The Associated Press reports that “Conservatives’ clout flummoxes House GOP leaders.” Highlights:

The clout of tea party advocates and other hard-line conservatives in Congress has caught top Republicans by surprise, raising questions about whether GOP leaders can impose enough discipline in their House majority to pass tough measures, such as raising the debt ceiling.

Within 24 hours this week, House Speaker John Boehner’s team had to pull a trade bill from the chamber floor, suffered an embarrassing setback on a USA Patriot Act vote, and failed to recoup money paid to the United Nations.

And in electoral politics, the tea party’s threat to Republican incumbents came more into focus. …

Another Republican leader Wednesday tried to cool the cost-cutting fever of tea partiers. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky., proposed ending more than 60 government programs and cutting $35 billion in spending. …

There were other signs in Washington this week that Republicans are still grappling with the influence, or threat, wielded by fiscally conservative, libertarian-leaning members.

Interesting word choice, flummox; it means “to bewilder, confound, confuse.” The only way GOP leaders could be flummoxed by the strength of the Tea Party in opposition to their half-hearted efforts to cut government spending and power is if they believed the movement was about them, not despite them. But as I wrote just this past December,

If we have to — and we probably do — we will spend the next however-many-are-necessary years sounding like Tea Party inspiration Rick Santelli trying to drive the message home:

I want the government to stop spending.

Stop spending, stop spending, stop spending, STOP SPENDING!

That’s what we want! Stop spending!

Why? Because the GOP’s strength in this past election wasn’t its recent track record on spending, it was foremost its circumstance of being the only way left for citizens to stop the Obama agenda … [The GOP] promised to stop the spending and reverse the course of Obamacare and out-of-control government, promises that Republicans would be wise to fulfill and Tea Party patriots would be wise to suspect.

Below, Rick Henderson posts about NC Congresswoman Virginia Foxx, who is one of those Republicans wisely trying to fulfill the promise to cut spending.

P.S. You can’t spell “flummox” without lummox.