Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou's call for a referendum on the EU bailout package seems to have prompted media outlets to rummage through their store of Greek cliches.

The Washington Post's editorial against "Mr. Papandreou's ill-advised announcement of a referendum" led with a classical reference:

Not since the night when soldiers emerged from the belly of a giant wooden horse in ancient Troy has Greece engineered a more stunning surprise.

On the CBS Evening News (11/1/11), Mark Phillips weighed in with a culinary metaphor:

This was supposed to be the week that world leaders gathered in France to chart the next course of the economic battle. All through the week, the demonstrators gathered to tell them what they were doing wrong. Now the whole agenda has been tossed up in the air like a Greek salad.

Is that what people do with Greek salads? I thought it was plates they were supposed to throw around.

And on the Today show (11/2/11), CNBC reporter Mandy Drury skipped the imagery and just vented directly about how irritating she thought Greece was:

Yes, that news that Greece has called a referendum on its bailout scuttled stocks yesterday, and it looks like it could be a drag on stocks today as well. I know, it is so annoying that one small country could have that much of an impact on worldwide markets and indeed, essentially, your 401(k), but there you have it, our globalized and interconnected world.

On a happier note, though, starting today Starbucks is going to collect donations of $5 or more from customers in order to stimulate jobs through its Jobs for USA program. I guess that's just another reason to reach for the java, Natalie.

Well, thank goodness for Starbucks.

Time's Michael Crowley deserves some credit for saying this about the Tea Party movement, in his piece about how they largely won the debt standoff:

The Tea Party movement has proved not only that people can have their own facts but also that they can use them to vast tactical advantage, crashing through the taboos of political convention and changing the game along the way.

But in explaining the political origins of the movement, he writes:

It is an article of faith in Tea Party circles that Washington and Wall Street are in bed together, colluding for power and profit at the expense of the little guy.

We've seen this before; that is, attempts to brand the Tea Party movement--which is in no small part bankrolled by wealthy corporate interests-- as anti-corporate populism. He writes:

Indeed, for some Tea Party activists, the summer of 2011 has been all too reminiscent of the fall of 2008, when the movement truly took root. After the financial world crashed, Washington insisted that a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street banks was necessary to avert a depression. To the Tea Party, however, this was yet another scare tactic to justify transferring taxpayer money to the bankers who helped cause the mess in the first place.

There are probably some Tea Party activists who opposed the TARP bailout, but it's a stretch to suggest this is where the movement "took root." Glenn Beck, as much as an intellectual godfather to the movement as there is, supported the bailout, only to later recant and wish he hadn't.

The Tea Party movement was really energized by a rant from CNBC host Rick Santelli--the one where he called for a Tea Party based on some class resentment directed at  people in expensive homes who were all getting bailed out while hard-earning stockbrokers were making their payments. Or something like that--read this piece from CJR to get a sense of what Santelli was upset about, which was a modest mortgage modification program directed at people who were, in Santell's words, "losers." His call for Tea Party protests led to, well, actual Tea Party protests.

This happened in February 2009, months after the TARP bailout. Very little of his rant was based on bashing Wall Street--it would have been rather remarkable for an anti-Wall Street movement to be birthed on CNBC, a network whose target audience is people who trade stocks. And, of course, the movement began to really find political success during the health care debate--when it was mostly concerned with portraying Obama's plan as some sort of Communist killing machine.

Crowley adds:

In Tea Party doctrine, both major parties are complicit with an elite Washington--New York establishment that lies to the public to cover for policies that enrich the wealthy and strengthen the powerful.

If this were really what was motivating Tea Party activists, you'd see more evidence to that effect--and it'd be more ideologically diverse than it is. The truth is that there are such activist mobilizations--US Uncut, the One Nation march on Washington--but they're hardly given the media platform granted to the Tea Party.

You know, the fact of the matter is we have to change how we do things. We are on an imprudent and unsustainable path in a number of ways. You talk about debtors' prisons, we used to have debtors' prisons, now bankruptcy is no taint! Bankruptcy is an exit strategy! Our society and our culture has changed. We need to get back to the opportunity, we need to move away from entitlement, we need to provide reasonable risk but we need to hold people accountable when they do imprudent things. It's pretty fundamental.

--David Walker, CEO of the Peterson Foundation, an organization set up by billionaire Pete Peterson to promote cuts in Social Security and Medicare (CNBC's Squawk Box, 6/10/10; MichaelMoore.com, 6/11/10)

"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge," said the gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir."

"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.

"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.

"And the Union workhouses?" demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?"

"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish I could say they were not."

"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigor, then?" said Scrooge.

"Both very busy, sir."

"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course," said Scrooge. "I'm very glad to hear it."

--Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol