Obama May Not Have Called Conservative Activists “Tea Bags”

By Justin Duckham – Talk Radio News Service

President Barack Obama has caught flak for reportedly calling the conservative activists that descended on Capitol Hill twice in the past week “tea bag, anti-government people.”

The description comes from a New York Times blog written by Jackie Calmes featuring a quote provided by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) detailing Obama’s talks with Congress in the hours leading to the House vote.

“According to Representative Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, who supports the health care bill, the president asked, “Does anybody think that the teabag, anti-government people are going to support them if they bring down health care? All it will do is confuse and dispirit” Democratic voters “and it will encourage the extremists.”

Right wing blog redstate.com posted an article Tuesday morning chiding the left for its use of “tea bag” or “tea bagger” as in insult aimed at conservative activists, using the New York Times blog to charge that even the President uses the insulting term to describe the demonstrators.

However, it seems that Obama might not have uttered those words and that Blumenauer was in fact paraphrasing.

Talk Radio News Service was present during Blumenauer’s discussion with Calmes and captured sound from the exchange. While the audio shows that Blumeanuer did make the statement in question, the Oregon Democrat appears to revise his words several seconds later to instead suggest that the president only said “extreme people.”

Click on the audio icon below to listen to the exchange.

 

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