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Last night Rachel Maddow, whose ratings are excellent these days, by the way, began a rather epic segment devoted to the breakdown of the Republican party and the internal turmoil in the conservative movement in general after recent reports of intra-party squabbling: "a huge internal fight including screaming matches in their own caucus... they're just turning off the light and abandoning what they're doing and nobody really knows why."

According to Maddow, the recent meltdown all began with the rise and then defection of wannabe kingmaker Jim DeMint and has proceeded right up to the edge of today's disastrous fiscal cliff moment. As Maddow says, "the conservative movement is the dog and the Republican Party is the tail." And "they are a complete mess." For years liberals have idealized the lockstep ways of our opponents, she noted, but the tables seem to have turned.

"This is like being wheeled in for heart surgery and waking up and finding that it's actually Edward Scissorhands," said Maddow, of the potential pain caused by the GOP's fiscal intrasigence.