So the Washington Post, long a purveyor of "centrist" pablum, permits a pair of writers to assert that the Republicans really are the problem with American politics. But the sentiment still seems a little soft. Messrs. Mann and Orrnstein say "self-styled bipartisan groups" (paragraph 6) try to move politics to the center, when one could more easily argue they move politics to the right and call it the center. The writers mislabel four conservative Republicans "moderates" in paragraph 7 -- folks like Charles Matthias, John Sherman Cooper, or Margaret Chase Smith too unmemorable somehow? And saying that modern-day Republicans insist on "principle" (paragraph 19) frankly gives Republicans too much credit -- modern-day Republican "principle" only involves their corporate paymasters' money. The article says a lot of true things, sure, but you and I have known them for years, and I doubt the writers will penetrate the mindset of the "elites" by flattering their prejudices.
Meanwhile, another day ending in "y," another Republican calling anything he doesn't like "socialism." Or, more precisely, "the stage three cancer of socialism," which I presume is differentiable from stage four somehow. Of course, when Mr. Akin refers to "what the Democrats did to the private student loans and take it all over by the government," he actually describes an effort to get private bankers out of the federal student loan business, thus lowering the cost of said loans. Why would a nominally conservative Congressman support a federal government effort to outsource its loans to private bankers -- rather than, say, ending federal student loans while regulating private lenders? Possibly because his banker paymasters told him to, possibly because he wants to make the federal student loan process so onerous and expensive that it falls apart -- or possibly because he doesn't want anyone telling him what to do, like some diaper-loaded brat in the middle of a tantrum, or John Raese.
Finally, possibly because I enjoy causing myself physical pain, I did watch this entire five-minute-plus clip of Sean Hannity "interviewing" Michelle Malkin about matters including "little lynch mobs" attacking "Republican donors." Note well that, for Ms. Malkin, these "lynch mobs" include you, if you called Coke or your state legislator and told them to disassociate themselves from ALEC. But setting aside, for a moment, the fact that pressure from citizens does not equal an "ad hominem attack" -- it takes a full American crapload more than "ad hominem attacks" to make a "lynch mob," even a "little" one. Really! Over a dozen corporations dropped ALEC, with no ropes, no trees, no rifles. When nominal "conservatives" get this hysterical over the democratic process actually working -- and, indeed, Michelle Malkin seems hardly able to catch her breath here -- they not only act they way they say liberals act, but they dishonor the good name of conservatism.