“Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult,”

Wow. Read it, send it to your friends.
(Or send them Andrew Tobias's post with excerpts; it too links back to the original.)

From the article:

"A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this [Republican] obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress’s generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.

A deeply cynical tactic, to be sure, but a psychologically insightful one that plays on the weaknesses both of the voting public and the news media. ..."

Thank you Mike Lofgren.