If you read me often enough, you have probably noticed that I tend to check various news and opinion sites throughout the TradMed each morning, after I’ve spent a few minutes reviewing emails and jobs sites. Most of the time, I just shake my head at the various levels of stupidity I find, not being able to quite give it the full YOU HAVE GOT TO BE F*CKING KIDDING ME! treatment so richly deserved. Then there are days like today where teh stoopid is so truly dumbfounding.

After the fall of Bush II, Fox News and the GOP realized they had a branding problem. The right wing infrastructure was mobilized, and money began flowing into organizations like David Koch’s Americans for Prosperity, the Coors’ Independence Institute, Freedomworks and other outfits who had astroturfed the Drill, Drill Drill campaign. I wrote a tea party timeline last year, but by the time Rick Santelli had his moment of outrage on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade “suggesting” that everyone get together and have a “Chicago Tea Party,” things were already well underway.