WELL, YOU KNOW, THE HOBBITS WON IN THE ORIGINAL STORY, TOO: WaPo: How The Tea Party “Hobbits” Won The Debt Fight. “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid complained Saturday evening that Congress has raised the debt limit 74 times since 1962 without conditions. He is right. This is happening for the first time in history, thanks to the Tea Party. . . . The Tea Party is also winning the battle of ideas. Last week, Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod crowed that the debt-limit battle was shaping up as a ‘definitional fight’ in which voters would see Obama as defending the reasonable center against Republicans who are ‘pandering to the extremes.’ Well, if Axelrod is so confident that Obama is winning this ‘definitional fight,’ why was the White House so adamant about ducking a second round next year?”