"It's the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!'"

The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it: `No room! No room!' they cried out when they saw Alice coming. `There's PLENTY of room!' said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.

Ross Douthat complains that Obama is good at pretending to be a wonk and pretending to be a celebrity, but Republicans like Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin are only good at pretending to be celebrities. They are not Serious because they don't pay any attention to Serious people, like Douthat.

This means that there are substantial political rewards awaiting the politician who becomes the voice of an intellectually vigorous conservatism. It probably won’t be Mike Huckabee or Sarah Palin. If Republicans are lucky, though, it will be somebody who shares their charisma — but who prefers the responsibilities of leadership to the pleasures of celebrity.

`Really, now you ask me,' said Alice, very much confused, `I don't think--'

`Then you shouldn't talk,' said the Hatter.


Douthat still is not willing to concede defeat. The intellectual wing of the Republican party, represented by well-educated idiots like Douthat, battled the tea-party wing, represented by four-inch red high heels and the idiot wearing them--and lost. The corporate leadership obviously noticed that the public no longer cares if its candidates are competent, as long as they can imagine having a beer, or perhaps a week-end in Vegas, with the them. The intellectual aspect of the party proved to be entirely optional, much like Palin's brains. Therefore the intellectual wing was jettisoned for simple-minded talking points and whatever position Dick Armey has been hired to push at the next tea party. And Douthat is left to moralize all alone, his angry God rejected for the hope of lower taxes and one last shot at the prom queen.


`Have some wine,' the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.

Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. `I don't see any wine,' she remarked.

`There isn't any,' said the March Hare.

`Then it wasn't very civil of you to offer it,' said Alice angrily.

`It wasn't very civil of you to sit down without being invited,' said the March Hare.

`I didn't know it was YOUR table,' said Alice; `it's laid for a great many more than three.'

`Your hair wants cutting,' said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech.

`You should learn not to make personal remarks,' Alice said with some severity; `it's very rude.'


How have the winners in this valiant struggle dealt with their new responsibility? They are busy ReFounding the country by fighting over money and jockeying for power.

In October, Amy Kremer, a founder and top staffer for the Tea Party Patriots (whose activists swarmed health care town halls last summer) was forced out of the group for joining a second, more "moderate" Tea Party organization -- the Tea Party Express. Now, the Tea Party Patriots have filed a lawsuit against Kremer and issued a temporary restraining order because she tried to lock down TPP resources on her way out.

Dave Weigel, who has been reporting on this story since it began, noted in October the growing friction between the Tea Party Patriots and the Tea Party Express. The Tea Party Patriots is a grassroots organization, while the Tea Party Express is a more corporate "astroturf" offshoot of the conservative Our Country Deserves Better PAC....

Let's see, one side has Koch oil and gas money, the other has passion and patriotism and carries their lunch in the bottom shelf of the stroller, next to the spare diapers and sippie cups of juice. I wonder who could possibly come out on top?

Some tea partiers keep themselves busy threatening to shoot fellow tea-partiers (that must be a Republican thing), and accusing a mother of lying about her dead daughter and grandchild.. This is the party of morals and values, you know.


A bright idea came into Alice's head. `Is that the reason so many tea-things are put out here?' she asked.

`Yes, that's it,' said the Hatter with a sigh: `it's always tea-time, and we've no time to wash the things between whiles.'

`Then you keep moving round, I suppose?' said Alice.

`Exactly so,' said the Hatter: `as the things get used up.'

`But what happens when you come to the beginning again?' Alice ventured to ask.

`Suppose we change the subject,' the March Hare interrupted, yawning. `I'm getting tired of this.


Some guy at Cato, the libertarian think tank, thinks the Republican party is at fault, not the tea baggers.

The question, therefore, is not whether Tea Party conservatism is a help or a hazard for Republicans seeking a return to power? To the contrary, it is whether the Republican Party is a help or a hindrance to the Tea Party movement? It will be a help only if it returns to its roots. The mainstream media, overwhelmingly of the Democratic persuasion, will continue to push Republicans to be “moderate,” of course – meaning “Democrat Lite” — to which the proper response is: Why would voters go for that when they can get the real thing on the Democratic line? If Tuesday’s returns showed anything, it is that Independents, a truly mixed lot, are up for grabs; but at the same time, they are looking for leaders who promise not simply to “solve problems” but to do so in a way that respects our traditions of individual liberty, free markets, and limited government. When Republican candidates stand clearly and firmly for those principles, they stand a far better chance of being elected than when they temporize. That is the lesson that Republicans must grasp — and not forget — if they are to return to power.

The Texas Republican tea partiers, bless their hearts, are far too stupid to be corralled under anything as organized and coherent as a real tea bagging event. In true Texas fashion they are shooting anything that moves and hoping against hope that they hit something and can feed the young-uns when winter comes.

Canyon Clowdus thinks Americans “have less freedom and pay more taxes than ever.”

“We need more John Wayne and Jesus in Washington,” the Marble Falls rancher and businessman declares.

Clowdus is just the kind of grass-roots activist that national Republican leaders sought to fire up in the Tea Party movement that has spread across Texas in energetic rallies and heated town hall confrontations. Now, the 40-year-old Army veteran is seeking to unseat an incumbent congressman whom he calls a profligate spender.

Just one problem: Clowdus, an avid Tea Party loyalist, is running in the Republican primary against a Republican incumbent, Rep. Mike Conaway of Midland.

Across Texas, at least five Tea Party activists have announced their candidacies for U.S. House and Senate seats.

“If you are going to have a throw-the-bums-out (mentality),” said Matt Angle, director of the Lone Star Project, a Democratic group, “the bums (in Texas) are the Republicans.”

In Texas, they shoot themselves in the face.