"It's Insane"

We're sure we've nothing to add to discussion of Brooks' actual column today about how Obama is a wimp or some such shit. This "Talking Between Columns" may have been overlooked, though.

In it we see that, to Brooks, research is what someone else does, although he does get the point:

A woman named Dede Scozzafava is the official Republican candidate. Political scientist Boris Shor did some sophisticated analyses of her voting record in the State Legislature, comparing her to legislators across the country. Her voting record puts her almost exactly in the middle of legislators nationwide. That means she’s a moderate, though slightly right of center in the context of New York.

So do the conservative honchos welcome somebody in the middle of the spectrum? No. The entire conservative movement seems to be coming out in favor of the third party candidate. If conservatives won’t accept moderate candidates in the Northeast, then they are sentencing themselves to permanent minority status. It’s insane.

Brooks almost immediately goes off the track though, assuring us that the universe is not permanently out of whack.

The Democrats have their problems too. And if anything, their problems are deeper because they are intellectual, not merely partisan. The Obama administration has sent the country off to the right. The president is creating a counter-realignment.

Also of interest, Bob Herbert's take on the alleged "swing to the right."

The conservative trend you mentioned is, I think, a manifestation of the desire to wind down the extraordinary drama of the past several years and begin to focus, in a prudent, common-sense way, on the myriad problems facing us here at home.

We thought 'Murkins were all innovative, willing to take a chance, & other such cliched crap. We've turned into a nation of fat-ass stick-in-the-mud chickenshits, though. Prudent common-sense did not make this nation the greatest shining shitpile in the landfill!