Scott Brown's victory party
Those who practice the politics of anger (a.k.a. populists) typically ignore the old adage, “Be careful what you wish for.” More than anything else, what the tea baggers wish for today is nothing short of a Khmer Rouge-style purge from the G.O.P. of any politician who, in the minds of Beck, Limbaugh et al., is insufficiently “conservative” (i.e., reflexively and virulently anti-Obama). By 2012, they’re likely to succeed; as a direct result, President Obama will win a landslide re-election and the Democrats will recover most, if not all, House and Senate seats lost in 2010. And concerning the special election in Massachusetts, the only a priori truth is this: If you believe the success of the Obama presidency (2009 — 201x) is dependent on whether the Democratic party enjoys a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, then you spend too much time reading political blogs and watching cable news talk shows.