ELECTION SEASON IN the US brings up all sorts of past events, speeches and tentative links of support.

As things heat up politically on the other side of the Atlantic, an audio clip of Michael D Higgins taking on radio host and Tea Party supporter Michael Graham has gone viral thanks to an Upworthy post entitled ‘A Tea Partier Decided To Pick A Fight With A Foreign President. It Didn’t Go So Well.’

The social media outfit says its mission is to make “important stuff as viral as a video of some idiot surfing off his roof”.

The debate, which actually happened on Newstalk in May 2010, heard the now-Irish president disagree with Graham on everything from health care to foreign policy. Holding back no punches, MDH finished his take down with a NSFW expletive (clue: w*@!*r).



(Credit: PBO2012)

Although we were hard pressed to top that smackdown, there have been plenty of other famous faces waiting in line to slam the Tea Party’s policies.

First up, Hollywood favourite Morgan Freeman claimed during an interview that the Tea Party’s opposition to Barack Obama was fuelled by racial prejudice.

“Stated policy, publicly stated, is to do whatever it takes to see to it that Obama only serves one term. What … underlines that? Screw the country. We’re going to do whatever we do to get this black man … outta here…

It just shows the weak, dark, underside of America. We’re supposed to be better than that.”



Rather unsurprisingly, outspoken actor Seán Penn provided the follow-up:



Former presidential hopeful and Obama’s 2008 rival, John McCain commented on the debt ceiling debate in July 2011 with an it-would-be-funny-if-it-wasn’t-so-serious comparison of the Tea Partiers and JRR Tolkien’s hobbits. He also described their policies as “crack political thinking”.



Television host Piers Morgan couldn’t hide his contempt for the movement during an interview with Ann Coulter as he asks whether the Tea Party is the modern version of Hitler and Mussolini’s followers.



Finally, author Stephen King calls a Tea Party governor a “stone brain”.



(Apologies for the poor quality. Credit: kariaud)