This Is What It Sounds Like/ When Pacyderms Cry

The New Republic's Eve Fairbanks has a funny Friday piece about Republicans getting power pried out of their mitts last week. If you doubted that the party of Reagan had gone pathetically native:

On the floor on Friday, [Ways and Means Chairman Bill] Thomas succumbed fully to the Republican mood of anguished drama, noting darkly that some Republicans "have left willingly, some unwillingly" and weirdly suggesting that Maryland's Ben Cardin, leaving the House for the Senate, might be humming "free at last." At the end of his speech, he burst into tears and proclaimed, "Mister Speaker, I relinquish my time, forever!"

There's more like that, including this greatness: "On the first floor of Rayburn, someone has torn the Capitol office directory down from the wall and ripped it into pieces. Viciously scribbled arrows point toward Mark Foley's name."