Tea Party

I find The Sun's editorial regarding Mitt Romney's tax returns somewhat comical ("Many unhappy returns?" July 19). First, why the outcry for years of back tax returns other than something for the Democrats (and their spokesmen in the so-called mainstream media) to use for the insidious game of class warfare. Next, I see that you quote droves of "establishment" Republicans, certainly not any legitimate conservative tea party representatives as your primary source of cries from the GOP to release the records.

Word had barely come down that the Supreme Court majority was upholding the Affordable Care Act when incensed conservatives began printing up "Impeach Jon Roberts" t-shirts and a hacker had altered the chief justice's title on his Wikipedia page to "Chief Traitor of the United States. " On a freshly minted "Impeach John Roberts" Facebook page, one tea party "patriot" wrote: "Welcome to fascism. Thanks to this horrible decision from the 4 liberal justices and John Roberts there is zero limit to what the government can force us to do. " Outside of the perpetually alarmed right-wing loony bin, however, Mr. Roberts was receiving praise for acting as the fair umpire he promised to be when he was first confirmed by the Senate.

Don't you find it odd that the word "extremism" seems to apply only to conservative Republicans? Terminology often drives political discourse, and those who control the terms often determine the outcome. Establishment Republicans have too often been uncomfortable in their own skin. When they win elections, they sometimes seem unsure of what to do next. Democrats never seem to have this problem. They operate according to their core convictions and are never considered extreme. Instead, they are moderate, even normal.

The emergence of the tea party movement as a force within GOP politics is a storyline worthy of analysis during the run-up to what promises to be a fiercely contested presidential election in 2012. In 2010, many tea party candidates fought and won competitive races, thereby ensuring GOP control of the House while narrowing Harry Reid's Democratic majority in the Senate. As a result, the last 18 months have witnessed a number of high-stakes budget battles, albeit with mixed success on policy and politics.

Brett Bidle, Frederick County town councilman, tea party supporter and devout Methodist, is John Waters' new BFF. That old saying about politics making strange bedfellows? Apparently, politics has nothing on hitchhiking. Back in mid-May, Bidle, a 20-year-old college student and first-term member of the Myersville Town Council, picked up a guy on the side of the road. It was Waters, Baltimore's most unregenerate bad boy, the movie director who's given sleaze a good name. Turns out Waters (who declined to be interviewed for this article)

That pop you may or may not have heard the other day was the bursting pipedream of a centrist presidential candidate outside the establishment parties. The organizers of a group calling itself Americans Elect decided to close shop after failing to find anyone who would qualify to be its standard-bearer in November. No one who met the group's eligibility requirements to become its presidential nominee was able to corral the threshold 10,000 endorsements needed from "delegates" in an online nationwide convention.

If it has accomplished nothing else, the tea party insurgency has made Republicans vastly more newsworthy than Democrats. While the party of the left plods along performing the boring old tasks of governing, the party of the right is engaged in high drama worthy of Shakespeare. The latest plot twist comes from Nebraska, where three conservatives have been vying to be the GOP's nominee for the U.S. Senate. The "establishment" candidate, state Attorney General Jon Bruning is, by traditional measures, a conservative.

Tea party advocates in Indiana are congratulating themselves on the Republican primary victory of one of their own, Richard Mourdock, over six-term Senate veteran Richard Lugar. But the rest of the country should be mourning the departure of the epitome of what Washington needs much more of: conscientious bipartisanship. The 80-year-old Mr. Lugar is being kicked out in part because of his age, his alleged failure to keep a real residence in Indiana, and his penchant for putting common sense and national security ahead of party labels.

The tea party's waning impact on the country's politics has been continuously reported since the movement's success in the 2010 elections. Well, the tea party has not gone away. In Indiana's primary election May 8, liberal Republican Senator Richard Lugar was beaten handily after 35 years in office by conservative rival Richard Mourdock, who was backed by the tea party ("GOP Senate stalwart falls," May 9). The liberal media and their supporters seem to believe that if they keep reporting tea party's death, it will simply go away.

The hit men of the tea party can carve another notch in their collective gun belts this week with the ouster of Indiana Sen. Richard G. Lugar, a 35-year veteran of the U.S. Senate. Whatever mojo the conservative firebrands had in the 2010 GOP primaries, when they ousted party moderates right and left, is apparently still working for them. Longtime incumbents are not easily toppled, but Mr. Lugar's vulnerabilities were well-documented prior to Tuesday's Indiana primary: The six-term senator is 80 years old, has lived in Northern Virginia for decades (despite using a 1970s-era address for voting purposes)