This is what modern Republicans believe:

* 67 percent of Republicans believe that Obama is a socialist.
* 57 percent of Republicans believe that Obama is a Muslim
* 45 percent of Republicans agree with the Birthers in their belief that Obama was “not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president”
* 38 percent of Republicans say that Obama is “doing many of the things that Hitler did”
* Scariest of all, 24 percent of Republicans say that Obama “may be the Antichrist.”

It is, quite literally, impossible to reason with lunatics of this magnitude. Honest, decent Republicans have got to put a stop to these idiots taking over their party.

Well, at least one Republican thug is sorry for being a cretin. I’m sure his mind is still convinced he’s right, but at least he realizes that throwing money and yelling in the face of a guy with Parkinson’s is uncivil.

I’d be sorry for all the bad press he’s getting but he did bring it upon himself. Hell, he even lied about being in the video.

Compassionate conservatism. Even when they’re sorry it takes a long damn time to get there.

Krugman gets to the heart of the Tea Bagger problem.

“(T)oday’s G.O.P. is, fully and finally, the party of Ronald Reagan — not Reagan the pragmatic politician, who could and did strike deals with Democrats, but Reagan the antigovernment fanatic, who warned that Medicare would destroy American freedom. It’s a party that sees modest efforts to improve Americans’ economic and health security not merely as unwise, but as monstrous. It’s a party in which paranoid fantasies about the other side — Obama is a socialist, Democrats have totalitarian ambitions — are mainstream. And, as a result, it’s a party that fundamentally doesn’t accept anyone else’s right to govern.

“In the short run, Republican extremism may be good for Democrats, to the extent that it prompts a voter backlash. But in the long run, it’s a very bad thing for America. We need to have two reasonable, rational parties in this country. And right now we don’t.”

I feel bad for any small town about to be overrun by thousands of lunatics. Too bad Searchlight, NV is the one in the crosshairs.