'TEA PARTIERS' more wacky mavericks than extremist threat. The Washington Post’s Robert McCartney explains the new liberal Tea Party spin. They’re not “seething, ready-to-explode racists;” they’re just ...

... paunchy small-business owners aged 50 and older [in] three-cornered hats [with] rattlesnake flags ... exercising their First Amendment right to peaceably assemble.

Kooky. Wacky. Paunchy. Dressed in 3-cornered hats. Not exactly the kind that sober liberals would take seriously, right?

In addition, they had ...

... far-out views. Abolish public schools ... repeal the progressive income tax ... abolish the Federal Reserve Board ... privatize the U.S. Postal Service ... Social Security is unconstitutional.

Well, yes, I guess those views are “far-out” to someone who inhabits the liberal fringe.

But ...

Explain to me why it is “far out” to not cede control of my child’s education to a bureaucracy hundreds, if not thousands of miles from my home? Why is it “far out” to want to replace our present nightmare of an income tax with something simpler? Why is it “far out” to replace Social Security with a privatized system that will provide a better retirement for even the poorest among us?

Like the people in the television commercial, Mr. McCartney and those of his ilk should push through their tiny ‘calling circle’ bubbles and join the rest of America.