The wait is finally over. That grassroots movement known as the tea party ... and you can't get much more grassrootsier than Grover Norquist, Newt Gingrich, and Steve Forbes ... has unveiled their "10 bedrock principles" in a document they call, "Contract from America."
And with a tip of the hat to Newt for coming up with such an original title, here are a couple of my favorite "principles."
1.) Protect the Constitution
Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does.
No word on how specific they want it to be. Do they mean provisions in the Constitution for funding missile defense or abstinence education, or can we stick with Article I, Section 8 and still love America?
4.) Enact Fundamental Tax Reform
Adopt a simple and fair single-rate tax system by scrapping the internal revenue code and replacing it with one that is no longer than 4,543 words - the length of the original Constitution.
I checked and that is not in the Constitution. So much for bedrock principle number one.
Read them all and pick your favorite ... or maybe we can all agree that the best part of the teabagger manifesto is its signature:
Of course that's assuming that you define "The American People" as this group of yahoos voting in an online poll.