Congressperson Ann Marie Buerkle (NY-25) with a surprise win against Dan Maffei, rode into Congress in 2010 with the rest of her tea party compatriots. Buerkle promised fiscal responsibility and a new way to do business in Washington DC. I'm not sure that she could claim to be entirely successful in that endeavor, but she has managed some choice committeeships (Oversight and Government Reform, Foreign Affairs and Veteran Affairs) and a sparkly 80 percent score from Heritage Foundation, the highest of any New York representative.

Congresswoman Buerkle also displays the same amount of sparkly intelligence and grasp of how things really work as the rest of her tea party buddies:

A fun nugget buried in this story about Rep. Ann Buerkle's (R-NY) first town hall meeting as an elected member of Congress. Constituents repeatedly asked a puzzled Buerkle about her health benefits. She couldn't figure out why. But her staff sure could.

Buerkle, who voted to repeal the health care reform act, was twice asked about the health insurance she receives as a government employee. At first she said she couldn't understand why people were so interested in her health insurance, and that taxpayers didn't pay anything for it. She later corrected herself after being handed a note from a staffer. Like most employees, she pays for a portion of her insurance and her employer, the government, pays the rest, she said.

Well, no, technically her employer is NOT the government. It's the people (a government for, by and of the people, remember?), and more specifically, it's being paid for by taxpayers. But that's not something any other American (for, by and of the people, remember?) should be able to have, right?