Cabela's Dangerous RINO Hunts

Steve Benen documents the continuing Hoffman Effect on the GOP.

By most measures, congressional Republicans have spent 2009 executing a scorched-earth strategy. The GOP has moved sharply to the right, has abandoned even the pretense of bipartisan cooperation, has embraced and elevated some of the more radical elements of the party's coalition, and recommended policy proposals that even some conservatives described as "insane."

And yet, there are still some Republican officials who are outraged by their party's moderation.

Conservative Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) on Wednesday called out the leadership of the Republican Party for straying too far from conservative principles.

DeMint, in an interview with the Christian Broadcast Network, also said that he is trying to recruit a new crop of GOP lawmakers to challenge the party establishment.

"The problem in the Republican Party is that the leadership has gone to the left," he said. "I need some new Republicans."

DeMint's comments coincide with Rush Limbaugh lashing out at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for -- I hope you're sitting down -- the lack of obstructionism among Senate Republicans.

Well Steve, nobody likes a loser.  And despite saying saying NO to everything Obama does like a bunch of obstinate three-year-old children, the Republicans are still a bunch of losers who really can't do much.

It's not the incumbent Democrats who are in trouble in 2010 from the Teabaggers, folks.  More and more are turning on each other, because nobody wants to be standing on the leftward edge of the Republican Overton window when the Teabaggers jerk it to the right.

If you thought the Republicans of 2009 were childishly obstructive to the point of brattiness before...meet the coming class of 2011, where Mitch McConnell is thrown under the bus for not saying no enough.