The Only Urban Dictionary That Matters

Our guest columnist is the Daily Beast’s Ben Jacobs, riffing the naughty bits from Robert Draper’s new book.

John Dingell is the longest currently-serving member of Congress (and the third longest-serving ever). The acerbic 85-year-old Michigan Democrat had long been contemptuous of Tea Partiers. He found them unruly and difficult to get along with. Dingell tended to refer to them as “tea baggers,” a phrase that has an alternate sexual meaning. This normally wouldn’t have been a problem in the hall of Congress, but when Dingell was booked to appear on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, his staff felt the need to finally warn and educate him. When his chief of staff shared the other meaning of “tea bagger” with Dingell, the Congressman went through three different stages of reaction. At first, he said “hah,” then said “that’s disgusting,” and finally the octogenarian congressman reached the plain of acceptance and said, “It’s funny and I’m going to keep using it.”

9 Revelations From Robert Draper’s ‘Do Not Ask What Good We Do’ [Daily Beast, via Political Wire]

nojo
5:48 pm • Thursday • April 26, 2012
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9 Comments

ManchuCandidate

6:33 pm • Thursday • April 26, 2012

Good for him. Tea Partier makes them sound mature and urbane which is what most of them aren’t. Teabagger is to the point.

I’m passing for white

6:37 pm • Thursday • April 26, 2012

I am so writing to him. Should I call him “John Dinglleberry”?

6:46 pm • Thursday • April 26, 2012

@I’m passing for white:
For equivalency, John would have to call himself Dingleberry first.*

The irony of the teabagger name is that they called themselves that till it became a big joke.

*I suspect he’s been called that many times.

jwmcsame

7:34 pm • Thursday • April 26, 2012

I’ve been banned 3 different times from knoxnews.com, the local paper here by the vast conservative media conspiracy for repeatedly with much malice calling them teabaggers. Now I post under the name Lipton Bagwell and write like a redneck dumbass teabagger sorta like colbert and I am welcome with open arms.

Dodgerblue

7:49 pm • Thursday • April 26, 2012

@jwmcsame: +1.

BTW it’s NFL draft day today, for the 2 of 3 of us who give a shit.

9:06 pm • Thursday • April 26, 2012

@ManchuCandidate: Don’t get me wrong. I think he’s awesome. I just want to add to his lexicon, you know, just in case.

9:08 pm • Thursday • April 26, 2012

@Dodgerblue: We released Some Dude. Maybe for a draft pick? That’s all I know.

matador1015

10:16 pm • Thursday • April 26, 2012

I would find this funny, but he’s been teabagged by the Big Three automakers for so long, he can’t tell that Detroit is now a Third World country.

Benedick