Theme For Today: Weird Wingnut World By: Mark W Adams

Atrios ... Twice.

Duncan is taking a riff from this:

Republican support is contracting to a base of about 25 per cent of the population whose views are getting more extreme, not merely because moderate conservatives are peeling off to become Independents, but also because of the party’s success in constructing a parallel universe of news sources, thinktanks, blogs, pseudo-scientists and so on, which has led to the core becoming more tightly committed to an extremist ideology.

The increasing extremism (think: cornered animal) is reflected in rank and file GOP lawmakers seeing no upside in continuing Bush's free ride against a tide of public opinion:

"We have toed the line enough for the president, and we have gotten no thanks or gratitude. By and large, Republicans are sick of defending an ungrateful president"

Due in no small part because the legal eagles doing such a heckuvajob advising White House policy are graduates of Pat Robertson's law school:

"they are shocking, because they are unprofessional, they are sophomoric, they are snide, they're sarcastic.

Which has naturally has resulted in Bush becoming Kryptonite to his own party:

"In half a century, I have not seen a president so isolated ..."

As the 2006 wave becomes a 2008 tsuanami, you could conclude that not only do elections have consequences, but consequences have consequences.

Democrats looking to extend their narrow majority in the United States Senate, races in states previously assumed to be not even possibly competitive continue to crop up -- a bad sign, no doubt, for the Republicans, who already sound quite bearish on their chances in 2008.

So I have to ask, why all the White Whale references this morning?