Shocked To Discover Gambling At This Establishment, He Says

Over at Salon, ex-Reagan operative and National Review writer Michael Fumento takes a long hard look at the abyss of the right-wing punditry in America and decides "That's it, I'm outta here."

This is nuts! Literally. As in “mass hysteria.” That’s a phenomenon I wrote about for a quarter-century, from the heterosexual AIDS “epidemic” to the swine flu “pandemic” that killed vastly fewer people than seasonal flu, to “runaway Toyotas.” Mass hysteria is when a large segment of society loses touch with reality, or goes bonkers, if you will, on a given issue – like believing that an incredibly mild strain of flu could kill eight times as many Americans as normal seasonal flu. (It killed about a third as many.)

I was always way ahead of the curve. And my exposés primarily appeared in right-wing publications. Back when they were interested in serious research. I also founded a conservative college newspaper, held positions in the Reagan administration and at several conservative think tanks, and published five books that conservatives applauded. I’ve written for umpteen major conservative publications – National Review, the Weekly Standard, the Wall Street Journal and Forbes, among them.

But no longer. That was the old right. The last thing hysteria promoters want is calm, reasoned argument backed by facts. And I’m horrified that these people have co-opted the name “conservative” to scream their messages of hate and anger.

Well, took you long enough.  But welcome to what I've been saying for almost four years now.  We need a better Republican party, because you can't always count on the Democrats to do the right thing.  But the choices in 2012 are between the Democrats and the Insane Party Of Effing Bonkers.  I'll stick with the Dems, thanks.

The Republicans?  Yeah, this house needs to be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up.  They're doing most of the tearing down themselves.  The bad news is they're trying to take the rest of us with them.