Dean: What's the tea party smoking?

Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean says the tea party was "totally unreasonable" in the deficit-reduction debate and warns that Republicans are being held hostage.

"This is a tea party problem," Dean said Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation." "They are totally unreasonable and doctrinaire and not founded in reality. I think they've been smoking some of that tea, not just drinking it."

"This is ridiculous what's going on here," he said.

The firebrand Democrat and former Vermont governor said the Standard & Poor's downgrade of the nation's credit is "a good thing" because it underscores the need to raise revenue to address the nation's fiscal crisis.

But he said certain elements of the Republican Party make it impossible for reasonable people to do what Dean said is right -- raising taxes on the wealthy.

"The American people are there; Democrats are there. A lot of reasonable Republicans are there," he said. "But they are terrified of these right-wing splinter groups, the radical right, because they are so powerful in the primaries."