Tea party groups fire on each other

Two of the tea party movement’s largest organizations are at odds Monday after a fight over a resolution approved by the NAACP calling their tactics “racist.” On Sunday, the Tea Party Federation, an umbrella organization, expelled the Tea Party Express over the actions of one of its leaders, Mark Williams. The Tea Party Express fired back Monday with a statement excoriating the Tea Party Federation for its “arrogant” decision to expel the group after Williams posted a highly controversial satirical “letter” he wrote from NAACP head Ben Jealous to President Abraham Lincoln. After receiving criticism for his letter, Williams, a conservative radio host, said over the weekend in an interview with CNN that he would no longer talk about the conflict between tea party activists and the NAACP on his show. But Williams’s announcement that he was bowing out of the fight wasn’t enough to keep the Tea Party Federation from expelling both the radio host and the Tea Party Express with which he is affiliated. The decision, said Wierzbicki, has harmed the tea party movement and aided the NAACP in its critique of the tea party. “The ‘Federation’ has enabled and empowered the NAACP's racist attacks on the tea party movement, and they should be ashamed of themselves,” he said...more