The Republican Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, was a glimpse into Crazy Town, with a national party gone giddy over the folksy Sarah Palin, who we were told could “field-dress a moose.” The dominant chant of the convention – sometimes led by Palin herself – was “drill, baby, drill.”

As Palin flamed out, her defenders claimed that the “liberal media” was picking on her. On one radio talk show, a caller complained to me that CBS News’ anchor Katie Couric had asked Palin unfairly tough questions. I responded by noting that one of those “tough” questions was what newspapers Palin read, to which Palin couldn’t manage a coherent answer.

In looking toward Campaign 2012, political commentators counted her among Republican top-tier presidential candidates. (So, too, were Sen. John Ensign of Nevada and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford before those moral-values champions admitted to extramarital affairs,)

the idea that the Democrats are the “responsible ones” and the Republicans are the “crazies” is disconcerting for someone like me who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s in a Republican household with Barry Goldwater’s Conscience of a Conservative on my nightstand.

Only over the past three decades has anti-intellectual anti-empiricism transformed the GOP into a modern-day know-nothing party that disdains facts and reason.

the Republicans’ greatest success has been in intimidating Democrats, many of whom are scared away from charting a different course out of fear that they will be targeted by the Right’s potent attack machine.

as Palin’s bizarre resignation statement made clear, the GOP was excited over possibly handing the reins of national power to someone who was clearly unstable and unfit for high office. After eight years of George W. Bush and last year’s nomination of Sarah Palin, the question must now be asked whether the Republican Party in its current form has become a clear and present danger to the security of the United States and to the future of the American Republic.