Jamelle Bouie notes a funny contradiction in Virginia offering Tea Party license plates:
Protest the government with your government-issued license plate! A brilliant idea. Of course, it's worth noting that the Commonwealth will produce any kind of specialized license plate, provided there are a sufficient number of people willing to buy them afterwards (I think the minimum threshold is 350). Still, this is hilarious, and perfectly illustrative of the schizophrenia that drives the Tea Party movement.
Sure, in the sense that the Tea Party's rhetoric is often anti-government. But they're hardly the first people to protest the government with a government-issue license plate. Here in D.C., we've been protesting our taxation without corresponding representation with our government-issue license plates for years. Of course, D.C. is populated by a bunch of liberals, so who cares if D.C. residents get taxed without a real vote in Congress.
