Or is that an unfair characterization?

Apparently Austin Cline doesn’t think so:

White Supremacist Theocrats: Tea Baggers Out Of The Closet (Austin Cline; Feb 25)

Tea Baggers try to present themselves as little more than fiscal conservatives who believe in a smaller, limited federal government and who are concerned that a growing government will infringe on personal civil liberties as well as bankrupt the nation. It’s hard to credit any of this as true, since few if any of them made a peep of protest when George W. Bush spent so much money and expanded the unchecked power of the government.

Instead of simply taking at face value what they tell outsiders about themselves, pay more attention to how they behave and what they say to each other. Doing so reveals an entirely different set of concerns that are more in line with white supremacism, Christian theocracy, and government oppression. The Tea Bagger movement isn’t quite a Christian brownshirt movement, but the combination of faux economic populism with xenophobia and faith-based fascism is disturbing to say the least.

Jonathan Kay writes about what he saw at the Tea Party National Convention:

I think the one thing that really did surprise me was the high level of explicitly Christian social conservatism on display here. One of the “breakout sessions” featured a speech from Pastor Rick Scarborough — who is most famous for trying to get America’s preachers more politicized. (“I’m not a Republican. I’m not a Democrat. I’m a Christocrat.”) After his speech, a middle-aged female delegate with a twang stood up and said, during the Q&A, “All the media types are asking us why we’re here. Here’s what I say. We’re all here for a little R&R — revival and revolt. If you’re not a Christian, and a person of faith, you just can’t understand what we’re doing!!” She got a standing ovation.

At the time, I thought this might be just because this particular session was self-selected by Christian attendees. But an hour later, the lunch speaker was Roy Moore: the “10 Commandments Judge” who was fired from his position as Alabama Chief Justice when he refused to remove a 5,000-pound 10-commandments sculpture from his court building. (He’s now running for Alabama Governor — his volunteers are a big presence here.) Anyway, he gave a fire-and-brimstone speech that peeled the paint off the walls. He sounded, at times, entirely indistinguishable from an Evangelist at Sunday service, listing off the many reasons America is going to hell (militant gay activists, naturally, figured prominently). And the guy brought the house down.

One thing that is particularly notable about the above — and much more like it that occurred at the Tea Party National Convention — is that most people simply don’t know about it. The so-called “liberal” media simply didn’t cover it and show the nation just what the Tea Baggers really believe, really want, and really intend. In effect, then, the media is actively aiding the Tea Baggers’ agenda by actively covering up their more extreme views, allowing the nation to imagine that their agenda is the more mild, more moderate version which they try to present to outsiders.

Why is that? Why would anyone in the media deliberately avoid presenting what would appear to be an important as well as explosive story about the growing power of an extremist, xenophobic movement in American politics? This isn’t even about the failure of the media to ask hard, probing questions — all they would have to do is air some key video, without comment, but they won’t even go that far. I don’t know why, but none of the reasons that come to my mind are good.

Is Cline being insightful here? Are his opinions outrunning the evidence?

*Wondering if joining a Hard Liquor Party might help me forget Sarah Palin and the people who like her*