Well Now Here's Your Problem

Time's Mark Halperin keeps searching the Republican party for a shred of decency when the Republican party will do whatever it takes to win (emphasis mine)

Say what you will about the wisdom of Obama's policies overall, but his belated commentary on religious freedoms clearly was not done for political gain. Quite the contrary. the President knew that he and his party would almost certainly pay a political price for taking a stand, especially this close to the election, and with few prominent leaders, other than New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, on the White House's side. The reaction since the President spoke has been vitriolic and unvarying from leading voices on the right, painting Obama as weak, naive, out of touch and obtuse (not to mention flip-flopping, after his confusing follow-up comments Saturday suggested to some that he might be hedging his position).

Yes, Republicans, you can take advantage of this heated circumstance, backed by the families of the 9/11 victims, in their most emotional return to the public stage since 2001.

But please don't do it. There are a handful of good reasons to oppose allowing the Islamic center to be built so close to Ground Zero, particularly the family opposition and the availability of other, less raw locations. But what is happening now — the misinformation about the center and its supporters; the open declarations of war on Islam on talk radio, the Internet and other forums; the painful divisions propelled by all the overheated rhetoric — is not worth whatever political gain your party might achieve.

It isn't clear how the battle over the proposed center should or will end. But two things are profoundly clear: Republicans have a strong chance to win the midterm elections without picking a fight over President Obama's measured words. And a national political fight conducted on the terms we have seen in the past few days will lead to a chain reaction at home and abroad that will have one winner — the very extreme and violent jihadists we all can claim as our true enemy.

Somewhere, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and Ed Gillespie are laughing their asses off at this despite the fact that Halperin is completely correct and makes a laudable effort here to tamp down the insanity.

To which I have to respond to Mark by saying "Have you been paying attention to the two decades even one iota?"  At what point has the Republican party refrained from playing as dirty as possible in order to destroy utterly a Democratic politician and Obama in particular?

It's like handing a pyromaniac a flamethrower and a lighter and a note saying "now play nice" -- written on flashpaper.  I don't know if Halperin's trying to be all noble centrist here or if he's just a little woozy from some sort of recent concussion, but the odds of the GOP going full-bore anti-Islam between now and November is as close to a sure bet in the history of American politics as it gets.

Then again if you know something's a sure bet in politics, might as well try to score points off of it.  Looks like Halperin's pretty comfortable betting on the blackjack table when there's nothing but aces and face cards left in the shuffle.