After exchanges with both Thom Mann and Norm Ornstein, it is apparent that they drink from the well at the Washington Post (which published their manifesto) where “journalists” secretly pee. They argue that their “analysis is “objective” and, in their own words:

We are not about defending Democrats from their own excesses, but there is, we believe, a big difference in degree and kind here. (Norm)

[Criticism of our “work” is] part of the ideological wars that we choose not to participate in. (Thom)

So, Republican leaders failed to admonish a rank-and-file member for hyperbolic language against the other party which causes them anxiety; but the leaders themselves of the Democrat party can claim Republicans are guilty of trying to poison America’s drinking water and assault its women and children, which is copacetic.  Both claim to have not dismissed “half the country,” yet neither is able to answer direct questions: Why are Republicans leading, for the first time ever at this stage of the process in generic House party preference polling, and, how can Mitt Romney can be tied with the President after being brutalized by the primary battles which were distinguished by low voter participation.

The lesson here: If you need a beer go to the Post Pub, not the Washington Post.

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Thomas E. Mann of the left-leaning Brookings Institute and Norman J. Ornstein of the center-left American Enterprise Institute, were once respected voices able to dissect political discourse in Washington and bring reason to vigorous debate.  They are now out of the closet.  No, no, no, not that closet!  Rather, they have thrown in with the far-left, apparently unaware that half of America doesn’t learn its politics from Bill Maher and “Special Ed” Schultz.  Mann and Ornstein are flogging a new book and adapted an essay, Let’s just say it, published in the Washington Post. If the essay is representative of the book, even loony-left “progressives” won’t bother to read it.

While they gleefully filet Congressman Allen West (R. Fla.) for his hyperbolic charge that there are “78 to 81” members of the Communist Party in the Democrat caucus, they are silent about, and apparently in concert with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D. Nev.) preposterous charge that Republican’s want to “put things like arsenic and mercury in the water.”  Mind you the diminutive senator did not suggest that Republicans wanted only to delay strict new rules that would damage a fragile economy without producing measurable health improvements; he argued that they want to poison Americans, including themselves!

The authors are apparently also content with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D. Cal.) alleging that because Republicans believe that some $6 billion in student loan interest “forgiveness” should be “paid for,” they have launched an “assault on women’s health.”

But, for Mann and Ornstein, the charge that Democrats in Congress members of the Communist Party is an outrage.  True, Colonel West didn’t reproduce their membership cards, he was using colorful rhetoric to characterize his opponents, But, only when a Republican employs that forensic technique is “right out of the McCarthyite playbook.”

They are offended that Republican Leadership didn’t condemn Colonel West for allegedly smearing honorable Democrats.  But, hypocritically one only hears crickets while waiting for condemnation of Democrat Leadership’s assault on sanity.

Very simply, in Messrs.  Mann’s and Ornstein’s ideal America, any opposition to unlimited government, unlimited taxation, unlimited intrusion into private lives, unlimited debt, and unlimited debate is . . . limited.