Ridiculous Article Claims Lebron James' Departure Aids the Tea Parties

This post is by Jamison Foser, and originally appeared at Media Matters.

The Atlantic’s Joshua Green is lapping the field in the “silliest thing you’ll read all day” competition with a  piece purporting to explain “How LeBron's Move Helps the Tea Party.”

Green’s “explanation”? See, Tea Partiers are mad. And, um, now Ohioans are mad at LeBron James. Therefore they’ll become ultra-conservative Republicans, like the Tea Partiers. Or something. Take a look:

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!

Would you be angry? I sure would be. And I'd be that much more amenable to the Tea Party message that everything is going to hell.

Wow, that's good stuff! I can't wait for Green's explanation of how Hurley taking Jack's job in the series finale of  Lost will stoke Tea Party anger, too.