Paddy Chayefsky was the mad prophet

Remember the film "Network"? If you don't, here's the Cliff's notes: Long-time network news anchor Howard Beale suffers a decline in his ratings and some personal upheaval, is given notice, and then has a breakdown on air. In which he promises to blow his brains out on network TV the following week.

This, of course, provides a ratings spike. Beale, now completely mad, takes the bully pulpit with some help from unscrupulous TV execs and turns the news into a nightly rant against everything from Arabs to youth culture to, eventually, rampant corporatism. Fashioned as the "mad prophet of the airwaves," Beale draws a cult of personality around him and becomes the center of a populist movement - one that implodes when a rant touches too close to home for his corporate overlords. Who then have him shot on live TV because he's become a liability.

The point is, Beale's rallying cry was "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" Which really doesn't mean anything.

Until now.

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"Network" just got significantly better (and it was already great). Both the mainstream media and bloggers from around the country have tried to distill the essence of the Tea Party movement, to define it and put a label on it. But the fact is, Chayefsky had already done it for us 35 years ago.

The Tea Party is an angry, drunk, suicidal, insane old white guy. Who's mad about something, and whose unfocused rage is all that holds the movement together. And will be tossed to the side by corporate America as soon as he moves from "asset" to "liability."

Sounds about right.