Tea Party's Enforcement Arm

Bill Roth / Anchorage Daily News

If Alaska Tea Party Candidate for Senate Joe Miller won’t talk to the press, that didn’t stop his enforcers from “arresting” this local reporter and putting him in handcuffs before the police could let him go.

What is compelling about the picture is how much it fits with the far-right inclination, laced through its hostile rhetoric, to “take the law” into its own hands. Just like the Paladino confrontation with a reporter a few weeks back, this photo is a perfect companion to Frank Rich’s piece this weekend where a little sadism is the rule.  In fact, that hallway, the bruisers with those military-style haircuts, and the handcuffs actually gave me a little Abu Ghraib vibe.