Everybody who has paid any attention to politics over the last year knows that Fox has been trying to absorb the tea party movement into the Republican Party, but the real energy of the tea partiers comes from Ron Paul’s 2008 presidential campaign, a campaign that challenged enough Republican orthodoxy that Fox banned Paul from the presidential debates.

Two years later, Fox still has a Ron Paul problem. On Saturday, Ron Paul won CPAC’s 2012 straw poll, delivering a clear message that Ron Paul and the tea partiers who support him aren’t interested in being absorbed — instead, they are intent on remaking the G.O.P.

Not surprisingly, Fox’s coverage of Paul’s CPAC win was dismissive, repeatedly hammering home the message that Paul’s victory wasn’t significant and that he wasn’t really a serious candidate. Fox even suggested that had Glenn Beck been on the straw poll ballot, he’d likely have beaten out Ron Paul.

Watch:

Fox’s dismissive coverage of Paul is just the latest evidence that Fox doesn’t want to empower the tea partiers — they want the tea partiers to empower them. FNC hacks like Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck pretend to be tea partiers on TV, but at the end of the day, Fox, Palin, and Beck care more about what the tea party movement can do for them than what they can do for the tea party movement.

Tea Partiers target Ron Paul in GOP Primary.

My time-space continuum warped when I heard that Dennis Kucinich had talked to tea partiers and found common ground.

Jump on in, the water’s fine.