My co-blogger Jim Lindgren has closed comments in his post below, and I wanted to respond to this comment:

The biggest problem with the media's understanding of the Tea Party movement is that some on the left assume (1) that the Tea Parties are Astroturfed at least as much as some of the left's own demonstrations and (2) that the educated right hates Obama at least as much as the educated left hates Bush and Cheney. So far, I haven't seen much evidence of either.

  Taking the second point first, I don't think I recall anyone suggesting that "the educated right hates Obama at least as much as the educated left hates Bush and Cheney," much less that this is a view widely shared by "the media." Whether you like Obama or dislike him, he has been President for only seven months; he hasn't been around long enough for most people to actually "hate" him. In contrast, opinions of Bush took several years to reach the strength they did; a chart of Bush's approval ratings over the eight years of his Presidency suggests that the strength of opinion grew in a relatively linear way over the course of those eight years.

  As for the second point, I'm not sure what to make of Jim's claim that "some on the left" have a false assumption about "some of the left's demonstrations," without indicating who those people are and what demonstrations they have in mind. If this false assumption is really a major problem in media coverage of the Tea Parties, I think a few examples of it in the press would make the point more helpfully.