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As they always do, that, plus the media blitz giving them the limelight a well, has led to certain ilk to utilize the vulgar term at yours truly among others.
Not to mention the group I mentioned before which held the convention with Palin as the Keynote speaker. I think she's a quintessential opportunist in this whole thing, myself.
As far as the teabagger insult, my stance is that you should castrate the insult by not talking offense to it. Owning a term and not taking offense to it de-values the ability of others to use it as an insult.
For example, someone calling me an idiot is of no benefit to them because I self-apply the term all the time. Whenever someone does call me an idiot, I usually just embrace it and say something along the lines of "Well, aside from my well-established idiocy, what is your response to such and such idea...."
And guess what happens when I use this approach? In almost every case, that the insults stop.
Why?
Because they have no impact.
The purpose of an insult is to inflame the other person. But even more importantly, it gives the insulter power over you only if you allow it to. If you remove the ability of the person to inflame and offend, you remove their power.
You castrate it.
That's why I think the tea party proponents need to just embrace the title. It's never going to go away while they willingly give it power, and the only power it can have is the power to offend.