No Longer The School Yard Bully Majority, GOP Lawmakers Fracture, Fume, Fuss, And Fantasize

Let's face it: since last year's November 7th mid-term elections, Republican lawmakers in Washington seem to be in as much of a post hurricane crapfest as the Katrina-struck folks of New Orleans that Congress (Senators as well as House of Reprehensibles) was happy to leave high and not so terribly dry.

No longer are they all drinking the same flavor of Kool-Aid or capable of repeating the exact same words at exactly the same time as their colleagues and their president. In fact, one of their biggest dilemmas is that the American people - by and large - like Bush even less than they "respect" pathetic players such as John Boehner, Dan Burton, Sam Brownback, Arlen ("I have a tipping point and I trip over it a dozen times an hour") Specter, James Senselessburner Sensenbrenner, Peter King, Virgil Goode, Mitch McConnell, and the Coalition of Those So Crazed-at-Castro-and-Cuba-They'd Blow Up The U.S. To Keep Castro from getting an aspirin brigade like Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Ballarts.

From Sunday's The New York Times:

After years of rock-solid party discipline and fealty to President Bush, Congressional Republicans have suddenly fractured in their new role as members of the minority, with some prominently deserting the White House on Iraq and others bolting from their leadership on popular domestic issues.

“We have got a lot of free agents,” said Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, referring to the Republican backlash over the president’s proposal for a troop increase in Iraq.

Facing as much internal party dissension as he has seen since taking office, Mr. Bush invited Republican leaders of the House and Senate to his Camp David retreat this weekend to plot strategy only days after his plan for a troop buildup ran into scorching Republican resistance on Capitol Hill. While Republican unrest about Iraq was the most visible party division, others were starkly reflected in the ease with which House Democrats pushed through initial elements of their 100-hour legislative program with substantial Republican backing.

[...] Leaders of both parties pointed to the president’s poor poll numbers, the unpopularity of the war in Iraq and the pent-up demand for some of the legislative proposals pushed by Democrats as the explanation for the Republican splintering.