Obama Takes Swipe at 'Folks Waving Tea Bags'

President Obama directed his most direct criticism yet at anti-tax “tea partiers” today at a town hall event marking his first 100 days in office, Politico reports. Though studiously vague, Obama conceded that people watching “certain news channels on which I'm not very popular” might “see folks waving tea bags around. Let me just remind them that I am happy to have a serious conversation,” he said.

That conversation would be “about how we are going to cut our health care costs down over the long term, how we are going to stabilize Social Security,” the president said. “But let's not play games and pretend that the reason for the deficit is because of the Recovery Act.” (More taxes stories.)