Comment: What if the disintegration of the right-wing sleaze machine were finally begun, not by us lefties but by Congressional Republicans?

They’re politicians who, at least in theory, must answer to local voters more than to the Executive Branch, the neocon scheme-hatchers, the national lobbyists, or Bill O’Reilly.

It’s easy for me (perhaps less easy for you) to visualize a groundswell, starting small but steadily increasing in both numbers and passion. This groundswell would be of elected officials at every level of government backing out from the national GOP establishment’s unceasing march into corruption, graft, and brutal authoritarianism. I’m taking about politicians who might still, somewhere in the backs of their minds, hold a nostalgic longing for such former conservative ideals as “getting the government off our backs” and “strengthening the economy.” Politicians who get that what’s best for the oil and drug companies might not be what’s best for business as a whole.

I’m old enough to remember a time when sane Republicans roamed the earth, both locally (Dan Evans, Tom McCall) and nationally (Gerald Ford, Dwight Eisenhower). Could this species come back from the brink of extinction?