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As in nature, politics abhors a vacuum. Without a strong voice for more moderate leadership, the Tea Party is filling that vacuum.

Whether it's their Sharia law and birther conspiracies or their unwillingness to buck Grover Norquist's no-tax pledge, the Tea Partiers have hijacked their party and carried it all the way to the right.

First of all, just because the Tea Party people appear to be generally uneducated, ignorant about the political process, ignorant about economics, confused about their own platform from the beginning, and indelicate when it comes to the craft of diplomacy, doesn't mean they're wrong.

You know, the Tea Party is a - first of all, it is a significant movement, and I think the media and some pundits have tried to write it off as a bunch of cranks or something. But, in fact, it's really a very legitimate and fairly significant swath of voters out there.

With Washington already broken, the last thing we need is a left-wing version of the Tea Party.

The problem with the Tea Party is that it's been used in a way that scares people into supporting an agenda that's counter to their own interests.

The Tea Party people are ideologues. They are right, and no one can change their minds. There is no reason for compromise.

Politics is not a tea party. When it is time to act, you have to move fast and decisively.

At root, the Tea Party is nothing more than a them-versus-us thing.

I think there is a real misunderstanding about what the Tea Party movement is. The Tea Party movement is a sentiment in America that government is broken - both parties are to blame - and if we don't do something soon, this exceptional country will be lost, and it will become just like everybody else.