I view the local activities by the RRR as part of a continuum rather than an isolated anomaly. They've gotten a taste of success in local politics and want to scale up to the national level, and Republican politicians are more than happy to exploit that desire for their own gain.

Or -- now that you make me think yet again -- the recent spate of ID 'incidents' may well result from the heady times of Dubya's first administration. Not drectly, but by way of encouragement, since (as you say) the ones they'd just elected on the face of those promises were still paying lip service. So they got gutsy and ran for local office themselves, in venues known to be overwhelmingly knee-jerk Republican (Kansas; Texas; Dover, PA; etc.)

My real problem with it is: the lingering educational effects on the kids in school now. Dover, as we all know, made law -- not through "judicial activism" (which always means a decision you don't agree with), but judicial rectitude. But the precedent is narrowly focused. Texas... the re-Enlightenment hasn't reached this far yet. Soon, I think, but I haven't lived here long enough to judge the reaction time. And there's a few thousand kids in this state who deserve a full education, like the one we all got. We can hope that the mills of curriculum review grind slow enough for another election to intervene, as they did to save Kansas.

Change is in the wind... which means the IDiots may go away soon. For a while. They never go away completely.