Today, Senator John McCain -- doddering, cranky and rambling about nonsense, as if he'd barged into a Persian restaurant by mistake and, instead of bothering to notice, he stuck around to yell at the wait staff in Very Slow English about where's m' damn cheeseburger -- exited the Comey hearing as the last survivor of David Brooks'  Imaginary Reasonable Republican Party tontine.

An Imaginary Reasonable Republican Party that, for over a quarter of a century, the sages American punditocracy have continued to insist is perpetually on the verge of restoring the GOP to it's former glory.  

But there is no Reasonable Republican Party lurking just around the corner of the next election. There is only the actual Republican Party  And as Senator Maverick was walked out of the hearing room and into an afternoon packed with pudding cups and Matlock, that is what he left behind.

The actual Republican Party.  A travesty.  A shattered ruin.  A mob of traitors, cowards, madmen and re-programmable bigots and imbeciles.  A multi-billion-dollar criminal syndicate who were so close to finalizing their scheme to plunderfck the United States out of existence that they could taste it.. 

And then they decided, you know, what the hell! As a glorious coup de grâce, why not go all the way and make the standard bearer of the Party of Lincoln a racist con man and notorious sexual predator.  Because as as you know, bellowing "Eff You, Libtards!" as loud as possible is a ritual every bit as sacred to the GOP as gutting Medicaid, smashing NATO and cutting taxes for billionaires.  

Well now, just four months in, the festive orange ascot they picked out to accessorize their sedition has become a stinking albatross around their collective necks.  And the leisurely victory lap they had planned on taking as they shitcanned the United States forever and established the corporate feudal state of their dreams has become a frantic race against time to see of they can gut Medicaid, smash NATO and loot the treasury into the pockets of their patrons before the administration of President Stupid implodes completely, and the party is once again forced to put on stupid hats and pretend collectively that none of them have ever even heard of Donald Trump.