Could the tea party activists be the undoing of any Republican surge?
While seeming to breathe new life into the party, they're also waging war on some party-picked candidates. On the first half of Portside, Burt Cohen analyzes this turn of events with Lawrence Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance and the University of Minnesota.
And on part two, Burt delves into the politics of the public option discussion with Newsweek reporter Robert Parry, the investigative journalist who uncovered Oliver North's role in the Iran-Contra scandal.

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On this Portside, Burt Cohen talks with Eric Bohlert contributing editor to Rolling Stone and a senior fellow at Media Matters for America about something new in American politics: the press becoming the opposition political party. Of course we're talking about Fox News. What does this mean for the role of the press as the fourth estate?

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Pulitzer Prize winning author Jane Smiley is Burt's guest on this edition. She recently wrote "Other Economists In The Room," on the Huffington Post in response to a piece by Paul Krugman. Economists, she argues, are missing the point regarding genuine economic recovery

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