It's a painful thing to imagine Robert Bennett over the past few days, sitting alone in a darkened room, staring off into space wondering what hit him and whistling Nick Cave's "There She Goes My Beautiful World" over and over again.
It happened quickly. Events in politics aren't supposed to happen that quickly. It came out of nowhere, with next to no warning at all. Even a few weeks ago, there was little sign that Bennett was in trouble. Then the spirit of 2010 suddenly rose out the darkness and took him down.
It also wrong-footed the chattering classes, most of whom have echoed that master of analysis David Brooks in sputtering, "It's an outrage." From a certain point of view, perhaps so. But outrages don't occur for no reason. After Bennett, three things can be said with certainty:
That the Tea Party movement is in no way a partisan phenomenon.
