George Will: Writing off the Tea Party is "journalistic malpractice"

Some urban myths just won't die in the traditional media. Over the last year or so, it has been rumored in some of these circles that the Tea Party is dead. This was after the Tea Party was rumored to be racist. Meanwhile, the Occupy Movement was declared to be the next major movement in American politics, and peaceful to boot.

ABC is one of these traditional media sources with at least the occasional bias against the Tea Party (remember Brian Ross?), but fortunately they also bring in a few conservative to counter all the liberals they have on the air. This past Sunday, it was George Will who brought the reality of the Tea Party's success home to his fellow Roundtable participants by pointing out all the flaws in the liberal analysis of the Tea Party (via the Newsbusters transcript):

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, HOST: Before we go, George, Ann Coulter talks about energizing the base. I think we saw one base that was certainly energized this week by the -- in Texas, the Tea Party had a big victory by the election of Ted Cruz. He's going to be the Republican Senate nominee, almost certainly the next senator from Texas.

GEORGE WILL: Another example of journalistic malpractice in this country - the constant writing off of the Tea Party, which just goes about its business of electing senators. They'll elect Cruz, they'll probably elect Mourdock in Indiana, they'll probably elect Deb Fischer in Nebraska. Often, George, the most interesting and important fights in American politics aren't between the parties, they're within the parties. People say about Ted Cruz, well, he's part of the anti-intellectual Tea Party. Well, Princeton, Harvard, clerked for Justice Rehnquist, I don't think so.

(CROSSTALK)

WILL: Then, they say, well, he doesn't play well with others. And people in Texas say, he doesn't play well with others? Send him to Washington.

If the Tea Party is dead or irrelevant, the evidence just isn't there. Even Bill Maher gave the Tea Party both credit and compliments for its successes. More recently, Michelle Malkin outlined how the Tea Party has matured and grown since 2010:

“All the smug Beltway reporters who pronounced the Tea Party dead before it was even alive have no idea what is really going on,” Malkin explained.
“The Tea Party has matured — they’re doing the nuts and bolts work of developing future generation of limited government leaders.” Malkin told TheBlaze that it is the success of these emerging limited government leaders, and the fact that they are turning words and protests into “concrete action,” that the Republican and Democratic National Committees fear most.
What is perhaps most ironic is that the Tea Party was born not so much out of a response to the election of Barack Obama, but rather out of disgust for big government Republicans who had lost their way. Malkin pointed out that is why one of the Tea Party’s first orders of business was actually to topple Republican Senator Bob Bennett from Utah.

Dead the Tea Party is not -- instead, it is merely maturing into a more sophisticated, organized version of its 2010 self, and the establishment in both parties will see the results of the Tea Party's efforts this fall when many of its Senate and House candidates are elected to Congress. I can't wait to see the reaction then.