The Tea Party movement wasn’t always insane

The Tea Party movement wasn't always insane. Not always.

Early on in the game, it would have been more fair to merely call it crude; it was a quasi-libertarian uprising that was organic and flawed, but powerful in its message. In truth, the early days, before the National Tea Party Convention, before Sarah Palin's book tour and before Michelle Bachmann started trying to be Sarah Palin, the movement was real. People who had never been activists before were looking for ways to get involved with the public discourse, and used the tea parties to network and organize.

But somewhere between then and now, the message became distorted and the humanity was drained; at some point along the way, the message had gotten lost. It became just another special interest, and a base of support to be exploited by whoever looks good and tells the masses what they want to hear.

This article appears in Feb 10-16, 2010.