The Evolution of "TEA BAGGER"

Was President Obama speaking derogatively when he referred to the Tea Party as "tea baggers"? That's the topic of some debate after a review of Jonathan Alter's book, The Promise: President Obama, Year One, revealed that Obama used the term in November 2009.

The grassroots movement didn't always consider "tea bagger" a slur: Early Tea Partiers innocently embraced the term until they discovered its vulgar connotations (see also the 1998 John Waters movie Pecker). In a twist, some conservatives have recently advocated that the word be reclaimed. Here's a look at the evolution of the insult:

Feb. 27, 2009 - At the first anti-stimulus "New American Tea Party" rally in Washington D.C., a protestor carries a sign reading "Tea Bag the Liberal Dems before they Tea Bag You!!" The Washington Independent's David Weigel calls it "the best sign I saw."

March 2 - Americans for Prosperity, an anti-tax group, is one of the first Tea Party organizations to advocate sending tea bags to elected officials to protest the stimulus package. Several other lobby groups follow suit.

April 1 - Several Tea Party protest sites encourage readers to "Tea bag the fools in DC." Jay Nordlinger at National Review Online later admits: "Conservatives started [using the term]... but others ran and ran with it."

September 10 - Badges with the message "Proud to be a Tea Bagger" are still on sale at Tea Party events, according to an article written later in the year.

April 14, 2010 - Prominent conservative Andrew Breitbart posts a video on the site Big Government in an attempt to reclaim the term. "I'm Proud to be a Tea Bagger" currently has over 90,000 views.

But then they feign outrage........