No...the deck chair really belongs over here.

What the hell is wrong with these morons? The House -- faced with an ongoing quagmire in Iraq, an unresolved and ill-defined war/peacekeeping mission/rearguard action in Afghanistan, a healthcare crisis, a retirement crisis, a record deficit -- decides it's time to get tough and work on a flag desecration amendment.

Do they understand they are coming even closer to proving Tom Frank right? Probably not, since none of these half-evolved slime trogs (warning: offensive content) seem to have much in the way of analytical abilities. Or, more upsettingly, they understand their audience and Tom Frank is right AND they know their audience doesn't read Tom Frank.

For those unfamiliar with Frank's thesis in What's the Matter with Kansas?, Frank argues that the Republicans have successfully redefined elitism from a economic-based analysis to a cultural analysis: for instance, while old-style Populism championed the small farmers and labor against the giant corporations and financial institutions ("Mankind shall not be crucified on a cross of gold" etc), the new cultural conservative populism sees the elites not as the bankers and multinational corporations who control the economy, but rather the elite are the Volvo driving "latte liberals" who denigrate "real people" who believe in God, watch NASCAR, and eat meat.

It's pretty sad, but as the working poor and shrinking middle class vote for these unrealized and often unrealizable cultural goals, they vote for their own very often realized economic annihilation. As an example, Frank points out that cultural conservatives have railed for decades about the debauchery coming out of the television and movie theaters, yet all their lofty minded smutsmacking representatives have failed to do anything about this sin -- in fact, television and movies are more permissive now than when the decency crusades began.

It's an oft-told story: When asked, "What sort of government have you given us?" Ben Franklin replied, "A Republic, if you can keep it." I wonder how we're doing.