American history has been profoundly shaped by citizen-driven grass-roots movements that spontaneously combust into seismic political change. This is the story of the Founding Fathers, the abolitionists, the progressives, the civil-rights movement, the 1970s tax revolt and ... it's time to add to that list the oft-maligned tea party movement. We don't fully recognize the earthquake change brought about by these millions of military veterans, housewives, nurses, schoolteachers, construction workers, senior citizens, investment bankers and clergy who saw the recklessness and immorality of debt, redistribution, Washington waste, federal bailouts and ObamaCare. Nancy Pelosi couldn't have gotten it more wrong when she snorted that this was an artificial "astroturf" movement controlled by the Koch brothers and the Republican National Committee. In reality, this was a local and organic movement of mostly political neophytes. Their tactics and goals were sometimes politically naive and a few times counterproductive. But I was on the Washington Mall on 9/12 when at least a half-million gathered to express their rage against a government that had come unhinged. Their common bond was a healthy contempt for the centralized power, arrogance,ignorance and greed of the privileged class in Washington. The tea partiers didn't like the policies of George W. Bush much more than those of Barack Obama. This was never partisan, though the anger was directed at the party in power — the Obama Democrats. What did they accomplish? That question was answered in part by the latest government report on the budget and the debt.
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