The Crazies Are Now in Charge

I’m not always fond of Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank’s editorializing, but his piece from tomorrow’s edition of the paper is absolutely priceless. It begins:

Future historians tracing the crackup of the Republican Party may well look to May 8, 2010, as an inflection point.

That was the day, as is now well known, that Sen. Robert Bennett, who took the conservative position 84 percent of the time over his career, was deemed not conservative enough by fellow Utah Republicans and booted out of the primary.

Less well known, but equally ominous, is what happened that same day, 2,500 miles east in Maine. There, the state Republican Party chucked its platform--a sensible New England mix of free-market economics and conservation--and adopted a manifesto of insanity: abolishing the Federal Reserve, calling global warming a “myth,” sealing the border, and, as a final plank, fighting “efforts to create a one world government.”

One world government? Do our friends Down East fear an invasion from the Canadian maritime provinces? A Viking flotilla coming from Iceland under cover of volcanic ash?

The full essay can be found here.

READ MORE: “Another Angel Loses Its Wings,” by Steve Benen (The Washington Monthly); “Maine Tea Party: Worse Than You Think,” by Joan Walsh (Salon).