Today's Daily Schadenfreude: the Republican Party

Oh, I know, I shouldn't pile on the GOP when it's down. I mean, I already cackled my ass off over their misfortune once this week, when it was reported that Ron Paul supporters plan to try a hostile takeover of the Republican National Convention. Besides, there's some especially rich schadenfreude available right now over the epic smackdown of conservative radio gasbag Kevin James (no, not the guy from that shitty Adam Sandler movie) by -- of all people -- Tweety on today's Hardball. (Seriously, if you haven't seen that video, you owe it to yourself to watch it. Scroll forward to the 4:00 mark if you want to skip all of James' initial blather.) But choosing James wouldn't just be redundant ... it would be too easy.

No, instead I'll go back to an old standby and point and laugh at the Republican Party, which is almost literally disintegrating right before our very eyes. The results of the recent special election in a Mississippi district just outside of Memphis, Tenn., where a Democrat took a GOP-held congressional seat, seems to have spurred House Republicans into the sickening realization that they're facing a serious ass-whuppin' in November.

In huddles, closed-door meetings and hastily arranged conference calls, some Republicans demanded the head of their political chief, while others decried their leadership as out of touch with the political catastrophe they face.

GOP leaders sought yesterday to "re-brand" the party with a new slogan and renewed pledges of fiscal rectitude and limited government. But the slogan -- "The Change You Deserve" -- came under mocking fire, because it parallels Democratic presidential front-runner Barack Obama's "Change We Can Believe In" motto and it mirrors the advertising slogan for the antidepressant Effexor.

"What we've got is a deficiency in our message and a loss of confidence in the American people that we will do what we say we're going to do," conceded Rep. Tom Cole (Okla.), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.

[...]

Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican senator in history, has been badly damaged by scandals besetting his family and his party in Alaska, creating an unexpected opportunity for Democrats. Sen. John E. Sununu (N.H.) is defending a seat in a state where Democratic fortunes are on the rise, and other Republican senators -- including Susan Collins (Maine), Norm Coleman (Minn.) and Gordon Smith (Ore.) -- are seeking reelection in states leaning Democratic in a presidential election year. In total, 23 Republican-held Senate seats will be on the ballot this fall compared with 12 for Democrats.

Even Republican strategists were downcast about their prospects for the fall.

"These races were not in New Jersey or New England, where Republican erosion has taken place over the last decade. They were in the heart of the Bible Belt, the social conservative core of our coalition," Rep. Tom Davis (Va.) fretted in a 20-page memorandum given to House Republican leaders yesterday and provided to The Washington Post.

"Members and pundits, waiting for Democrats to fumble the ball so that soft Republicans and Independents will snap back to the GOP, fail to understand the deep seeded antipathy toward the President, the war, gas prices, the economy, foreclosures and, in some areas, the underlying cultural differences that continue to brand our party."

No, Republicans. You cannot run as the party of "change." You own Drunky McStagger. You own Iraq. You own the shitty economy. All of this is in your lap, and nothing you can do or say or spin can change that. And naturally you would choose a slogan that mimics that of an antidepressant. The irony is stunning.

Some of the pundits and GOP apologists/sycophants/fluffers are trying to prop up Huggy Bear, the dessicated, goiter-ridden near-corpse, as their savior and their hope for the future. Funny how they choose a 71-year-old guy as hope for the future, but that's par for the course for a party that is coming apart at the seams. Plus the House Republicans are trying to pass off responsibility for the war on the Democrats. It's not gonna work. I really think that, finally, people are catching on that the Emperor is butt-nekkid and that with the GOP, there's no there there.

It's about fucking time.

So, Republicans, I hope you enjoy stewing in your own juices ... but in the meantime, you once again can enjoy the spoils of victory, DFH-style, as today's Blast Off! Daily Schadenfreude is for you!