@nimh,
Thank you and the other new poster here. I stand corrected: when I wrote "you" it was "Holland" I had in mind, not you personally, so allow me to rephrase, does Holland represent a more widespread European sentiment or is it a loner in its sudden turn towards fiscal sanity and rollback of welfare benefits for all comers, whether invited or not? The other point is what I think may be a misunderstanding: it's my impression that Sullivan meant "A Dutch Tea Party" to evoke a parallel with the original Boston Tea Party, not necessarily any strong identification with any political movement now extant in the US, and I'm thinking that because if he had meant the latter he'd have written "The Dutch Tea Party". But that's just my reading of his headline.
And imho no digression is involved in saying that Obama's handling of the monster oil gusher in the Gulf is causing another drastic dive in confidence in the federal government. The guy sees a raging inferno, people and wildlife dead or dying in horrible pains, survivors getting poisoned for decades down the line, and instead of putting out the fire he embarks on a lecture about carbon credits.
