Most Despicable and/or Stupid Republican of the Week; Most Admirable Republican of the Week.

Most Despicable and/or Stupid Republican of the Week (and I think she covers both prongs, so she's a two-fer special doubly dis respectable degenerate), Ms Buchanan, the U.S. Attorney in Pittsburg who says she will not tender a letter of resignation (as is custom for the appointees of the previous administration, during a full transition.)

U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan Speaks (Sorta): I'm a Maverick Too, Dontcha Know.

She is stupid if she thinks a notoriously pro Bush, politically driven, U.S. Attorney is going to be offered the chance to keep the office. Furthermore, her reputation as a Federal Prosecutor is no where near the level where that is remotely likely. Next, not only is her partisan reputation well known, but she is the genius of judgment who hired Monica Goodling, and even if only on the edges, but still is connected to the U.S. Atty Firing scandal.

And she is descipable for failing to follow custom here. It is one thing to want to keep the job, but it is another thing to just decide on one's own, that the usual rules and practices do not apply to one. We have a name for people like that; professional asshole. If she really wanted to keep the job she should have formally tendered her resignation, but contacted people in the Transition Team and made her case that way, not go all mavericky.

And that just gets us right back to her being stupid. I mean really? Is that the way sane smart people try to impress the new boss, by acting like a loose cannon?

Now for the Admirable Republican of the week: Michael Medved wins, for being objective enough to take and make a well deserved critical observation against Republican Media and Republican coarseness, both all at once.

"Increasingly, interests of commercial talk radio in a fractured market diverge from the needs of a viable national movement. A radio show (locally or nationally) that draws just 5% of the available audience can achieve notable success in ratings and revenue, but a conservatism that connects with only a disgruntled, paranoid 5% of the public will wither and die.

Yes, the nation expects (and deserves) tough partisan battles in the years ahead, but it matters greatly who's viewed as initiator of the conflict. George W. Bush suffered throughout his presidency from perceptions that he never delivered on his "uniter not divider"rhetoric and that he and Karl Rove, not the Democrats, introduced the toxic atmosphere into Washington."

Will talk radio get wake-up call?
Appealing to the right-wing fringe is no way to build a political movement.

I think what he says there is spot on, and I predict it will go no where soon, in making the GOP reform itself, and for once and for all time purge itself of the 5% (he says, I would say more like 30% or so) of the party who are accurately described as the disgruntled and paranoid.

Now if I really want to go all deeply analytical I would say that in using the 5% figure Medved is missing the obvious. If the Loony Fringe of the GOP was only about 5% they likely would not be in such dire straits now. But the objective truth is even if the Loony Fringe is not that huge as to comprise a simple majority of the Party, they have infected the rhetoric if not ideology of the party as badly as a tropical virus infects a human body. It is not a matter of one organ or two getting hit, but the whole body suffers. And one of the worst effects of the Loony Fringe on the GOP as a whole is that their thuggish, asshole-ish, selfish, mean-spirited and ill-mannered low-rent vulgar standards of conduct are now more pervasive and more the norm for the GOP than ever before, seemingly. Not to say that GOP is now an Assholes Only Club, but since mean spirited vulgarity is so common and pervasive these days, there is a clear risk that if they do not clean house and clean up their act, they could very well end up as a Vulgar Assholes Only Party.

Is that likely? Can the party sink that low? Is it that close to hitting rock bottom on the decency scale? As my choice for Republican Asshole of they Year would say, yew betcha!