Watering Down the Tea

Someone was bound to be co-opted. The question was who. Last week, NEWSWEEK's Eleanor Clift speculated it might be the GOP establishment, writing, "If newly empowered GOP leaders can’t keep Tea Party passions in check and the repeal seems like an overreach, public opinion could turn against the new GOP majority as quickly as it did against Obama."

But one week after the election, it looks as if the Tea Partiers are the ones who are moderating—or, in the words of National Review's Veronique de Rugy, "selling out."

Let's start with Kentucky Senator-elect Rand Paul, who was the subject of de Rugy's ire. She highlights statements he made to The Wall Street Journal, particularly this passage: "[Earmarks] are a bad 'symbol' of easy spending but ... he will fight for Kentucky’s share of earmarks and federal pork, as long as it’s doled out transparently at the committee level and not parachuted in in the dead of night." De Rugy points out the incongruities between this statement and Paul's campaign, during which he flatly supported a one-year moratorium on earmarks. She wryly adds, "I would have expected a little more time between Paul’s election and statements like this one."