I never liked Bachmann very much so I certainly won't shed a tear that she's leaving Congress. I think that people like Bachmann are more of a liability than an asset to the party, especially when they go spouting off about how Hillary Clinton's aide is a spy for the Muslim conspiracy. The poor woman has it bad enough being married to a Weiner.

In a larger sense, I am not at all surprised to see the Tea Party fizzle. It arose in a total vacuum - namely, the complete disorientation and lack of leadership that the Republican Party was showing following Obama's 2008 landslide. McCain, who should have been the leader, was completely discredited by his abysmal campaign and poor choice of a running mate, and the Party had no idea what it was doing.

As a result, people gravitated to the "tea parties" because they were just as concerned as they had been prior to the election with big government, higher taxes and wasteful spending, but no one in Washington seemed to be fighting it. It was a protest movement, and its sole goal was essentially "stop Obama". Because Obama was proposing so much in so many different (and often contradictory) directions, the movement grew chaotically and in lots of unpredictable ways.

Protest movements by their nature, however, define themselves with what they are against, not what they are for. The residual power of the Tea Party probably helped negatively shape the 2012 Presidential Campaign because it fooled the Republicans into thinking that they didn't need to lay out a bold, new vision of their own. Thank God, about one week after the election they started to realize what they need to do.

It was in that instant that the Tea Parties died, even if some continue by inertia. The Republican establishment has stepped up and started to formulate not only resistance to Obama's plans, but also an alternative plan and vision that they can offer as a positive choice to the American people.

I personally am hoping that the combined effect of 8 years of amateurish governance by Obama, seeing people like Sarah Palin think experience is not needed, and a whole host of other amateur hour disasters in both parties, will convince the American people once again that experience matters, and that a record of proven results should be a minimum criterion for being considered for high office. Otherwise, look forward to 4-8 more years of ineptitude.