Know-Nothing Politics. (Paul Krugman Editorial @NY Times)

And the debate on energy policy has helped me find the words for something I’ve been thinking about for a while. Republicans, once hailed as the “party of ideas,” have become the party of stupid.

Now, I don’t mean that G.O.P. politicians are, on average, any dumber than their Democratic counterparts. And I certainly don’t mean to question the often frightening smarts of Republican political operatives.

What I mean, instead, is that know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise — has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party’s de facto slogan has become: “Real men don’t think things through.”

Krugman does succinctly encapsulate the modern Republican movement. But he forgot one detail: they are also the party of filching, cum-sucking gutter toads like Dick Cheney, whose predilections for the Dirty Sanchez and wilted tossed salads keeps Lynne busy during the weekends.