It was about nothing

My view of the Tea Party. Even the Republican party does not take them seriously. As soon as the individuals lumped inaccurately together as the "Tea Party" had served their purpose it was and continues to be ignored. The Conservative movement in the form of the Republican Party has always treated its shock troops this way.

From Ross Douthat, who may someday mature into a real pundit:

Hugely depressing, but hopefully hugely instructive as well. The pledge to cut $100 billion was always more of a symbolic sop to the Tea Parties than a real step toward fiscal discipline. The question for the new Republican majority has always been whether it will make any serious progress on entitlement reform and tax reform, not whether it will find inevitably-marginal ways to trim discretionary spending. You can’t have fiscal responsibility if you keep entitlements, tax expenditures and defense spending off the table, and the fact that these realities have been exposed in the very first week of G.O.P. control, thanks to the peculiarities of the fiscal calendar, is probably good news for fiscal conservatism. The sooner we get certain fond illusions out of the way, the better.

Yes. The sooner we get rid of the illusions the better.

the tea partiers will go the way of the dodo ... and the soccer moms.

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