Brooks: "Republican politicians aren't RINOs but Opossums." Let the finger pointing begin. [View all]

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Like Claude Raines in Casablanca the Republican chattering class is "shocked, just shocked" that the radical Tea Party movement is now devouring the most conservative politicians in the Republican Party.

The Tea Party was like crack cocaine for the Republican Party getting all of its endorphins out at one moment and now comes the problem with addiction and lower and lower returns on their hit.

Now as the Republican establishment wakes up from its year long party of heated hate filled rhetoric they now find that they are on the menu and with Romney's inability to bring home a confirming victory tonight we officially enter the period of 'finger pointing'.

Start us off David:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/opinion/brooks-the-possum-republicans.html?_r=1

The wingers call their Republican opponents RINOs, or Republican In Name Only. But that’s an insult to the rhino, which is a tough, noble beast. If RINOs were like rhinos, they’d stand up to those who seek to destroy them. Actually, what the country needs is some real Rhino Republicans. But the professional Republicans never do that. They’re not rhinos. They’re Opossum Republicans. They tremble for a few seconds then slip into an involuntary coma every time they’re challenged aggressively from the right.

Without real opposition, the wingers go from strength to strength. Under their influence, we’ve had a primary campaign that isn’t really an argument about issues. It’s a series of heresy trials in which each of the candidates accuse the others of tribal impurity. Two kinds of candidates emerge from this process: first, those who are forceful but outside the mainstream; second, those who started out mainstream but look weak and unprincipled because they have spent so much time genuflecting before those who despise them.

. . .

Leaders of a party are supposed to educate the party, to police against its worst indulgences, to guard against insular information loops. They’re supposed to define a creed and establish boundaries. Republican leaders haven’t done that. Now the old pious cliché applies:


First they went after the Rockefeller Republicans, but I was not a Rockefeller Republican. Then they went after the compassionate conservatives, but I was not a compassionate conservative. Then they went after the mainstream conservatives, and there was no one left to speak for me.