“Let’s be very honest about what this is about. It’s not about bashing Democrats, it’s not about taxes, they have no idea what the Boston tea party was about, they don’t know their history at all. This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up. That is nothing but a bunch of tea-bagging rednecks....Fox News loves to foment this anti-intellectualism because that’s their bread and butter. If you have a cerebral electorate, Fox News goes down the toilet, you know, very, very fast....They have tackled that elusive...Klan with a ‘K’ demo.”

CNN analyst David Gergen: “Republicans are pretty much in disarray.... They have not yet come up with a compelling alternative, one that has gained popular recognition. So-“

Anchor Anderson Cooper: “Teabagging. They’ve got teabagging.”

Gergen: “Well, they’ve got the teabagging....[But] Republicans have got a way — they still haven’t found their voice, Anderson. They’re still — this happens to a minority party after it’s lost a couple of bad elections, but they’re searching for their voice.”

Cooper: “It’s hard to talk when you’re teabagging.”

“You know, Kyra, this is a party for Obama bashers. I have to say that this is not entirely representative of everybody in America....It’s anti-government, anti-CNN, since this is highly promoted by the right wing conservative network, Fox. And since I can’t really hear much more and I think this is not really family viewing, I’ll toss it back to you.”

“The truth is out about the societal sabotage dressed up as phony protests against health care reform....When Hamas does it or Hezbollah does it, it is called terrorism. Why should Republican lawmakers and the AstroTurf groups organizing on behalf of the health care industry be viewed any differently — especially now that far too many tea party protesters are comparing President Obama and health care reform to Hitler and the Holocaust?”

“Members of Congress are back home holding town hall meetings on the issue, and in meeting after meeting, there’s been a pattern of disruption — opponents of change shouting at members of Congress so loud that at times police are called in. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said today, ‘We can discuss these issues without being uncivilized. It’s the same thing I tell my six-year-old.’”

“They’ve waved signs likening President Obama to Hitler and the devil; raised questions about whether he was really born in this country; falsely accused him of planning to set up death panels; decried his speech to students as indoctrination; and called him everything from a ‘fascist’ to a ‘socialist’ to a ‘communist.’ ...And all that was before Mr. Obama’s speech was interrupted by a representative who once fought to keep the Confederate flag waving over the South Carolina state house. Add it all up, and some prominent Obama supporters are now saying that it paints a picture of an opposition driven, in part, by a refusal to accept a black President.”

“A Member of Congress calling the President a liar, town hallers yelling at lawmakers, carrying guns to rallies, refusing to let kids hear the Commander-in-Chief. And on and on and on. What’s behind it? Is it racial? Yeah, I said it. And we’re going to talk about it....I was watching Real Talk, Real Time with Bill Maher and I was, like, ‘Finally, someone’s talking about this. Finally, someone is talking about this.’”