You Tube

David Shuster and Dan Gross discuss teabag party politics.

**Nicole: Call it a hunch, but I think that Shuster was inspired by Rachel Maddow's and Ana Marie Cox's discussion of teabagging the other day. Look at that barely concealed smirk.

Shuster and Gross show just how mindlessly reactionary and deranged these astroturf protests are. What exactly are they protesting? Gross has no good answers, because, for the vast majority of Americans, Obama's economic plans actually benefit them. So is this just another example of sheeple, protesting to better the situation of the top 1%, like Hannity and Santelli (both of whom will be attending "tea parties")? Or could they just be protests by people whipped up into a lather by people like Hannity and Santelli into just being angry without cause?

A video by bloggerinterrupted showcases a string of protesters from a Feb. 27 event in Cleveland who don't believe President Obama was born in the United States. Any good protest will have its fringe weirdos, but the birth certificate deniers may be emerging as an undercurrent in the tea party movement -- D.C. tea party organizers booked Obama-birth-certificate-skeptic Alan Keyes to speak at the tax day event outside the Treasury Department.

As Jon pointed out, when even LGF is calling you deranged, you have traveled out beyond the fringe.