Reasonable Gentleman Syndrome is getting just as dangerous for America as out-and-out freedom-hatred

I really, really have to wonder why some federal legislators bother calling themselves Republicans.

What informs their worldview?  How the hell are they defining conservatism?

I've wondered about this Cathy McMorris Rodgers ever since she gave that milquetoast Pub response to the Most Equal Comrade's SOTU address.  Now she confirms for me, with her pronouncement that the basic framework of Freedom-Hater-care is likely here to stay and that the focus should be on "reforming the exchanges."

Then there's Boehner's address to the Middletown Rotary Club in which he mocked Pub colleagues who are against dealing with immigration policy this year.  He didn't just mention it in passing; he got quite theatrical about it.

Would it be too much to ask him to focus on pressuring the MEC, Eric Holder, Jeh Johnson et al to uniformly enforce current immigration laws?  Hasn't the speaker even glancingly considered the argument -the absolutely correct argument - that amnesty for illegal aliens would swell the rolls of FHer voters and destroy the party in which he is such a prominent figure?


It's almost pointless to bring up John McCain's latest spewing of accommodationist sludge - coming right out for amnesty and expressing a desire to see a law enshrining it named after Ted Kennedy - but it is indeed necessary because it shows just how dangerous a figure he is.

Being a writer, I'm generally curious about what motivates people and how they come by their core philosophies.   I understand the various types of people who embrace leftism fairly well, I think.  And I certainly understand those who stand for three-pillar (free markets, foreign policy based on an accurate understanding of history, Judeo-Christian morality) conservatism - because I'm one of them.

But these people who go through the bother of carving a period out of their lives to vie for the opportunity to ostensibly represent conservatives in government and then behave on the basis of a complete muddle instead of a consistent worldview still baffle me.

Maybe one has to actually be in their position, balancing the inputs from back in the district, the media, colleagues both within their party and across the aisle, and lobbying pressures to fully understand it.

But then why can some go into that milieu and remain true to what they started out claiming to be about?

I don't know if I'll come to a decent understanding of what makes those afflicted with RGS tick, but I know it's a secondary exercise to the main task at hand - defeating them.  That's every bit as important as defeating our self-proclaimed enemies, the Freedom-Haters.