Did the Tea Party Win?

First, there is clearly growing tension between the Tea Party and the national security hawks/neocons. Many Tea Party members exhibited more opposition than did typical Democrats to the Obama administration’s escalation in Afghanistan, war in Libya and the Patriot Act extension, and they have been increasingly vocal about demanding cuts in military spending.

This Tea Party/defense-hawk schism is reflected by a Wall Street Journal op-ed from Bill Kristol and other neocons warning the Tea Party not to resort to “isolationism” (neocon-ese for “opposing endless war”) as a means of deficit-cutting. All of this led another neocon, Eli Lake, to conclude in The New Republic this week: “the G.O.P. foreign policy consensus has collapsed.”