[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by Griff

Now we get to see the Republicans act appalled and talk about how they automatically deserve the tea-baggers support much like the Dems cry-babied about Nader.

I enjoyed this article: Beginning Of The End: Sarah Palin Hijacks The Tea Party Movement

This new tea party bears no resemblance to the one that began a year ago as a reaction to the collapse of our financial system and the subsequent bailout. That movement of ragtag and unorganized libertarians, independents and conservatives was something new and unique. An authentic protest movement angered not just by the new President, Barack Obama, who had presided over the bailouts but the president who started the ball rolling and whose incompetence had led to the crisis in the first place, George W. Bush.

The people we saw on the steps of Legislative Plaza and county courthouses across the state last year weren’t “movement conservatives.” Certainly the movement conservatives were there at those protests but the tea parties were much bigger in size, scope and concept than just traditional modern conservatism reheated. Last night, the professional conservatives fixed that for good.

For over a year the media has struggled to try and define just what exactly the movement was. Now they have a definition.

Sarah Palin.

Palin, while explicitly saying the movement had no leader, implicitly offered herself up as one. After this speech, which was widely covered on the internet and carried on television, the tea party movement and Sarah Palin will be inextricably intertwined.