The death of the Tea Party movement

The Nashville Tea Party convention was supposed to harness the raw power of the Tea Party protests into an organized political movement. Instead, Sarah Palin corralled the real rogues back into the GOP Establishment's holding pens:

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.

This is how ruling elites maintain their power. When authentic dissent bubbles up from the populace, inciting revolt, the powers that be always find betrayers who will guide the dissenters back into the fold.

And that's exactly what Palin's done. All the little errant sheep have been fooled, trussed up, and delivered.