CAN YOU GUESS WHICH PARTY ROBERT NOVAK IS CALLING "THE STUPID PARTY?" GUESS AGAIN

I'm not saying Newt Gingrich got it right when the Repugs won the House in 1994-- he didn't-- but as the NBC and CBS News video clips Crooks and Liars dug up clearly show, he wasn't pussyfooting around when it came to subpoena power and investigations. Of course he was investigating travel agents, stains on a blue dress and some kind of whacky real estate deal, none of which panned out. Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman have some far more serious things to investigate. With Bush's approval rating hovering between a quarter and a third of our fellow citizens-- a new all time low-- "those surveyed said by nearly 2-to-1 that they want Democrats to have more influence than President Bush on the direction of the nation."

I'm not saying New York is typical but last week's results there sure are devastating for the GOP-- and not unlike the results in other Northeast and Midwest states (think New Hampshire and Ohio and Pennsylvania for examples). "Last week’s losses by New York Republicans are finally sinking in: Democrats swept every statewide office for the first time since 1938. Eliot Spitzer amassed a record 69 percent landslide by winning 59 of New York's 62 counties. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton carried all but four. Three House seats changed hands, consigning Republicans to their smallest share of the state's Congressional delegation ever."

And Republican prospects for the long-term are even worse-- with Democrats poised to take the State Senate in 2 years. D'Amato is getting ready to say kaddish over his near-defunct party. One of the few Republicans left in the NY congressional delegation, Peter King, sure to lose his seat in the 2010 redistricting, whined that it was "a rough year to be a Republican" and that "there is no Republican base anymore." They're all in Alabama, Utah and Texas.

So what's the GOP doing in response to this? Well, vicious fighting has commenced between the most radical and extreme fanatics, represented by lunatic right Mike Pence of Indiana and the hard-right (but corruption driven) wing represented by the old DeLay/K Street machine: Blunt and Boehner. Novak is going crazy that Blunt and Boehner will probably be re-elected to their positions. (Hastert is retiring, probably from Congress altogether, but definitely from the leadership.)

In private conversation, Republican members blame Majority Leader John Boehner and Majority Whip Roy Blunt in no small part for their mid-term election debacle. Yet, either Boehner, Blunt or both are expected to be returned to their leadership posts Friday. For good reason, the GOP often is called "the stupid party."

While an unpopular Iraq war and an unpopular George W. Bush were primary causes of last Tuesday's Republican rout, massive public disapproval of the GOP-controlled Congress significantly contributed. While abandoning conservative principles, the spendthrift House has become chained to special corporate interests represented by K Street lobbyists.

As Novak points out, the ultra-rightists (Pence and Shadegg) and the pretty ultra-rights (Blunt and Boehner) have "nearly identical" voting records. "The difference between them was demonstrated last Thursday when Blunt went to the Heritage Foundation to campaign for his retention as whip. He delivered a defense of earmarking. That is the view that led Republicans to earmark a "bridge to nowhere," and hundreds of other projects in competitive districts, hoping it would save them on Election Day. The House has been a place where Rep. Don Young (a notorious Alaska porker) was setting national transportation policy, where the "Cardinals" on the Appropriations Committee established earmarking records, where the pharmaceutical industry had a pipeline to party policy and where even Hastert was making personal profits on an earmark. Maybe that's what Republicans want to retain, even in the minority." Today even the hard right Club For Growth demanded Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis resign.

So is this curtains for the G.O.P.? I wish. But there are forces working in their favor. There is little double that the corruption of Rahm Emanuel and his political machine-- currently moving to take over the Democrat Party with aid from ideological allies in the DLC-- will prove every bit as venal and scandalous as the Republicans have. As Mark Taibbi wrote in a brilliant Rolling Stone essay about GOP corruption last January, "The Democrats, whose innocence in the crimes of the last five years to date corresponds exactly to their lack of opportunities for corruption, may now get a chance at the helm."

The Emanuel/Hoyer battle to undermine Pelosi and insert themselves into power positions within the House leadership is a clear indication of what we can expect in the future. I was fascinated today to watch the media being played by their machine and using two total worthless shills, newly minted "Democrat" Tim Mahoney and Democrat-most-likely-to-defect Heath Shuler as examples of newly elected freshmen. Both were parroting the Emanuel/Hoyer line about how Hoyer is the preferred candidate for Leader over Jack Murtha. No one in the media seems to have thought to go a little further than what was spoon fed to them and maybe ask John Hall, Carol Shea-Porter, Jerry McNerney or other actual Democrats how they see it.