Republican glee may be premature

Many Republicans seem to view the onset of the "tea party movement" as a validation of their obstructionist and hostile approach to the Obama administration. They have recently just seemed giddy when delivering their booming voice opinions, exaggerations, half-truths, and lies about any national policy that needs to be addressed, or at least discussed. They could remind one of a basketball team that celebrates a lead in the first ten minutes or even the first half with such exuberance that it approaches naivete. In this communication age, the six months until the November elections is a very very long time.

One could wonder whether they will wake up in a few months and realize that they, the Republicans, have further narrowed their appeal such that only the segment of the U.S. population that follows Limbaugh, Beck, and company has become their constituency, that a "tea party movement" that started as a mixed group of those with genuine policy concerns, those that felt left out, and those with legacy resentments has been co-opted by a grab bag of activist extremists, becoming in essence an American version of a nascent National Socialist Party that alientates independents as well those Republicans outside the beltway who actually believe in Bush era "family values" and don't want to be led by radio personalities who call their opponents bastards and worse over the air waves and in public forums, much less those "leaders" who sully the halls of Congress with shouts of "you lie" and "baby killer" rather than engage in civil discourse.

In whatever way this difficult period evolves one could only hope that the current ugliness is temporary. We'll see but, in any event, November is a long way off.