Bartlett on Gingrich

Bruce Bartlett has a good op-ed in the NY Times on Gingrich's efforts to stupidify congress.  What struck me was the ending line:

It is essential that Congress not cripple what is left of its in-house expertise. Gutting the G.A.O. and abolishing the C.B.O. would be acts of nihilism. Any politician recommending such things is unfit for office.

Acts of nihilism are pretty much all Republicans can manage.  Consider the attempt to default on America's debt, or the intent to revoke health care reform without an alternative solution.  On too many fronts Republican ideas have been proven decisively wrong:  Lassez-faire markets and the wall street debacle, climate change and the increasing frequency of catastrophic weather events, trickle down economics and the most unequal society in living memory, the George W Bush administration...  Rather then acknowledge failure, Republicans resort to wholesale denials of reality and nihilism.  Gingrich isn't exceptional in his need to dumb things down, he is typical of the Republican party.