I realized I had no way of knowing whether you're a Tea Partier, but IIRC you do identify with the Republican Party, which elected the officials in question. That doesn't make you responsible for their every action, nor fully responsible for their every public action, but it does mean you helped put them in power and thus denies you the option of defending their reprehenible and dangerous behavior on the grounds that the other side is worse. I voted for Obama because I thought he was significantly better than McCain; that doesn't obligate me to defend his every action, not even all his acts as President, I've frequently and forcefully stated disagreement with various of those Presidential acts and I don't recall ever resorting to unequal hypothetical comparisons to defend any such acts I knew to be wrong.

I don't even live in America any more, but that probably won't always be the case, my family still lives there and even if both of those things weren't true I wouldn't be pleased to see ignorant xenophobia becoming so widespread that democratic majorities elect political officials who publicly celebrate the idea of the US military murdering its own citizens over religion. Tend my own house? I'm trying to end my own House, and moving to Norway didn't make me any less a US citizen nor less entitled to a say in who sits in my Congress. No, I can't vote in CA (though moondog can, thank God) but that doesn't mean I have to remain mute when those elected by people who do publicly engage in dangerous and inflammatory behavior. Since we're playing the "tit for tat" game again, you might want to let random thoughts know that he can't talk about William Jefferson keeping dirty money in his fridge anymore: He doesn't live in LA so it's none of his business. Just like all them thar Yankee librals need to leave Governor Wallace alone; lessin' they moves to Alabama they ain't got no right to argue with "segregation now, segregation forever!" (they's all commies anyhow). You don't have a "states right" to force people to need a police escort to go to church, even if your local officials think you're "pure unadulterated evil", not in early sixties Selma and not FIFTY FREAKING YEARS LATER in Orange County.

I agree that the Tea Party is a flash in the pan, but it's a product of a far more disturbing American sentiment that goes back at least as far as the equally xenophobic and ignorant "American" Party. Actually, "the Kow Nothing Party" remains a good name for that philosophy, IMHO. The irony is that the Tea Party only exists because Bushs attempts to satisfy the most extreme elements in the uneasy GOP marriage between godless graft, gunboat mercantilism and intolerant fundamentalism fractured it beyond repair. The Tea Party is blessed by the fact the lack of any coherency or national unity has precluded the need to write a platform, but that won't be the case much longer. When the folks who want to build a wall around the country are forced to break bread with the ones who want to invade the world and the folks who want to ban gay marriage have to sit down with the ones who want to sell rainbow flags at a 50% markup the whole thing's going to implode all over again. The only thing we can be sure of is that it will be the fault of godless liberal commie terrorists.