Richard Shelby, Peter Diamond's nemesis, loses a big one

IT ISN'T THAT difficult to pick apart the medieval thought processes of the Republican political class in this awful campaign season. But the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has offered a fat pitch for the GOP's critics to hit out of the park. The Academy awarded Peter Diamond, an MIT economist, a share of the Nobel Prize for Economics - yes, the same Peter Diamond that Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama and his GOP colleagues have stonewalled since President Obama nominated him for a seat on the Federal Reserve Board. In his Deep South Claghorn wisdom, Shelby has argued that Diamond isn't qualified for the seat. Right. And Shelby has countered that while the prize is "significant" the Academy has no right to determine who should be on our Federal Reserve Board. Huh? What's worrisome about all of this is the forecast increase in GOP power in Congress. You ain't seen nuthin' yet. Like the ancient Vikings' boats, the brains of Republicans like Shelby have a shallow draught, which made the predatory Norsemen's seafarers all the more dangerous.

McCain can't - or won't - get it right

SHALL WE HAVE a moment of silence for John McCain, who is exhibiting troubling signs of erratic mental behavior in his frequent appearances on Fox News and in the Senate? McCain's latest lapse into the unknown occurred in an interview with Greta Van Susteren in which he again complained that the Christmas bomber had purchased a one-way ticket to Detroit without raising security concerns. He said the same thing at an earlier Senate committee hearing. When he was corrected on that point by a counterterrorism official who said it was a round-trip ticket, he berated the witness, questioning whether he was trying to defend the terrorist. Beset by bitterness and the wear and tear of a long political career and his captivity as a POW, McCain cannot rise to a minimum level of credibility these days. There is,however, a darkly humorous side to the story: A McCain aide explained away his lapses by saying he is focussed on "bigger things". That calls for TWO moments of silence.

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A salute to the two University of Akron scientists whose research contributed to a study reporting that some dinosaurs had feathers and stripes. The credits go to assistant biology professor Dr. Matthew Shawkey and postdoctoral fellow Dr. Liliana D'Alba. Lamentably, some dinosaurs without stripes and feathers were left out of the evolutionary process and wound up in the U.S. Senate.

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Speaking of dinosaurs, I must turn to Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby who has placed a "blanket hold" on more than 70 Obama Administration appointees until the Pentagon acts quickly on awarding his state a particular military contract. Some will say that Shelby is merely doing his job for his state; I would say he has again defined "political chutzpah." Welcome to the make-believe world of national unity.

D Light is not a beer label.

AHEM.   THE ANGER on the daffy side of the Republican spectrum is leading me through a maze of newly-coined terms to refer to those Republicans deemed to be soft-headed about political moderation.  It wasn't that long ago that Michelle Malkin, an entry-level political theorist on the right, was hyperventilating with a special label for Republicans who might  agree with President Obama on such squishy matters about whether the earth orbits the sun, or whether a week was actually divided into seven days.  Ms. Malkin  referred to such impure conservatives as Bend Over Republicans.  One should not rush into the obvious  connotations.   

Now comes a fellow named George T. Bush, the son of Jeb Bush  - get used to it, folks, there's no end to the Bush family's domestic livestock  - who is threatening Florida's popular Republican  Gov. Charlie Crist for supporting Obama's stimulus package.   George T. hisses that Crist is D Light.   Although it hints at the code name for some  CIA operation, it means nothing more sinister than Democrat Light.  Such playful  trivia  might be useful for a contestant on Jeopardy,  but for a political faction still in the dark backwash of the November election it will have to be far more creative to salvage what little remains of their ideological boomerangs. 

There are an increasing number of apologies shaking out of the GOP's dirges these days.  Sen. Jim Bunning, of Kentucky, recanted his prediction that Justice Ruth Bader Ginzberg would be dead of pancreatic cancer in nine months.  How gross!   Earlier Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama joined the small chorus of Obama detractors by saying that Obama was an alien and serving illegally.     One of Shelby's aides later said, gosh, the senator was only jesting.  Right.  

Unfortunately, the loyal opposition, usually welcome in the two-party system, has troubled itself into a silly cadre of playground bullies with little to show for their huffs and puffs.  They have become more tiresome than terrifying.