From NRO’s The Corner:

Sen. John McCain defended the Tea Party against Sen. John Kerry’s “tea party downgrade” remark on Meet the Press this morning.

“We could have reached an agreement a lot earlier, but the members of the House of Representatives had a mandate last November, and it was jobs and the economy and it was spending. And for them to then agree to tax increases and spending increases was obviously a repudiation of the mandate they felt they had from last November,” McCain said.

He said that much of the “dysfunction” in the current political system could be attributed to “the failure of the president of the United States to lead.”…

Some times John McCain can be infuriating, other times he’s just so right.  And gutsy – right now, the MSM/DNC drumbeat is that the TEA Party caused the problem.  Here is a chance for “moderate” GOPers to flee and mumble their agreement.  Not for John McCain – he just told it like it is:  the TEA Party is about cutting government spending.  To have agreed to tax hikes in lieu of serious spending cuts (and what we got in the deal was no where near “serious” enough to warrant signing off on revenue increases) would have been a rank betrayal.

To be sure, Democrats are all about that – in fact, over the past 40 years Democrats have mostly managed to advance their cause by gift of GOPers betraying principle and go along with whatever liberal flapdoodle is the fashion of the moment.  Remember Arlen Specter – that was the sort of “Republican” who was forever cutting the GOP off at the knees.  And that is precisely the sort of Republican the TEA Party people will not be.

Ultimately, we may have to obtain higher revenues in order to get out of this mess – but the fact of the matter is that Democrats will just lie about the spending cuts and greedily spend any increased revenue on their special interests.  In a very real sense, the Democrat leadership in the United States doesn’t care about the United States.  If they did, they would have proposed a real cut in next year’s spending – even if it were a symbolic cut of 10 or 20 billion.  I mean, of course, real cuts – not reductions in the rate of growth, but an actual spending of less money next year than we did this year.  Until Democrats show a real change of heart – show that they care more about America than they do about their own power and wealth – then we simply cannot go along with them…and thus the TEA Party standing firm against any tax hikes was an act of sublime patriotism.  It took away from those who are destroying the United States part of their ability to keep doing it.

McCain sees it; I see it, too.  Eventually, the whole country will see it – and I do believe that this growing understanding of what is really happening will destroy liberalism in 2012.

UPDATE:  In Canada, Saskatchewan gets a “TEA Party upgrade” to it’s bond rating:

…Rather than quickly spending its newly-earned wealth, the provincial government has put its tax revenue toward paying the bills. S&P gave special credit to Saskatchewan for its “low-and-declining debt burden.” As of March 31, the province’s fiscal year-end, Saskatchewan’s debt totalled $4.6-billion, representing 38 per cent of this year’s projected operating revenues and only 8 per cent of its gross domestic product. Canada’s federal debt-to-GDP ratio sits at around 35 per cent…

Rational tax and regulatory policies, a pro-business environment, fiscal responsibility which puts a premium on living within means and paying debt.  This isn’t rocket science, people…