If you'd asked me six months ago what I thought I'd be doing right about now, I would've speculated that long-shot candidate Ned Lamont would've been defeated in the August primary by Joe Lieberman (acknowledging that there was value in the effort and still licking my wounds over the "thanks for fighting the good fight" post I had to write when it was over). And I would've figured by this time I'd be ass-deep blogging about Lincoln "Coathanger" Chafee, because I thought the Rhode Island senate race was a real chance to make somebody pay a price for voting for cloture on Alito and still retaining NARAL's endorsement.

Who knew that Ned would win, NARAL would show new and boundless arrogance by endosing Lieberman even after his Alito cloture vote and his churlish instruction to rape victims to take a "short ride," and lefty bloggers wouldn't have to do shit about Lincoln Chafee because the Club for Growth was doing it all for them.

Now, I never quite got the Club for Growth's logic because to blame Lincoln Chafee for high taxes is like blaming Kobe for the high price of gas. Chafee is about as big a eunuch as exists in the Senate today, and there's some serious denial going on as to what the kleptocrats which wingnuttia ritualistically prostrates itself before are actually busying themselves about in DC (I don't want to burst anybody's bubble here, but that social values stuff might be bullshit).

Anyway, the joke is that the GOP is coming apart at the seams now over the race. Steve Laffey is the wrong-o-sphere's candidate of choice, and now the GOP is marching into Rhode Island with millions to save Chafee's ass. I guess nobody on the right cared about the practicalities of the matter like those of us on the left did -- we didn't launch a challenge in a state where the Republican stood any chance of defeating a Democratic nominee even after a contentious primary. If anyone in the media ever gets over their fixation on us as dirty urchins, maybe they can acknowledge that.

Still, I have to say I respect wingy blogs for standing up to the Republican party for once; usually they just function and another part of the right wing echo-chamber with no message (and no power) of their own, hence much of their irrelevance. And even though Mike Krempasky's post about Liddy Dole smacks of "get back in the kitchen and bake me a pie," and I understand that Dole is in a bind (Laffey would probably get killed by Whitehouse, Chafee is the only Republican who stands a chance,) -- I've actually got to hand it to them for pitching a fit in the situation. They've got their guy, they believe in him, he's being attacked by vicious and aburdly racist ads by the NRSC (go figure) and they're saying "enough."

If that's not enough reason to put your hands together for them, maybe this is. As Kos notes:

Keep in mind what this means: assuming this report by the Hotline is accurate, the NRSC is pulling valuable workers in important battleground states like Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania for a full two weeks.

I'm certain that Dole, Rove, Bush and a host of others are peeing themselves at the thought that they might lose the Senate and Democrats might gain subpoena power because they lost control of the extreme right wing of the party. It's as big a story as the Lamont/Lieberman race, but somehow the media seem not to care, so feel free to poke your favorite wingnut and tell them they really ought to be enraged about this.

We really owe our right wing blog bretheren no less.