The Tea Party Establishment?

Is the Tea Party becoming more like the establishment in the Republican Party? James Rosen over at Fox News seems to think so. Here’s an excerpt:

Yet Cruz was no ordinary Tea Party figure, and few people’s idea of a Beltway outsider. He attended Harvard University’s law school and founded a Latino law review there; clerked at the U.S. Supreme Court for Chief Justice William Rehnquist; worked at two federal agencies in Washington, the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission, under President George W. Bush; and is married to a woman who works for Goldman Sachs.

More important to his electoral fortunes, Cruz received critical endorsements and millions of dollars’ worth of contributions and other forms of support from the likes of Gov. Palin, who campaigned for him; Tea Party hero and fundraising powerhouse Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C.; the D.C.-based Tea Party group FreedomWorks, which is led by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey; the anti-tax, pro-free market group Club for Growth, whose top executive is former Rep. Chris Chocola, R-Pa.; conservative columnist and ABC News commentator George F. Will; and National Review, the venerated magazine founded by the late William F. Buckley, Jr.

Ted Cruz, in short, was an establishment candidate in his own right.

I find myself forced to note that Mr. Rosen does not make a clear definition of exactly what he means by using the term “establishment”, which should be a prerequisite for engaging in any discussion of this kind.

What do you think? Is the Tea Party replacing, or becoming a part of, the Republican establishment? Or is this just another part of the same narrative that attempts to paint all Republicans as “extreme Tea Partiers” that we’ve heard from the other side of the aisle for quite some time?