Members of the tea-party movement really hate to be called “teabaggers” because, as many of them have learned only recently, “teabagging” is a slang term for a sex act.

Some critics of the tea-party movement enjoy calling them “teabaggers” — not to suggest that those in the movement practice this sex act (I rather doubt most of them do, but so what if they did?), but to provoke an angry response.

It’s juvenile. Remember on the playground when you’d discover that a certain kid pitched a fit when addressed by a particular nickname, and how the mean kids made sure to use that nickname as much as possible?  Taunting like that is a shorthand way of belittling and insulting people you don’t agree with.

So  I purged the term “teabaggers” from my discourse after my right-wing friends/critics took me to task for using it.

But now,  thanks to syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh’s nimble tapdance about his use of the words “retard” and “retarded” to insult the left — he was merely satirizing those who used the word as an insult, he claimed — I intend to begin using “teabaggers” again, but only in the Limbaughian, satirical sense, not to make fun of or attempt to inflame  members of the tea party movement, but to satirize those who do.

So we’re cool on that, teabaggers?

And any spelling or grammar “mistakes” you may catch me making in the future? Those are simply attempts at irony. And what may look like typos to you are simply crisp, withering commentaries on those who do commit typos or who obsess about them.

get a rise out of them

r