Cross-posted to ShowMeProgress
We are all in hyper-ventilation mode about the noisy tea party fringe-wingers who have been congregating at various summer congressional constituent meetings, spewing venom and misinformation in order to try to create the impression of a grass-roots uprising. As one reads about the goings-on, it is all so absurd and so irrelevant to the real issues that it is hard not to come to the conclusion that what we are seeing amounts to a complex structure of smoke and mirrors. And we all know that smoke and mirrors is good for one thing -- to distract us while the real business goes on.