The Founders would be proud.

ABC News reports:

In Jonathan Alter’s “The Promise: President Obama, Year One,” President Obama is quoted in an interview saying that the unanimous vote of House Republicans vote against the stimulus bills “set the tenor for the whole year … That helped to create the tea-baggers and empowered that whole wing of the Republican Party to where it now controls the agenda for the Republicans.”

Hot Air's analysis says it better than I ever could.

Doubtless the defense here will be that The One wasn’t aware of the sexual connotation and therefore had no idea that the term offends tea partiers. Funny thing, though: Offhand, I can’t recall a single instance of him saying “teabaggers” publicly. Not in speeches, not in interviews, not at town halls, not even at that fundraiser a few weeks ago when he goofed on protesters by saying they should be thanking him for cutting their taxes, i.e. for running up gigantic deficits. If he doesn’t know the term’s impolitic, how come he hasn’t innocently used it on camera yet?

[...]

A lot of people are e-mailing to remind me that Obama was blathering about civility just three days ago at the University of Michigan (“You can disagree with a certain policy without demonizing the person who espouses it”), but the truth is, he’s been blathering about it forever. The only thing more common these days than a liberal screeching about racism or Nazism is The One spouting platitudes about civility without ever calling his side onto the carpet. That’s a nice gig if you can get it.

And on top of it, continuing to insult the Tea Party is a recipe for disaster.

From my analysis of the latest Quinnipiac poll in Ohio:

But what I love is the opinion of the Tea Party. They are the only one of the three [major Parties] to have an overall positive rating, sitting at +10. But what's impressive is their +18 number among Indies. Someone remind me why Democrats keep insulting Tea Partiers, again?

So keep it up, Dems. It only helps us.