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In his Monday column, “ Tales of the Tea Party ,” Ross Douthat, the New York Times' s idea of a conservative, exploded four common Tea Party myths spread by the left. The text box read “The stories liberals tell themselves.” What Douthat couldn’t mention was that all four kinds of “stories” have been told by Times reporters as well. Douthat began by debunking the Tea Party racism myth, one spread by the paper's Tea Party beat reporter Kate Zernike on several occasions, to the point of considering opposition to the minimum wage racially suspect . A month ago, a U.C.L.A. graduate student named Emily Elkins spent hours roaming a Tea Party rally on the Washington Mall, photographing every sign she saw. Elkins, a former CATO Institute intern, was examining the liberal conceit that Tea Party marches are rife with racism and conspiracy theorizing. Last week, The Washington Post reported on her findings: just 5 percent of the 250 signs referenced Barack Obama’s race or religion, and 1 percent brought up his birth certificate. The majority focused on bailouts, deficits and spending — exactly the issues the Tea Partiers claim inspired their movement in the first place. The easy thing would be to take them at their word. But for liberals, that would be too simple. The Democrats are weeks away from a midterm thumping that wasn’t supposed to happen, and the liberal mind is desperate for a narrative, a storyline, something to ease the pain of losing to a ragtag band of right-wing populists. Something that explains the Tea Parties — and then explains them away. The “Tea Partiers are racists” theory is the most inflammatory storyline, but there are many more. Let’s consider them, in order of increasing plausibility. Douthat then posted some paragraphs under the following four bullet headlines of stories liberal tell themselves. Under Douthat’s headlines I've inserted examples of how Times reporters have told their readers those same liberal stories. read more