Color me skeptical.
Key tea party players, on and off Capitol Hill, are expressing a willingness to put the Pentagon budget on the chopping block if it will help rein in federal spending and eliminate a projected trillion-dollar-plus budget deficit.
Although generally hawkish and conservative with a libertarian streak — “we’re for strong defense” is an oft-repeated mantra in the movement — tea party leaders and allies contacted by POLITICO said that both fairness and common sense dictate that the military budget be scrutinized for such cuts, a view that puts them in sync with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and some of the most liberal members of Congress.
“Everything is on the table,” insisted Mark Meckler, a national coordinator with the group Tea Party Patriots. “I have yet to hear anyone say, ‘We can’t touch defense spending,’ or any other issue. ... Any tea partier who says something else lacks integrity.”
Here's the nub of the story:
[A]ny tea party support for Gates’s efforts to rein in military spending may be more philosophical than tactical. Social spending, “corporate bailouts” and President Barack Obama’s health care plan are much more popular targets of tea partiers’ anger than the Pentagon.
The only governing philosophy for the teabaggers is opposing anything coming out of the Obama administration or a Democratic congress. Where were they on financial reform and ending "too big to fail" banks, legislation that should have engaged them? Completely absent. They don't care about real policy solutions. In that, they are just typical Republicans.
No, who Gates needs to recruit to his cause are the deficit peacocks, the Blue Dogs and the ConservaDems who mewl on about the deficit and the economic crisis, seeking their solution in hurting regular people--cutting unemployment benefits and Social Security. Convince them that we need to end military industrial complex welfare, and you'll be getting somewhere.