JERRY POURNELLE on what Republicans should do now. “The Tea Party can be proud. They hold the balance of power in the United States. It is no mean accomplishment. And the Republican leadership needs to understand: the Tea Party played by the rules. They ran in primaries, and where they didn’t win they still turned out to vote Republican. It is now the turn of the Country Club Republicans to learn how to play to win. The Tea Party holds the balance of power here — and West Virginia shows there are alternatives to the Republican Party if the Country Club hasn’t learned that.”

Yes, the Tea Partiers were supposed to be the flighty, self-centered spoilers who would ruin things if they didn’t get their way — but instead, that sort of behavior was exclusively the province of “respectable” establishment Republicans like Lisa Murkowski or Mike Castle or Charlie Crist or . . . well, you get the point. Entitled narcissists.