The behind-the-scenes revelations about American diplomacy really only shock three groups of people.

Pity George Bush. Scanning eight years of calamity for the lowest point in his presidency could not have been easy. Among the top contenders: Abu Ghraib; failing to act on threats of an al-Qaida attack before 9/11 or find WMD in Iraq; helping to collapse the economy; being forced to withdraw a supreme court judge choice; and failing on immigration reform.

Over a breakfast of pancakes, scrambled eggs and bacon in a back room of the Nugget Casino in Pahrump, rural Nevada, shortly before the midterm elections, the talk among some forty men turned to the most propitious moment for armed insurrection.

Lectures about fiscal responsibility from the occupants of a plush suite on the 20th floor of one of the fanciest hotels in Las Vegas stick in the craw like a slice of cantaloupe swallowed sideways. Appropriately, the Tea Party Express's open bar, trays of fruit and skyline view at the Aria hotel on election night smacked more of a corporate event than a political, let alone a populist, one.

Today, in a plush suite on the 20th floor of the Aria casino and hotel, the leaders of the Tea Party express took stock of both the new political reality they had helped create and the lasting economic reality that made it possible.

To listen to some pundits, the election is pretty much over already. The Democrats, if you missed it, lost big time. The Republicans are back; Obama is effectively neutered. All we're waiting for now is someone to cast and count those damn votes.