The despair seems to be permeating through the opinion-makers, leaders and commentators from the Right. I mean this goes far deeper than the urban slang offered by RNC Chairman Michael Steele when he gave the mia culpa;

"[W]e know the past, we know we did wrong. 'My Bad'".

I mean come on, your BAD? That is not going to cut it Mr. Michael "card-carrying President of the 'Stockholm Syndrome' Club of America" Steele, taking over for the absolutely looney tunes charactor Alan Keyes. By the way what do they put in the water in Maryland to produce caricatures like this but....

Back to Brooks who is a bona fide intellectual who can self examine with some objectivity, which has always made him dangerous. When Brooks reacted to Governor Jindal's "Official GOP Response", he said it was a:
 

"to come up in this moment in history with 'the stale government is the problem, we can't trust the Federal Government', is just a disaster for the Republican Party....but the idea that the government is going to have no role in this when in a moment only the Federal Government is big enough to do stuff, just to ignore all that, government is the problem, corruption, earmarks, wasteful spending is just a form of nihilism, It just is not where the country is...".

Now when you start to really think what Brooks is trying to say he offers a genuine  'self-realization' a look in the mirror so to speak, that his Republican Party of the last 30 years, has evolved to this point, where its core values and beliefs are in reality---unfounded. That the existence of the Republican Party, as it stands right now, being senseless and useless. If you extract the penetrating and revealing irony from the definition of, nihilism you have to ask yourself the question; Is Brooks beginning the discussion for the call of the destruction of the post-war conservative movement and the Republican Party that it has consumed, as the only desirable path for America's sake?

If you really look what Brooks said Tuesday off the cuff: The Republican Party at this critical time in our nation's history, lacks the ability to look at the world in any rational manner, as demonstrated in Jindal's speech, denying any objectivity as understanding basic self-evident political truths, that right now only the Federal Government can do " stuff"  

To me, it was a strange, even premeditated use of an unusual term on national TV.  Taken in that context, coupled with the comments from Olympia Snowe along with the apparent reactionary primary challenge to Arlen Specter in PA, Snowe simply stated to RNC Chair Steele when he proposed systematic primary challenges to those who broke with the the Republican Party to pass the Stimulus Bill, "that the GOP was in the majority when they had moderate members and is not in the majority now when it has but a few.

Are we seeing the collapse of the Republican Party? I will say this, some 20 months out from the 2010 mid-terms, if the Democratic Party majority expands in the Congress and correspondingly, in the state legislatures, the GOP will probably start to break up. It has happened before in our history.

I am working on a book about the Colorado and Colorado Springs and the story behind the story of the 2008 election. What has jumped out is that outside of two counties, the 2nd and 8th largest in Colorado, Barack Obama and Mark Udall carried 57% of the 2008's popular vote. This is a state where only voted for a Democratic Presidential candidate in only 5 presidential elections since 1920; (FDR in '32 &'36, Truman '48, LBJ '64, & Clinton '92) 5 out of 22 elections, and yet outside of those two hardened Republican base counties which comprises about 17% of CO's population, the Democrats have grown to polling 57% for Obama and Udall. No wonder 5 of 7 Congressional Representatives are Democats, CO has both Senators from the Democratic Party as well.

Why?  How did this come about? Well in short, it is the full outcome from the Republican Agenda that was completely played out in Colorado in the 1980's and 1990's. It has a hardened state and local government budget process than cannot respond to the Depression Era Economics and must cut government services by a constitutional statute. It has blithering idiots like State Senator Schulheis who makes statements about AIDS that are revengful and absolutely ignorant, even yesterday! And still the GOP simply offers up the same belief and values that Jindal promoted in his response speech----adjunct nihilism.

Fascinating David, fascinating self awareness of the movement you fostered and promoted.