The Grand Old Party

Paul Krugman, in Tea Parties Forever, writes about an increasingly marginalized Republican Party:

Today’s G.O.P. is, after all, very much a minority party. It retains some limited ability to obstruct the Democrats, but has no ability to make or even significantly shape policy.

Beyond that, Republicans have become embarrassing to watch. And it doesn’t feel right to make fun of crazy people. Better, perhaps, to focus on the real policy debates, which are all among Democrats.

Hijacking 9/11

Bravo to Keith Olbermann for having the courage to publicly state that the Republican Party hijacked 9/11, successfully turning it into a political commodity and exploiting it for political advantage.

Obama Vows to Fight Back

Barack Obama has suddenly realized that he can ill-afford to let Republican attacks on his character go unanswered but must respond swiftly and emphatically. Otherwise he will find himself but the latest incarnation of pathetically weak Democratic presidential nominees with no taste for battle. The question is, does this realization signal a sufficient shift in strategy to undo the harm inflicted by the McCain over the last two or three weeks?

Huckabee's Warning

Former GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee warns his fellow Republicans that any attempt to demonize the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama would be "a fatal mistake." The former Arkansas governor noted that with Obama's candidacy the country was getting "to a point where we did not see his color but we truly saw his charisma, his message and what he brought to the campaign trail.When people are really hurting — and they are right now — they're not looking at a person's race." This is a remarkable statement by a member of a political party whose success over the last 40 years has been based primarily on exploiting racial divisions. For asking the Republican Party to refrain from demonizing the opposition is akin to them relinquishing one of the twin pillars - scaring the shit out of Americans over the next terrorist attack being the other - from its standard playbook, so fashioned by Karl Rove in engineering George W. Bush victories in 2000 and 2004.