So I'm at TPM reading about Michelle Bachmann's latest safari to the far borders of sanity and reason, and I'm shaking my head, because while I have, for the most part, been extremely pleased with everything that's been happening under My Black President (as we affectionately refer to him here at Castle Anthrax), I am at a loss to figure out exactly which of the many, many, many vitally important yet, to my mind, largely inoffensive and uncontroversial measures he or his Administration have taken to cause Republicans and conservatives to so thoroughly and publicly lose their bottles.  As nearly all of them have, over the last two months, at one point of another.

What fantastic outrage is it that, perpetrated by the perfidious Obama Administration, has sparked this avalanche of fury from the far Right?  Exactly what is it that the Bam Man has done to inspire these primal screams, these titantic tantrums, these wild eyed fist waving fits, these shrieks of Marxism and Socialism, these insane accusations of fascism and Nazism, these defiant bellows hoping the President fails, these latest ululating trumpetings for 'orderly revolution'?

What, what, what in the name of Fred n' Wilma Flintstone, has The Coolest Chief Executive In History done to get all these wingnut panties in such a great big piss stained bunch?

So I put this to my wife, who is a wise wise woman, much much smarter than I am (other than in her choice of lifemate, where I somehow completely bamboozled her).  "Babe," I said, "the Republicans have always been bananas but now they have come completely unhinged.  And can it really be just because Our Black President raised taxes incrementally on the wealthiest fraction of Americans?  Is that truly the reason?  He's slightly increasing taxes on people who make a whole lot of money back to their Bill Clinton levels, and because of this, the entire conservative movement has gone completely round the frickin' bend?"

My wife looked at me pityingly, and responded pithily. "No, honey.  It's because they can't stop him.  He keeps getting stuff done.  They try to get in his way and they can't.  That's what's driving them nuts.  They just can't stop him."

And of course, she is correct.

It's not resetting the tax rate for those who make over $200,000 a year to post Reagan, pre Dubya levels. It's not increased CAFE standards.  It's not the stimulus bill, it's not Gitmo, it's not the release of classified documents embarrassing to the Bushies.  It's not his ambitious agenda regarding energy policy, climate change, overhauling the financial sector, or education.  It's not any of these things.

It's just that they can't stop him.

Or, apparently, deal with it.

At all.

I mean, this has always been the Republican strategy.  When you're in power, loot and pillage.   When you're not in power, obstruct, spin, and blame the other guy until you get back in power.  World without end, amen, amen.

Yet suddenly it's not working any more.  They're doing all the stuff they've always done... they're throwing red meat to the base, trying to whip up a populist outcry, screaming all the usual hate words on Fox News and the talk radio shows, working all that good Roberts Rules of Order bullshit in the Senate, filibustering everything that walks, limps, or crawls... obstruct, obstruct, obstruct, obstruct. 

And they're spinning, too, and trying to blame the other guy right, left and sideways... this is the Obama Recession.  It's all Nancy Pelosi's fault.  The Democrats are not sufficiently bi-partisan.  They're taxing.  They're spending.  They're putting our great grandchildren's future in hock.    It's European style socialism, it's modern day one party fascism, it's Marxism, it's a betrayal of everything America is all about.  

But a weird thing happened this time on the way to the polling booths... the Democrats seem to have got some game from somewhere.  The progressive party is suddenly all mojoed up.  The Republicans go the talk radio route, and the Dems use Rush Limbaugh to make them look ridiculous.  The Republicans scream that America is less safe under Obama, and the Democrats say "9/11 didn't happen on our watch, buddy boy, and Osama bin Laden didn't escape when we controlled Congress and the White House". 

It's like judo.  They do the usual flashy flying high kick nonsense that's always worked before, and Our Black President grabs them by the ankle and drops them on their head.

So they're obstructing... themselves.  They're spinning... their wheels.  They're blaming... everybody else, as usual.   And it's not working.

And it's driving them absolutely bonkers.

The Republican Party has become the Party of Fail... and the American people are saying, in a great big scary Darth Vader voice, "You have failed us for the last time."

They're lost.  They're clueless.  They don't know what to do, where to look, what to say, who to turn to.   Their best and brightest are busy bitching at each other because in the last Presidential campaign, nobody prayed enough.   Or standing up in front of America and saying, with a great big Pee Wee Herman sneer, "Well, you know all that stupid stuff I did?  Well... I meant to do that."

That's their whole plan.  That's all they got.

So to them, I say this, and I say it with all sincerity and enormous good will:

Welcome to the margins, guys.  Welcome to the side of the road.

Get comfie.