Are members of the tea party extremists? Some pundits seem to think so, pointing to the last couple of months where they were successfully able to hold Congress and President Obama hostage in order to get their demands passed.

One thing’s for certain – tea party members have certainly shaken-up the corridors of power in Washington. Whether that’s a good thing for the country remains to be seen.

Cartoonists are never afraid to weigh in on the tough questions, and it’s no different with the tea party. Here are 10 political cartoons that explore the notion of the tea party, and whether or not we should think of them as extremists.

Bill Day notices some striking similarities between Muslim extremists and the tea party…

Monte Wolverton explores what the tea party is spewing…

Florida Today cartoonist Jeff Parker thinks the tea party has gone overboard on what they’ve thrown overboard…

Caricaturist Taylor Jones thinks Eric Cantor points the way forward for the tea party…

Buffalo News cartoonist Adam Zyglis thinks we should change the spelling of “tea”…

R.J. Matson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch shows the reaction the tea party has to the word “compromise”…

Dutch cartoonist Joep Bertrams thinks the tea party have performed a hold-up…

While Eric Allie thinks Democrats and the main stream media have misrepresented the tea party all together…

Some still point to race, as Brian Duffy does with his cartoon…

While Hartford Courant cartoonist Bob Englehart thinks they’re just out to wreck the country…