A FEW BAD APPLES ARE ALWAYS SPOILING IT FOR THE HONORABLE STATESMEN WHO MAKE UP OUR GOVERNMENT

Jennifer Steinhauer on the immigration bill, in today's New York Times:

...Hispanics may have been deeply alienated by the heated rhetoric that wound around the axle of the debate, most of it stemming from a few Republican opponents and the loud echo chamber of talk radio.

Oh, that's typical -- the Times says that everything should have been done in a nice, calm, rational way (because our system is made up of nice, calm, rational people), but, unexpectedly and bafflingly, anger slipped in and "wound around the axle of the debate," the work of "a few" Republicans and some talk radio hosts.

Excuse me -- just who does the Times think runs the modern GOP?

Demagogic radio hosts (and the demagogic elected officials who operate in lockstep with them) are the central force in the Republican Party. Talk radio listeners make up a nationwide Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, threatening Democrats, moderate Republicans, and others who deviate from Correct Thinking. The Bush administration knows this, as do GOP officeholders; usually Bush and the radio crowd are on the same side, stirring up the anger of the talk radio and right-wing cable audience to ensure that the GOP party line is the law of the land (and dissenters are marginalized). This time, however, Bush parted company with the mob -- and the mob punished him.

How long has the GOP been the party of wingnut anger? And when on earth will the Times grasp that fact?