Former Congressman Dick Armey — considered by some to be the “Godfather of the Tea Party” — was a guest on Monday’s Early Start, and faced a line of hard questioning from co-host Ashleigh Banfield about who the Tea Party will end up supporting.

Last week, MSNBC‘s Chris Matthews compared the Tea Party to the Muslim Brotherhood and predictably many were not happy. Former Congressman and active Tea Party Leader Dick Armey appeared on Fox & Friends this morning to return some fire at Matthews.

Last week Karl Rove told German magazine Der Spiegel “If you look underneath the surface of the Tea Party movement, you will find that it is not sophisticated.” This created a bit of an uproar, or at least further evidence that there is somewhat of a civil war between the GOP establishment (vis-à-vis Rove) and the Tea Party movement. Well, last night Mr. Rove walked back those comments to Greta Van Susteren, claiming that he meant a different definition of “sophisticated.” Semantics, the last vestige of a scoundrel.

Lance Baxter, the voice actor who was fired by Geico for a nasty voicemail he left in Freedomworks’ inbox, is following up his “Teabagger Boogie” with a new ad that takes aim at the Tea Party group’s president, Matt Kibbe. He starts out by scoring a few amusing, if simplistic, points on the Tea Party, but it soon becomes clear this is an exercise in personal score-settling when his Kibbe character says he thinks his subtle, side-burn-fueled attempt to get laid “is working on Tabitha.”

Who is Tabitha, and why is Lance Baxter flashing her picture as Matt Kibbe’s object of lust?

On last night’s Countdown, Keith Olbermann took on comments from conservative jack-of-all-trades Dick Armey advising Republican congressional candidates to steer clear of the Tea Party movement, even if they agree with its members, lest they end up like Rand Paul. What does it mean for tea partiers, he asked, when the plan for GOP congressional candidates is to keep their affiliations with the tea partiers a secret until after the elections?

We first noted that Dale Robertson was quoted as saying that he had never seen racial slurs at a Tea Party event, even though he had been photographed holding one. Robertson then alleged that the photo must have been faked, although our expert disagreed. Since posting that article, however, numerous sources have contacted me with admissions by Robertson that the photo is real. After the jump, an arsenal of smoking guns.

As we reported Friday, a photograph of Dale Robertson, the self-proclaimed founder of the Tea Party movement, belies his claim in the Washington Times that he’s “never seen any racial slurs” at Tea Party events. The photo shows Robertson holding a sign with the n-word on it. In an exclusive interview with Mediaite, Robertson claims that the photo was fake – though our expert analysis suggest otherwise.

Well, this was an interesting meeting of the minds, one we’d do well to see more often. Last night Dick Armey was a guest on Charlie Rose. For the most part it actually made for an interesting interview — it’s a breath of fresh air to hear the partisan cable shoutfest taken down (and raised up) to the level of civil conversation. But even Charlie Rose could not resist a few jaw-dropping head shakes over some of Armey’s remarks.

CPAC opened yesterday in Washington DC, so it made sense for Bill O’Reilly to start his show covering what many saw as the biggest political event of the week. What may not make sense to some is the way in which he covered it. After airing brief clips of conservative icons like Dick Cheney, Jim DeMint, and Dick Armey (among others) bashing the presidency of Barrack Obama, O’Reilly called out those for making vicious personal attacks on the current sitting president. Video after the jump.

The New Yorker has jumped in to the Tea Party fray with a longish piece by Ben McGrath, which explores “the social movement that…may have derailed the President’s chief domestic initiative, occurred last fall.” Too little, too late? Hint: No mention of SCOTUS.

On last night’s show Rachel Maddow, looking back, called the attempted reinvention of the Republican party after the last year’s election (and before that Bush) and the “the greatest show in American politics over the past year.” So who will it be? Maddow taps the Tea Partiers as a the strongest sign of what’s to come.

All things popular must eventually make their way to Hollywood. Sort of. Just in time for Thanksgiving — when everyone will have some extra turkey recovery time on their hands — some enterprising filmmakers (and some well-known conservatives) have apparently whipped together Tea Party: The Documentary Film.

The last time we saw Dick Armey he was giving the cold shoulder to Rachel Maddow on Meet the Press, but he has returned in all his glory as a feature subject in this week’s Times Magazine.

Meet the Press convened its own panel today to discuss this week’s angry town halls and the death panel, Nazi, Tree of Liberty assertions that have accompanied them. Today’s panel consisted of three middle-aged white men and Rachel Maddow (with a drop-in from Charles Rangel). For his part, Dick Armey appeared tolerantly amused that Maddow had been allowed on the panel at all. Until she started grilling him, at which point he seemed to turn a cold shoulder, literally