Rachael Maddow thinks all this health care reform protest stuff is astroturf.  Furthermore, she thinks the GOP is behind it, and is calling out the operatives causing it.  My response to this is simple:  bitter laughter.

We’re talking about the GOP here.  They don’t fight anyone but their own base.  That’s one of the big reasons I left it along with a number of other people.  After all, this is the party of the “new tone” and John McCain.  Their answer to liberalism is to appease and try to be “reasonable” with “their fellow Americans”.

Occasionally, they actually try to do something.  This results in them undermining themselves, as in the case of the Pence energy initiative in 2008 and the Gang of 14 judicial backstab of 2003.  Some few cynical Republicans, who will remain unnamed here, live for the puff press they get when they poke their own party in the eye.  The rest of the time, they’re dropping the ball, so they don’t get much done.

Now given that for the most part, the Republicans are the Useless Craven Milquetoast Inept Other Democrats, I’m supposed to believe that they’re behind the health care protests?  Yes, some organizer here and there might happen to be a member of, donor to, or work for the Republican party, but the party itself isn’t doing it.  The party couldn’t find their backsides with both hands and a GPS, and that’s even if they had the nerve to try.

In all fairness, I will mention that there are a few exceptions to this rule like DeMint, Pence, Inhofe, Cheney, and others that have stepped up to fill the cavernous leadership void in the GOP.  They were showing spines before this mess hit, and they don’t deserve to be lumped into the GOP status quo.  But they are still the exception in the GOP, not the rule.

Until that changes, the assertion that the GOP is behind any sort of resistance whatsover is a joke.  A cruel, bitter joke.