the sick party

A Democrat victory this week in a district of Mississippi considered one of the safest GOP strongholds in the country has chilled the spines of Republicans everywhere, who fear a heavy defeat in November's congressional elections. It's also provoked a spate of 'Whither the Republican Party' articles, of which the best is this one by conservative columnist Peggy Noonan, a writer incapable of using a cliché without turning it inside out:

The Republicans? Busy dying. The brightest of them see no immediate light. They're frozen, not like a deer in the headlights but a deer in the darkness, his ears stiff at the sound. Crunch. Twig. Hunting party.

She talks to Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, who states the predicament plainly:

The party, Mr. Davis told me, is "an airplane flying right into a mountain." Analyses of its predicament reflect an "investment in the Bush presidency," but "the public has just moved so far past that." "Our leaders go up to the second floor of the White House and they get a case of White House-itis." Mr. Bush has left the party at a disadvantage in terms of communications: "He can't articulate. The only asset we have now is the big microphone, and he swallowed it."