Who has the most to lose from a Tea Party victory this Tuesday? Frank Rich thinks the Tea Partiers themselves might since they will immediately be confronted with the fact they have merely been puppets of the GOP establishment all along.

Jake Tapper is finishing his run as anchor of This Week with a bang. Tapper landed an exclusive interview with the always fun to watch Vice President Joe Biden this Sunday. When asked to weigh in on the resolution the NAACP passed earlier this week accusing the Tea Party of being racist, Biden eventually conceded that he would not “characterize the Tea Party as racist” but that “at least some of the elements that were involved with the Tea Party folks expressed racist views.”

Not one to let a political hot potato lie, Sarah Palin jumped directly into the NAACP-Tea Party mix with a long Facebook missive last night — complete with the required Reagan references — slamming the NAACP’s (admittedly bizarre) decision. Truth be told, it’s not a bad read. Though the underlying message seems to be ‘et tu Obama?’

If you thought Glenn Beck putting on an evil witch voice to imitate Malia Obama was offensive, this one is going to blow your socks off. Last night, Bill Maher lamented President Barack Obama‘s “professorial” personality, noting with a hint of betrayal in his voice that he was expecting a “real black president”– you know, the kind that “lifts up his shirt so they can see the gun in his pants.”

Rand Paul’s decision to cancel his appearance on Meet the Press this weekend (only the third person ever) may not have backfired exactly but it’s certainly taken on a bit of a life of its own. David Gregory spent the first ten minutes of Sunday’s show looking back at all the missteps of Paul’s first week in the national spotlight, and last night he took to Jay Leno‘s couch to discuss the matter.

Anthony Bourdain hosts a food and travel show called No Reservations on the Travel Channel. Friday he joined CNN’s Candy Crowley, conservative rock star Ted Nugent and AC 360 host Anderson Cooper to discuss political issues of the day. Known for his candor, Bourdain did not disappoint in his frank assessment of the Tea Party movement, labeling those involved “very angry white people.”

Is Glenn Beck’s time in the media klieg lights coming to a close? The latest Nielsen numbers reveal that Beck’s audience is down nearly 30% since the start of the year. But why the drop (if, indeed, there even is one)? Is the country growing bored of chalkboards, or is the larger issue that the nation is merely out-Becking Glenn Beck?

I missed this yesterday, but Time‘s Joe Klein provided some further explanation (more like a follow-up punch….suffice to say, he’s not sorry) of the serious charge he made over the weekend that Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin were nudging up close to committing sedition.

After a weekend that was filled with Tea Party talk, and accusations from Joe Klein that Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin were close to being seditious, Beck opted to follow up today’s (Patriot Day) tweet with a long opening monologue that felt like a strange combination of a fireside chat meets an AA meeting. He is not seditious.

At a Tea Party rally in Chicago on Saturday Rep. Michele Bachmann told a crowd that Bill Clinton wanted to ‘take her out.’ As in, get rid of her because of her “gangster government” description of Barack Obama last week. Bachmann’s remarks were, according to Bachmann, in direct response to Clinton calling her out by name in his now notorious speech at the Center for American Progress. Except that he didn’t.

Bill Maher’s guests the other night, which included New Yorker editor David Remnick and journalist Laura Flanders, appeared to concur with Frank Rich’s take on what’s motivating the movement, concluding from the poll results that the Partiers are actually not that upset about government involvement or taxing (they like their medicare; social security), but are worried and angry that we have a black president.

A recent poll finds that the Tea Party at large admires two distinct figures as best representing what the movement stands for: Ron Paul and Sarah Palin. What is interesting is that despite this support the majority of Tea Partiers would not consider voting for either: “Fifty-three percent of those surveyed said they would not even consider voting for Palin if she ran for president in 2012; 59 percent said the same thing of Paul.” And there you have the major problem the Republicans are facing distilled down to one poll result.

This morning on the Chris Matthews Show, Time’s Joe Klein said that what is different between today’s Tea Partiers and past anti-government movements is the presence of Fox News, “which allows its commentators like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck to rouse the Tea Party”, and a GOP that is lacking in a “responsible, moderate” leadership. Not to mention, Beck and Palin (and Rush Limbaugh) are close to committing sedition. Video after the jump.

Frank Rich continues to not pull any punches when it comes to the Tea Party movement, the GOP and race. This week’s column is a long tirade against Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell’s botched attempt to make April ‘Confederate History Month’ and the recent claims that because the death threats and epithets (and spit) hurled at members of Congress were not captured on tape they were merely a “mirage.”

Former President Bill Clinton (calmly) responded to Rush Limbaugh’s statement yesterday that the responsibility for a “future incident such as Oklahoma City” would fall “squarely on the shoulders of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama” telling This Week host Jake Tapper that Limbaugh “doesn’t make any sense.” He goes on.

Today former Saturday Night Live cast member Victoria Jackson treated the D.C. tea party to a rousing rendition of her anthem, “There’s A Communist In The White House.” It’s a real crowd favorite.

The cablers showed the video (just after NoonET) but we didn’t get the full audio effect. Finally someone put this instant classic online.

The NYT and CBS have just released the results — in a splashy A-1 article in the Times, no less — of a huge, comprehensive poll they’ve jointly conducted. While the results mostly jibe with much of what we’ve recently been hearing about the movement, namely that it’s more mainstream than the media has previously portrayed it (18% of the country identifies with the party), some aspects may surprise.

Sarah Palin was the headline speaker at a Tea Party rally in Boston today, held at the same harbor where the actual Boston Tea Party took place. Senator Scott Brown apparently stuck to his promise and did not attend. Since Palin’s speeches are generally distilled down to one or two (frequently nutty) soundbites, here’s your [...]

Last night Jon Stewart had Rachel Maddow as a guest on his show — sort of the Liberal equivalent to Palin showing up on Beck — to talk about her upcoming special on the McVeigh tapes. And no, there were scant few Tea Party comparisons to be had…especially from Stewart.

Right-wingers have been coming up with a handful of colorful excuses for the alleged saliva transaction between a Tea Party protester and black Congressman Emanuel Cleaver since the latter went public with the incident. But tonight, Laura Ingraham took the cake with the implication that it is hypocritical to let Congressman Barney Frank spit all over everyone and deny that same right to the Tea Partiers.

Pretty much the only person not to weigh in on the Tea Partiers in the last eight months has been the person arguably most affected by them, namely, President Obama. No more. Obama touched on both the Tea Partiers and the Birthers during his lengthy-ish interview with Matt Lauer and he totally lost his cool! Kidding.

Earlier today a Philadelphia man, Norman Leboon, was charged with threatening to kill House Minority Whip Eric Cantor. From FoxNews.com. But before everyone starts jumping to conclusions all signs point to Norman Leboon being an actual crazy person whose craziness precedes anything to do with the HCR vote and is not actually limited to politicians. Or people.

I guess this means Sarah Palin has a sense of humor. Also, a grasp of the English language that perhaps some had not previously attributed to her. Palin followed up a weekend of well-covered speeches with this Facebook note, ostensibly about March Madness (the basketball kind).

President Obama would like you to know that the health care bill passed and, contrary to the prediction of….many, it was not followed by Armageddon. Obama addressed a rally in Iowa this afternoon where he gently mocked the overheated rhetoric that flooded the airwaves the last few weeks: “So after I signed the bill I look around to see if there were any asteroids falling…Turns out it was a nice day.”

It ain’t cheap to (tea) party with the women of the GOP. Depending what email lists you (sometimes strangely) find yourself on, you may already know that Sarah Palin is making a guest appearance at an upcoming Michele Bachmann fundraiser. Get your wallets ready.