There's a quiet in the Shire these days.  And in Bree in the northwest of Middle-earth, the Hobbits stay close to their Smials, their "hobbit holes."  Meanwhile, the legacy media declares their end as a powerful political force.  They only wish it so.

The legacy media has declared the Tea Party irrelevant.  It no longer matters.  Sure, they mattered back during the 2010 election.  Even the most dedicated shills have to admit that.  But that was back when the Hobbits rallied behind their favored congressional candidates, those who espoused their beliefs.  And the Hobbits sent many new faces to Congress.

But in the eyes of the Big People there, those lifelong denizens of the Halls of Congress, those professional politicians of both parties, the Tea Party was made up of rubes, oafs, and peasants.  Little People.  And the Big People saw that reflected in their candidates.

Last summer, when the Big People in Congress were debating whether or not to raise the debt ceiling, many of the new members of Congress backed by the Hobbits supported a balanced budget constitutional amendment.  Big Person Senator John McCain called the idea "worse than foolish."  Reading from a Wall Street Journal editorial, the Senator from Arizona said:

The idea seems to be that if the House GOP refuses to raise the debt ceiling, a default crisis or gradual government shutdown will ensue and the public will turn en masse against Barack Obama.... Then Democrats would have no choice but to pass a balanced-budget amendment and reform entitlements, and the tea party hobbits could return to Middle-earth having defeated Mordor.

House Speaker John Boehner, pushing his debt ceiling plan, told his Republican Hobbit-backed Little People to "get your asses in line."  Translation: Forget your promises to the Hobbits back in the Shire -- forget those Little People.  You're in Congress now, where Big People are in charge.

When the 2010 election was over, the Hobbits returned to their hobbit-holes.  With the votes counted, and the victories celebrated, they stopped gathering in large groups where many among the legacy media ridiculed them as old, racists, extremists...using nearly every derogatory slam except calling them pedophiles.  When Democrats stuffed Obamacare down our throats, the media parroted the fraudulent claims that Hobbits had spit on black congressional representatives.  It was lie.  But what's one more lie in a continuous litany of lies.

You remember all that.  So do the Hobbits.

Today they quietly go about their lives and chores in the Shire.  For now, the days of large demonstrations, like those that came in the cram down of the Porkulus Bill and in the run-up to the 2010 election, are not called for.  The Tea Party knows what it stands for.  So does most everyone else.  Mass enthusiasm cannot, need not, be sustained over time.  For all things there's a season, and this is the season for the Hobbits to hide-and-watch, and, more importantly, quietly organize for the 2012 election.  That's what they're doing.   

The legacy media, in an exercise of wishful thinking, is misreading their tarot cards concerning the Hobbits.  But then, misreading comes naturally to them.

Perhaps you remember that long funeral process when Ronald Reagan's body was taken to his burial plot at the Reagan Library.  CNN commentators Bernard Shaw and Wolf Blitzer were covering the event.

As the funeral processions made its way slowly up the two-lane road snaking through the California hills, thousands of people lined both sides of the road with their vehicles parked on the shoulders.  As the procession passed by, they stood and showed heartfelt respect for the dead president.

Shaw and Blitzer were struck by this, since they and many of their media colleagues had made careers out of ridiculing the man.  As the noticeably stunned pair watched the Reagan procession, they felt at a loss for words to describe what they were seeing.  It didn't fit their template.  They had this conversation.

SHAW: Can I say something that touches on a very sensitive issue?

BLITZER: Of course.

SHAW: The news media and how we failed to thoroughly cover and communicate the very essences we're talking about possessed by Ronald Reagan.  What I've been reading and what I've been hearing I did not get during his two terms in office, or did I miss something?

BLITZER: I think you're on to something, Bernie.

SHAW: I think we failed our viewers, listeners, and readers to an appreciable extent. I can't quantify it, but I'll put it there. Because I certainly missed a lot.

Bernie's and Wolf's media name was Legion, for there are many like them.  Many in the legacy media are now failing their viewers, listeners, and readers by not discerning the rhythm of the Tea Party movement.  Or, maybe they're just more comfortable trafficking in wishful thinking.

The legacy media can't read the Hobbits because they're unfamiliar with life in the Shire.  Ironically, they pronounce the death of the Tea Party while it is they who speak with the death rattle.

Near the final scene of the Lord of the Rings films, Gandalf crowns the new king and proclaims, "Now comes the days of the King."  The crowd cheers.  The new king kisses his queen to be.  The crowd applauds.  Then the king the approaches the four Hobbits: Frodo, Samwise, Peregrin, and Meriadoc.  The Hobbits bow to the king.  He stops them, saying, "My friends, you bow to no one."  And the king leads the crowd in kneeling before the Hobbits.

That's something akin to what the Founders had in mind for the United States of America.

One year from this November 9^th, the Hobbits march to the polls.