Great Charlie Cook Piece On GOP Over-Reach (With Update)

It is titled "Republicans’ Hatred of Obama Blinds Them to Public Disinterest in Scandals," and is definitely worth a look.  Here are the first couple of paragraphs:

Red-faced Republicans, circling and preparing to pounce on a second-term Democratic president they loathe, do not respect, and certainly do not fear. Sound familiar? Perhaps reminiscent of Bill Clinton’s second term, after the Monica Lewinsky story broke? During that time, Republicans became so consumed by their hatred of Clinton and their conviction that this event would bring him down that they convinced themselves the rest of the country was just as outraged by his behavior as they were. By the way, what was Clinton’s lowest Gallup job-approval rating in his second term, throughout the travails of investigations and impeachment? It was 53 percent. The conservative echo machine had worked itself into such a frenzy, the GOP didn’t realize that the outrage was largely confined to the ranks of those who never voted for Clinton anyway.

These days, the country is even more polarized, and the conservative echo chamber is louder than ever before. Many conservatives made it all the way to Election Day last November unaware that their White House nominee was falling short. How could Mitt Romney possibly lose when everyone they knew was voting for him? Except that he did lose, and it wasn’t even a very close race. Five other post-World War II presidential elections had closer outcomes. * * *

I've long argued that the GOP's biggest problem is that they buy into their own bullshit way too much. One conservative writer, several weeks prior to the 2012 Election, actually described the first four years of the Obama Presidency as "a trainwreck of Carter-esque magnitude."

Bill Maher describes this phenomenon as "living in the bubble," and I've witnessed it myself in people I know.  I thought the ass-kicking that the GOP received in the last election might have caused some Republicans to open their eyes a bit, but I guess not. Now we know why they call it "blind hatred."

UPDATE:  Here is the best quote yet on "BenghaziGate," and it comes from a Republican Congressional aide:

“We have got to get past that and figure out what are we going to do going forward.  Some of the accusations, I mean you wouldn’t believe some of this stuff. It’s just — I mean, you’ve got to be on Mars to come up with some of this stuff.”

Hilarious.