Extreme Takeover

Just remember, those Tea Party folks are extremists...

Just how angry is the public with the country's two leading political parties? Angry enough that the conservative, libertarian-leaning Tea Party movement is more popular than either the Democratic or the Republican parties, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

The Republican Party maintains its net-negative favorable/unfavorable rating in the poll, with 28 percent viewing it positively and 43 percent seeing it in a negative light.

For the first time in more than two years, the Democratic Party also now holds a net-negative fav/unfav, at 35-45 percent.

By comparison, the NBC/WSJ poll shows the Tea Party movement with a net-positive 41-23 percent score.

(hat tip: Instapundit) To be fair, it's easy to be popular when you don't have responsibility for anything. But other protest movements haven't been this popular, so far as I can tell. The GOP and the Democrats have a serious problem on their hands.

I'm joking about the extremist tag -- except that the Law and Order franchise shows applied the tag to tea party activists this summer and again last week. Of course, someone would actually need to watch Law and Order to realize this, and we thank the folks who suffered through it to let us know.

If Law and Order is right, extremists seem to be taking over our politics. Why do I think this wasn't exactly the hope and change the President promised?