Richard Cohen column ... brutal -- "The GOP is brain-dead."
from WashPost...
On Saturday night, at precisely 9:19 and 30 seconds, my iPhone, my iPad, my computer and, for all I know, my toaster were informed that Herman Cain had endorsed Newt Gingrich. The ping-ping of the devices suggested that something momentous had happened — alerts from both The Post and the New York Times — but in fact it was just additional evidence that the Republican Party has become a circus: One clown endorsed another.
It’s hard to know who is the more ridiculous figure — the grandiloquent, bombastic and compulsively dishonest Gingrich, or the beguilingly ignorant Cain, a man who has never held elective office and who was reduced to speechlessness when asked a question about Libya. Nonetheless, Gingrich, his Alfred E. Neuman grin on his face, accepted the endorsement and then went on with his nihilistic campaign for the White House. This has been an exceedingly silly political season.
-snip-
It is entirely appropriate that last week’s GOP debates fell between “Pawn Stars” and “American Pickers” in the 10 most-watched cable television shows. They are sheer entertainment having little to do with us and our problems. The Republican Party has veered so far from reality that Gingrich is lambasting Romney as a “Massachusetts moderate” — moderation being, as it was with the clueless Barry Goldwater, an epithet. Romney, who has all but collapsed his rib cage to conform to conservative dogma, must be perplexed. Others have prudently stayed out of the race.
The Republican establishment that has now risen up to smite the bratty Gingrich has only itself to blame. For too long it has been mute in the face of a belligerent anti-intellectualism, pretending that knowledge and experience do not matter and that Washington is a condition and not a mere city. The endorsement of Gingrich by Cain was not a bulletin. It was a feeble blip on a scope. The GOP is brain-dead.
more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/establishment-republicans-have-only-themselves-to-blame/2012/01/30/gIQAmECOdQ_story.html
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That's about as good as it gets.
= new reply since forum marked as read
"for all I know, my toaster" 
"it has been mute in the face of a belligerent anti-intellectualism"
"GOP debates fell between “Pawn Stars” and “American Pickers”
I can't stop laughing, but he's right. It's pretty damned pathetic.
