Is LeBron James Helping the Tea Party Movement? (No.)

Political writers across the mid-Atlantic watched LeBron James' incredibly shameless decision last night, searching for a "political angle." Hats off to the Atlantic's Josh Green, who wrote a savvy thing called, "How LeBron's Move Helps the Tea Party." Snappy! (Huh?)

Green explains that he's just returned from the Gulf area of Texas, southeast of Houston, where everyone's in the Tea Party — perhaps because of the recent offshore drilling moratorium and the Obama administration's closing of space shuttle programs... but maybe also because it's Texas, hmm?

Now Green thinks that LeBron James playing basketball in Miami will transform northeastern Ohio into Texas.

Back to Ohio. The unemployment rate is well above the national average, nearly 11 percent. The state's manufacturing base has been decimated, and those jobs aren't coming back. And now, suddenly, the biggest star in the state — an economic engine in his own right, and a guy who probably single-handedly made Cleveland a recognizable sports mecca all over the world — has forsaken its residents. And not just forsaken them, but utterly humiliated them by forsaking them on a globally televised ESPN Special!


Hey now, wait a minute. How did the Tea Party get such a monopoly over the idea that everything is going to hell? That's an American Idea, for all Americans! The Tea Party blames it on government spending, though, while the rest of us merely have our fucking eyes open.

Anyway, LeBron James' decision to move to Miami was not based on Obama administration defunding some nearby factories or whatever. They've been gone for years, which is why people in Cleveland immediately burn things when they get upset about sports.

[Image via AP]