While the author's wording was perhaps not the most sensitive towards TFA, I would encourage you to look past this and take some of the criticisms to heart.
When attempting something as ambitious as what TFA claims to be doing, listen carefully to what veteran teachers, researchers, and those in poor communities are saying. This is likely more valuable than the exhortations from TFA, politicians, and corporate sponsors.

In this vein, I've started a website, Reconsidering TFA which you might find valuable.

Regarding your specific points of contention with this article:

Teach for America teachers are just that ... teachers, just like you.

It is a disservice to the profession to be called a teacher after 5 weeks of training. If TFA came in as teacher's assistants for at least the first year, they might then deserve the respect. However noble individual recruit's intentions might be, after five weeks you're still a trainee.

but we don't claim to be the best and the brightest. That's the media labeling us.

The author did not mention who made the claim, but references to "the best and brightest" appear on the TFA website, and the organization has encouraged this description, often to the point of denigrating traditionally trained teachers.

Nobody is saying that. (that traditional teachers are worse)

To quote from the TFA website, "A large and growing body of independent research shows that Teach For America corps members make as much of an impact on student achievement as veteran teachers." Not only is this a gross mis-reading of the research, it's a slap in the face to veteran teachers.

Moreover, why is TFA expanding into areas with a surplus of experienced, traditionally certified teachers? In testimony at the Seattle School board, numerous TFA members testified how much more dedicated they were (refer to Nov 3 and 17 of 2010 here).

Please stop disrespecting us with your childish name calling (in reference to "Teach for Awhile" comments). During our five weeks of training, we commit ourselves (often from 6am to past midnight) to learning as much as we can so we can hit the ground running, but that's not where our training ends.

Research has consistently shown that attrition rates for TFA recruits is high, which is exactly what poor student don't need. And, however much you talk up the five weeks training, the more desperate the justification sounds. One has to simply read a random sampling of TFA blogs on the teachforus.org site to know that it is, as critics have been pointing out for years, grossly inadequate. Again, at the least, TFA recruits should spend the first year as teacher's assistants.

We commit to teach for a MINIMUM of two years, and many of us stay for much longer

Again, research consistently shows attrition rates for TFA are quite high. This doesn't mean that you personally or many of the individual TFA recruits do not care - but it should be a significant consideration when setting ed policy.

Regarding minimum state qualifications to teach, yes this varies by state, but TFA recruits are at least sometimes exempted.

This is because TFA is a placement program (regarding TFA's placement fee)

TFA claims to be helping poor students (in poor districts). When TFA is rolling in cash (from private foundations and the DOE), it takes unbelievable gall to charge struggling districts $2-5K per recruit.

This is a gross simplification of Teach for America. That said, we are a data-driven organization...

Research is continuing to mount that test based accountability is not effective. Finland's success is providing perhaps the most stellar example of how it is unnecessary. Simply focusing on reading level (especially as measured by a standardized test) is at the least an insufficient measure of whether a teacher is doing a good job. Making this a focus of teaching is likewise a too shallow approach. Such narrow focus by TFA recruits makes it clear how inadequate five weeks training is.

there is no guarantee of a high profile job or graduate school,

The author may have been mistaken on the guaranteed part, but it's clear TFA sells itself as a stepping stone. It's also clear that despite TFA's marketing success and popularity among college recruits that it has only exacerbated the perception problem of the teaching profession.