I submitted a "Local View" on the Tea Party to the Duluth News Tribune. It was published today with the title "Tea Party positions misses today's complexities". You can find it for a week or so at http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/tag/group/Opinion/tag/Local%20view/
The opinion page editor, Chuck Frederick, changed almost every line, as his wont. Fortunately, his sends his revisions of my Local Views to me before publication. It was a good thing because he added a word that changed the meaning of one point. I pointed it out and he printed it with my correction.
Thanks to the four people who said they liked it.
Essentially I wrote that the Tea Party Patriots' fiscal responsibility can be irresponsible, their limited constitutional government cannot be determined by the "intent" of the writers, and their free markets haven't existed since the railroads began.
One question readers may have in reading "the last great Republican President, Abraham Lincoln" is who do I consider the last great Democratic President. I thought about it for five minutes and came up with Thomas Jefferson, who was then called a Democratic-Republican.
