So the Senate passed a “jobs bill” yesterday and did so with the help of one Scott Brown of Massachusetts. There are many out there feeling betrayed right now but they shouldn’t be. In fact they’re getting what they honestly deserve, a Republican hack, one they helped put into office even though they warned well in advance.

Let this be a lesson to Tea Partiers out there not to let the first Republican hack like Patrick Ruffni come along and use your sweat equity and your money for the party’s own purposes. There will be other Republican Party reptiles and Conservative INC. flunkies who come along and blast you with emails who will say vote for such-and-such candidate because he can stop Obamacare or vote for this fellow over year because he’ll stop cap-n-trade. No doubt voting for someone who promised to be the 41st vote to stop a government takeover of healthcare (what, you mean government doesn’t already have a big say in how health care is done in this country?) was quite attractive, but, as the old saying goes: “Let the buyer beware”.

For you see, anyone studying Scott Brown’s record from his time in the Massachusetts state legislature would have known that his vote was quite in line with his views. He doesn’t mind spending your tax money because he thinks it will create “jobs”.  Now, I suppose government can create a job if you don’t mind digging a ditch, going door to door or working the road crew. But these jobs tend to be temporary and don’t really affect the economy as whole a great deal. Conservatives used to criticize such proposals as “makework” jobs and some still do, when they’re not bragging to their constituents how much stimulus money they’re bringing home. Still it is curious to ask why if Brown thinks government can’t run the nation’s health care, why then does he believe it can somehow sustain economic growth through taxpayer largess? If the health care debate was fashioned as a way to stimulate the economy by reducing costs, would Brown still be the 41st vote? Can you be sure of that?

Joe Kennedy, the independent libertarian who also ran for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts, pointed this out to anyone who would listen. For his trouble he received death threats by Brown supporters. Brown, to his credit, never claimed to be a conservative anything, just an “independent voice in Washington.” The people projecting the image of Jim DeMint on Brown were the Tea Partiers themselves and the Republican hacks  encouraging them to do so.  That they feel betrayed is understandable but they cannot blame Scott Brown for this. They were misled and fooled because slick political rhetoricians knew exactly how to take advantage of them. They need to realize that candidates like Scott Brown are exactly the reason why the Tea Party’s exist and the reason why they are they upset in the first place. And they need to realize that candidates like Joe Kennedy are the ones they need to support in the future.  But they can only do this through careful study and thought and not through headless emotion.

Of course Brown, from now on, better find another group of people to do his sign-waving the snow because the Tea Partiers certainly won’t. MaybeRyan Sorba is available.