Yesterday David Brooks said that Republicans are becoming a tad radical these days:

First, there's the Terri Schiavo case....

Being conservative, most Americans believe that decisions should be made at the local level, where people understand the texture of the case....

Then there is Social Security reform....

Americans understand that there is a big problem, but right now most oppose personal accounts invested in the markets...

Then there is the Tom DeLay situation....

...the American people ... don't want leaders whose instinct is always to go out wildly on the attack...

Brooks thinks that maybe the GOP should rally around that nice man who's Speaker of the House but doesn't have any real power:

The public face of the Republican Party these days should be, when he recovers from minor surgery, the House speaker, Denny Hastert. This is a moment for leaders who seem stolid and secure, a moment for tortoises, not hares.

Yeah, sweet, even-tempered "Denny" Hastert.

The guy who questioned whether George Soros gets money from drug cartels.

The guy who implied that John McCain isn't really a Republican and accused him of not understanding sacrifices made by wounded soldiers.

The guy who wants to abolish the IRS and impose a flat tax that might deny mortgage-interest deductions of other needed tax breaks to millions of middle-class Americans.

Yeah, that's the guy Republicans should unite behind. Not some radical.