[Politics]

Kevin Drum on the Rubes.

Once the GOP's very public effort to pass legislation to fence off Mexico had reaped its political fruit, a very private effort to defund that project followed. Kevin Drum has a wonderful quote on this classic bait-and-switch.

The rubes, who party bigwigs hope aren't "minding the details," think they're getting something like the Great Wall of China, but in reality they'll get a few miles of showpiece fortification plus a billion dollars worth of "tactical infrastructure" and "virtual fence."

Political parties play politics. But I have to say that the 20-year dance that Republicans have played with the social conservative wing of the party has been about as cynical as anything in modern history. I'm fine with that, of course, since I'd just as soon see social conservatives confined to their basements churning out angry mimeographed newsletters about the horrors of secular humanism, but it really makes you wonder if they're ever going to catch on. How many times can Lucy pull the football away before they figure out they're being had?

Talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations. But hey, Charlie Brown never did figure it out, did he?