn to use a gun, especially if you live in an open carry state. (The friction between this and his previous statement was not noted.)
I thought he had finally been vanquished, but I turned over another rock recently and found Aldrich slithering underneath as a member of the Council for Nation Policy:
[O]over the weekend, TPP [Tea party Patriots] leaders met with members of the Council for National Policy to try to raise some money. CNP is a secretive and powerful club that has worked to make the Republican Party more socially conservative. Founded in 1981 by Tim LaHaye, the evangelical minister, political organizer, and author of the Left Behind books about the coming apocalypse, CNP's board reads like a who's who of the GOP's evangelical wing.
According to the group's 2008 IRS filings, board members include Elsa Prince, a wealthy contributor to religious right causes, particularly anti-gay marriage efforts. (She is perhaps better known as the mother of Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater.) Joining her is the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins, Phyllis Schlafly, direct mail king Richard Viguerie, and Becky Norton Dunlop, the vice president for external relations at the conservative Heritage Foundation. By-invitation-only members of the group have included: Sarah Palin; the American Family Association's Don Wildmon; former FBI agent Gary Aldrich (now a TPP board member) who's famous for writing a book claiming that the Clintons hung sex toys on the White House Christmas tree; and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, the chairman of FreedomWorks.
It looks like all the zombies are joining together for one big teabag extravaganza.
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