To the editor:

Congratulations! The current credit downgrade is brought to you by the tea party patriots. It was pretty heady stuff. Tea party patriots sounded so, well, patriotic. Maybe it was just the shot in the arm the country needed to get it on the right track again, whatever that meant. When they told us it was time to get our country back, my question was, back from what? But it sounded promising, and it was important to give them a chance.

The first clue that not all was well with the tea party was when its most vocal adherents showed up at rallies with guns strapped to various body parts. Well, I thought, that’s pretty juvenile and dangerous, but perhaps that’s just a lunatic fringe. We should give them a chance to express their viewpoints. A third party might be a healthy addition in the political equation.

As time went on, it became evident these people were not patriots, but they were surely bullies. It was an embarrassment to listen to the ranting and raving. Pretty much akin to junkyard dogs, with just as little common sense.

In the latest debt ceiling fiasco, congressional tea party members have lived up to their least flattering image. They have conveniently forgotten they were elected to lead, not cave in to unscrupulous power brokers who have no loyalty to this nation or its people. Sadly, one of the biggest casualties in this political struggle might be the reputation of the Grand Old Party. Where are you Bob Dole? We could use your type of conservative Republican patriotism.