A MUST READ – AT 12:10 P.M. ET:  Have you ever noticed how hard Republicans work to lose elections?  Have you noticed that, whenever they score a victory, they rush to ruin the moment?  Some observers already note that the party is doing all that it can to win defeat in next year's presidential contest.

Charles Krauthammer, in a brilliant column, nails it.  It's a warning to Republicans.  From National Review:

Where do Republicans get that special talent for turning gold to dross? They score an electoral “massacre” (The Economist) in 2014 and, a year later, what do they have to show for it other than another threat to shut down the government? Hillary Clinton is caught in e-mail flagrante and Benghazi mendacity and yet, with one Kevin McCarthy gaffe and a singularly ineffective 11-hour Benghazi hearing, Republicans render her sanitized.

And now their latest feat. They win a stunning victory over their perennial nemesis, the mainstream media — a slam-dunk rim-rattling exposure of the media bias they have been complaining about for a half-century — and within a week they so overplayed their hand as to dissipate whatever sympathetic advantage they gained.

The CNBC debate was a gift for the GOP, so unadorned a demonstration of liberal condescension, hostility, and arrogance that the rest of the media — their ideological cover exposed — were forced to denounce and ridicule their ham-handed colleagues. What happened then? Instead of quitting while they were ahead, the Republicans plunged into a week of meetings and statements, whining and complaining, bouncing around a series of demands, including control of the kind of questions that may or may not be asked at future debates.

Who’s the genius who thought up that one?

COMMENT:  Read the whole column.  It's worth it, a fine examination of the GOP's suicidal tendencies.

Hillary won't win the election next year.  The Republicans will lose it if their current amateurism continues.  Republican presidential candidates should be reminded that their opponent is Hillary Clinton, not other Republicans.

There used to be, in the Republican Party, the "Eleventh Commandment."  It read, "Thou shalt not speak ill of other Republicans."  Reagan used to quote it all the time because internecine warfare is an old Republican problem. 

The first caucuses and primaries start in February, only months from now.  I fear the GOP isn't ready. 

November 7, 2015