THE DRUGS DON'T WORK

It seemed to me last night that Paul Ryan's speech was frighteningly effective, just the sort of thing that gets the faithful all worked up, and also wins over low-info swing voters (Hey, y'know, that guy's right: the problem is we've got too damn much government!). But, of course, I thought Chris Christie hit a home run on Tuesday night, and his speech has been widely reviled as a flop. Today, the Ryan speech isn't garnering the hosannas I expected from the right -- Drudge's headline is muted (Ryan accompanied by a non-red, siren-free, generic-sounding speech quote: "WE DON'T HAVE MUCH TIME"). John Podhoretz is declaring Rand Paul a star, not Paul Ryan. And Paul Ryan isn't trending on Twitter.

I was in pain when I staggered away from the table after the Christie and Ryan all-you-can-eat buffets of red meat. I thought there'd be an equal but opposite reaction on the right.

But it occurs to me that right-wingers hear this kind of non-stop, high-blood-pressure attack-dog rhetoric every single day. They get it 24/7 on Fox. They get it 24/7 on talk radio. The Two Minutes' Hate is on an endless loop. It's been on an endless loop for years and years and years.

So I guess this didn't get their blood pumping because they feel like this all the time. The controlled substance Christie and Ryan dispensed, the one that left me seriously impaired, is, for the right, on a permanent IV drip. They crave it, but they barely respond to it anymore. They need megadose levels, and they're still not getting what they need.