Tea-Party, Tea-baggers, tea-pee

Glenn Beck and his tea-bagger brigade continue to invoke Thomas Paine, but Paine would have loathed their hateful, discourteous demeanor, spitting, name-calling and ignorance. Most of Beck's assumptions about Paine are the result of his having never read more perhaps than Common Sense. The fact is that Paine's ideology evolved over time -- he started out a strong Federalist (something the tea-bagging crowd would hate) and ended up a staunch anti-Federalist with a strong social welfare component (see Agrarian Justice).

http://kenburchell.blogspot.com/2009/07/glenn-beck-no-thomas-paine-no-common.html
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-11-17/palins-unlikely-hero/
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/10/16/beck-thomas-paine/