Matt Taibbi: Unhinged Republicans Can't Even Get Their Insults Straight

By Matt Taibbi, RollingStone.com. Posted March 21, 2007.

Republicans ran Congress like a basement cockfighting ring for years, and now they are freaking out at the civility that the Democratic majority is extending them.

I turned on C-Span the other morning, expecting to watch the latest chapter in the purification-by-fire of Alberto Gonzales, and saw an amazing thing. It was so amazing and so hilarious that I coughed hot coffee all over my new laptop. Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Republican of Florida, was howling on the House floor about the lack of "openness" demonstrated by the new Democratic leadership.

"In bill after bill after bill," he shouted, "the minority is closed out!"