Other than 9/11, Iraq, and Anthrax, Mrs. Lincoln, how'd you like the play?

Considering how highly we thought of Dick Cheney when George Bush first chose him - and I don't mean we that we liked him, I mean that we feared him - man he's turned out to be incredibly dumb. It seems that Cheney and Limbaugh are now vying for the title of "Most Likely to Destroy the Party by Not Shutting Up." Dick Cheney, unable to pull himself away for a TV camera, appeared on TV again, today, to boast about how wonderfully the Bush administration handled national security over the past eight years.

What I think we're seeing here is evidence of a total power vacuum in the Republican party. Not only is there no one to stand up and be the party leader on TV, so people like Cheney and Limbaugh won't get all the (negative) attention, but there's no leader of the party to tell Cheney and Limbaugh to shut up already. Can you imagine Michael "Barbi" Steele telling Cheney and Limbaugh to back off? How many seconds before he'd have to apologize again? At some point, someone will likely rise to the top and take charge again, but so far it's not looking like anyone with a scintilla of moderation. And that only means that the mean, nasty, intolerant party of NO is here to stay, for at least a while longer.