'Hypocrasy' doesn't quite capture it

The Washington Post's Greg Sargent provides an illuminating link to a 2007 National Review interview with South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint--Tea Party booster and ultra-conservative firebrand--in which DeMint praises Mitt Romney's ability to "take some good conservative ideas, like private health insurance, and apply them to the need to have everyone insured.”

As Sergant points out, this attitude lies in stark contrast to DeMint's current attitude. A DeMint aide has leaked to the press "But he [DeMint] would never consider backing Romney again unless he admits that his Massachusetts health care plan was a colossal mistake.”

So how is it that in 2007 DeMint praised RomneyCare, but in 2011 he thinks it was "a colossal mistake?" The answer, of course, is that in the intervening time Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress passed a national health bill closely modeled on Romney's Massachusetts plan.

It is difficult to imagine a more vivid example of how the current Republican party is utterly uninterested in public policy or serving the interests of the electorate. Instead, they formulate positions solely on narrow partisan grounds. If Obama is for it, then they are against it. Period. Full stop. This attitude is appalling, very easy to understand, and disastrous for the country.