DEAR POLITICAL INSIDERS: IT'S TIME FOR AN INTERVENTION

Hey, political insiders of the center and right: I don't want to go all David Brooks on you, but I just want to say that you probably think you would certainly intervene if a political party whose best interests you had at heart showed clear and convincing signs of having lost touch with reality, just the way you're sure you'd intervene if you saw Jerry Sandusky with that kid in the shower. Well, the fact is that you didn't intervene when the Republican Party nominated Carl Palladino and Christine O'Donnell and Sharron Angle. You didn't intervene when people like Glenn Beck and Pamela Geller became important, influential voices in the GOP. You didn't intervene when an unqualified know-nothing named Herman Cain became the GOP's favorite presidential candidate -- and, before that, you didn't intervene when that slot was held by an unqualified, conspiracy-minded know-nothing blowhard named Donald Trump.

Well, now you have another chance to show some tough love:

Trump to Moderate Republican Debate

It's officially a reality television Republican primary now.

Donald Trump is pairing up with Newsmax, the conservative magazine and news Web site, to moderate a presidential debate in Des Moines on Dec. 27....

Politicians, pundits, journalists, you can tell yourselves that the party will sober up any day now and send a Mitt Romney/Mitch Daniels ticket out to battle Obama/Biden, while sending the teabaggers and birthers and Tenthers and climate-change deniers and other lunatics back to the fringe where they came from. But if that's what you believe, it's just denial on your part. If it wasn't obvious before, it's obvious now -- you have to stop treating the GOP as a serious political party that's still competent to participate in the governing of a great nation. You have to recognize that this is a party that's gone completely off the rails -- if it's not Jerry Sandusky, it's certainly the Charlie Sheen of political parties. It has to be dealt with before it does more harm to itself and to others.

If you're a current or former elected or appointed Republican official, quit the party now. If you're a journalist, acknowledge in every story you write about the GOP that the party has lost touch with reality and is in desperate need of help.

Stop being enablers. Intervene now.