Everyone's getting this wrong, from Adam Serwer here at The Washington Post to Rush Limbaugh here, on partisan grounds. The Post wants to paint the Tea Party Caucus as a bunch of hypocrites, and Rush wants people to believe the Tea Party actually supports even the most controversial provisions of the Patriot Act.
Rush chalked up the Feb. 8 revolt of 26 Republicans to rookies being poorly advised by the Republican leadership:
Now, the Republicans lost 26 of their own members, adding to the 122 Democrats who voted against it," and some of the Republicans say that they 'felt completely uniformed [sic] by their leadership' on this. Some of the rookies, some of the freshmen say they were not really advised about all this in time -- and the leader of the opposition was Dennis Kucinich. Now, something tells me here that Republicans do not intend to vote with Dennis Kucinich, 'cause he's aligned with the ACLU opposing extending the whole thing, the whole Patriot Act. So if Kucinich is for it, "all rational people" ought to be against it.
The only trouble is, the exact same bunch of Republicans all voted against the controversial provisions again yesterday. They've had six days to get brought up to speed by the leadership, but not a single one has changed his vote. And Rep. Hanna joined them to make it 27 and the third from the membership of the more liberal Republican Main Street Partnership.
I guess Rush must think these 27 Republicans are quite irrational after all, voting with Kucinich and the left. Rush was silent about this today, hoping we've forgotten what he said.
The facts are these. The Tea Party in the US House is much smaller than people think, and it isn't co-terminous with Bachmann's caucus. The latter is a bunch of me-too Republicans who find it expedient to identify with the Tea Party politically, just like Michael Steele did, and even Sarah Palin, who took an eternity to speak out against the bailouts. Just 8 self-identified Tea Party Caucus members voted both times against the controversial provisions of the Patriot Act. And only 7 others who joined them were elected in the Tea Party wave last autumn, but they still do not self-identify that way.
When you consider that the vast majority of the Tea Party Caucus voted to extend the Patriot Act provisions, you can understand why 19 Republicans who voted the other way might have a reason not to associate themselves with such pretenders.
Bachmann's list hasn't been updated since last summer, despite the gargantuan Republican sweep in November. Where is all the new blood, huh?
It's staying away for a reason, if it's really there at all.
