Glenn Reynolds plays dumb about “tea parties.” Again

It's like a hobby for him.

Earlier this week, Reynolds hyped the “tea parties” in the NYPost with a gosh-golly look at how “grassroots” it all was. Except Reynolds forgot to mention the fact that Fox News, that “grassroots” media behemoth, was pretty much co-sponsoring the anti-Obama events.

Today, Glenn's back. This time in the WSJ. And yes, Glenn's pretending the tea parties are completely bottom-up events. They're just “ordinary folks who are using the power of the Internet to organize.”

No, really:

Today American taxpayers in more than 300 locations in all 50 states will hold rallies -- dubbed “tea parties” -- to protest higher taxes and out-of-control government spending. There is no political party behind these rallies, no grand right-wing conspiracy, not even a 501(c) group like MoveOn.org.

See, Fox News doesn't exist in the world of anti-Obama tea parties. It's not providing the events with priceless, free promotion. It's not branding them, and it's not hyping them. Fox News has nothing to do with the tea parties.

Except that it does.