THE BEST MEDICINE. I see the new rightwing rapid-response talking point is that their own unfortunate use of the teabagging nomenclature is the liberals' fault because they laughed at them.

American Conservative Daily says that when patriotic Americans hear "teabag," then "the images of Boston Harbor, taxes and American history immediately come to mind." Of course, they're only thinking of those things so they won't get a boner. "In the marble bosom of the socialist salon," scoffs The Next Right, "teaparties would seem to be the stuff of humor." Conservatives, on the other hand, laugh when bums are set on fire, and at "Home Improvement" reruns.

Don Surber is enraged that Anderson Cooper made such a joke -- and expresses it under the headline "Anderson Cooper Gags." He also says something about "report the news straight." Well, at least he knows what a joke is when it's not directed at him and his fellow yokels, and he does grasp that Cooper's jest "played on an oral sex reference in tea bagging," which shows he sometimes ventures outside of West Virginia, where the practice is known as the Family Reunion Dinner.

Infinite Monkeys denies all humorousness and insists that it's "tea party," not "teabagging," which is rather like Harvey Korman insisting "It's not Hedy, it's Hedley" in Blazing Saddles.

They remind me of a few other things, too: scolds who complain about "inappropriate laughter"; Frank Booth in Blue Velvet hissing "Don't you fucking look at me!"; and pretty much any other humorless dink who can't stand the disrespectful attention of others because he takes himself so damned seriously.