What 'Republican establishment' is the Tea Party rattling?

By Dana Milbank
WashPost
Sunday, September 19, 2010

The Republican establishment, we are told, has suffered quite a beating at the hands of a 41-year-old Delaware woman by the name of Christine O'Donnell.

The Time magazine cover says the Tea Party's "conservative rebels are rattling the Republican establishment." ABC News says the Tea Party landed "a huge blow to the GOP establishment," and CNN says it sent "shockwaves to the Republican establishment." George W. Bush ad man Mark McKinnon tells USA Today "there is now a civil war within the Republican Party," pitting the Tea Party against "the Republican establishment."

Similar claims had been made earlier about the Tea Party bucking, beating, striking, shocking and delivering blow after blow to the establishment in New York, Florida, Colorado, Alaska, Kentucky and elsewhere.

Sorry to interrupt the anti-establishment violence, but could we pause long enough to ask a question: What is this "Republican establishment" of which you speak?

(More here.)