At a Rand Paul rally, a woman who intended to present Paul with an ironic award (Employee of the Month from RepubliCorps) was assaulted by Paul supporters, shoved to the ground, and then stepped on. Police had nothing to do with this, it was all the supporters of one of the Tea Party leading lights. What they thought she intended to do may never be known, but they kept their candidate safe from the possibility of enduring satire and questions not drawn from the current playbook of independent American politics. Another Tea Party candidate, Steve Broden of Texas, has allowed that armed rebellion is not “off the table” should the mid-term elections not go their way. Sharron Angle of Nevada alluded to “second amendment remedies” in a number of interviews in the past six months. “Our Founding Fathers, they put that Second Amendment in there for a good reason, and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government,” Angle told conservative talk show host Lars Larson in January. “In fact, Thomas Jefferson said it’s good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years. I hope that’s not where we’re going, but you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies.” Next to this kind of rhetoric, the vapidity of Christine O’Donnell in Delaware is more or less harmless and amusing. In a recent debate with her opponent she appeared not to know that the much-debated Separation Clause is in the First Amendment. Of course, a close hearing of that exchange suggests that what she was looking for was the exact phrase “separation of Church and State” which is not in the First Amendment. She thought she had won that exchange, as, apparently, did her staff, and they expressed dismay later when they were portrayed as having lost. The best you could give her is points for trying to make a point through disingenuous literalism. Not understanding the case law that has been built on the phrase that is in the First Amendment does not argue well for her qualifications to even have an opinion on the matter. Leading this apparently unself-critical menagerie is Sarah Palin, who despite having a dismal record in office and a clear problem with stringing sentences together has become the head cheerleader for a movement that seems poised to upset elements of both parties in the midterms. It’s one thing to throw darts and poke fun at the candidates, many of whom sound as if they have drawn their history from the John Wayne school of Hollywood hagiography and propaganda. But the real question is why so many people seem to support them. A perusal of the Tea Party website shows a list of issues over which supposedly grass roots concern is fueling the angry election season. [More . . . ]