TAMPA, Florida | FreedomWorks president Matt Kibbe said Tuesday that the success of the Tea Party has the media in a bit of a panic.
Speaking with NewsBusters at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Kibbe also said press attacks on the Tea Party will probably end “the day after the election” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):
February 2009 was a pretty dark time for the conservative movement. The arguably most liberal president in the history of the United States has been sworn in to office just weeks early. The Congress had solid Democratic majorities in both chambers. And there were overtures that only way to save the nation from suffering the worst of a downtrodden economy was through an avalanche of costly legislation that would create huge budget deficits and ever-expanding bureaucracy.
But in the midst of that dark spell, CNBC's Rick Santelli lit the spark that ignited the conservative pushback. On CNBC's Feb. 19, 2009 "Squawk Box," Santelli called for a "tea party" in Lake Michigan to protest the idea the Obama administration was preparing to enact a massive housing bailout to reward people who took part in risky behavior by purchasing a home they couldn't afford.
According to former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, now the chairman of FreedomWorks, often portrayed as a Tea Party villain by the American left, Santelli really is a father of the movement. Armey, along with Matt Kibbe, president and CEO of FreedomWorks, credit Santelli in an Aug. 17 Wall Street Journal op-ed and more extensively in their book "Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto." And on CNBC's Aug. 19 "Squawk Box," Armey explained the importance of Santelli.
NBC's Matt Lauer, invited on former House Majority Leader Dick Armey and Freedom Works' Matt Kibbe to discuss the Ground Zero mosque controversy and claimed that since the group behind the mosque existed in Manhattan before the World Trade Center attack, questioned: "So because of 9/11, do they have to move further away? Do they have to go elsewhere?" Armey, who was on with Kibbe to promote their new book Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto, responded to the Today show co-anchor "that because you have the right to do something doesn't make it the right thing to do" and pointed out to Lauer that those behind the mosque should be more "responsive to the concerns that are being raised."
The following is the full interview with Armey and Kibbe as it was aired on the August 17 Today show:
"You have not had a single, as far as I know, violent action related to the Tea Party activity. For all the bluster or energy or street theater, no one's been hurt. They haven't, you know, they're not the bogeyman that maybe they have been portrayed by many."
So amazingly said Geraldo Rivera to fired GEICO announcer Lance Baxter aka D.C. Douglas Sunday evening.
As NewsBusters reported last week, Baxter was terminated by the insurance giant for leaving a disgusting voice-mail message at the offices of FreedomWorks, an organization that is supporting the Tea Party.
Days later, Rivera decided to question Douglas and FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe separately (video follows with highlights and commentary):