Has anyone else noticed this Tea Party? It is running all over the vaunted establishment with shoes covered in tar and hands filled with rolls of toilet paper, throwing mighty curve balls of soft plushy butt-wiping goodness at the Left and the Right with equal parts conviction and crude but effective talking points that appeal to Americans who keep voting for representatives who go on to do anything but represent them.

Focusing their ire on fiscal responsibility and limited government, the ill-spelling Tea Party might be the first No Suckling at the Teat of Government Party, but angry people who hate anything new or resembling the original Boston Tea Party have taken to calling them Teabaggers (but better the bagger than baggee, right?) and anti-government (but has any party claimed to be pro-government?). But no one has called them Imperialists. Until now.

To their credit, Tea Partiers have for the most part ignored the many denigrating puns on their collective name, including those associating herbal essences with the pale genitals of its mostly white and male members.

And with the TP's surprise win (and now glowing warchest) in the Delaware Republican Senate primary, pushing Christine O'Donnell ahead of GOP incumbent former governor Mike Castle (not the suave, witty Rick), its win in Alaska with the unheralded and unheard-of Joe Miller (sounds like a regular guy, right?), and its surge in Florida with the Anti-Crist Marco Rubio, TP is going mainstream, giving us Palin clones, Hispanics, and even Jews, and it's doing so through decentralized grass roots work, which seems to fluster the establishment, which isn't used to actual government by the people.

But really, O'Donnell's win over Castle isn't that much of a surprise. He's a 71 year old crumbling ruin, a non-Haggar's incumbent; she's a Hottie McTeaParty with something to prove, and the people tire of Strom Thurmond like never-dead representatives. Sometimes it's just nice to moisturize the ancient papery hands of the legislature.

However, the Right is starting to resemble the Democrats, in the circle the wagons and shoot inward way. The Tea Party incursions into hopeful Republican ground have put a wedge in the Republicans' bid to regain House majority; it's rather unlikely that will happen now, which may explain why the Republicans are more pissed than the Dems at these young upstarts. And really, Dems should be happy; they were going to lose anyway. At least they're losing to a house divided.

But that's kind of what Tea Parties are for, making waves, causing trouble, dumping tea into the ocean while masquerading as politically incorrect demons in feathers and red paint. Seems like that's worth a mention.