Making Palin an inviting target for partisan attacks certainly fits with my speculation that the GOP hatchetmen are playing a deeper game than it seems on the surface.

I think that if the GOP can't avert a loss this November, and fails to lay the groundwork for scapegoating, the consequences will be more severe than sitting on the sidelines for a generation. The likely consequence is the demise of the GOP itself.

It's not so unthinkable. Political parties are born, grow, thrive, decline, and die. None lasts forever. Members of the GOP's uneasy coalition won't go away, and by now many have realized that there's no juice in the GOP pitch that "only we can save you". They'll go their own ways, once-marginalized factions like Libertarians may thrive, and new parties will be formed, probably several small ones for a few years, before the Conservative side recoalesces behind one major party. The collapse of the Soviet Union was a boon for all of its individual parts, and the same dynamic will apply to the collapse of the GOP. Former Republicans won't greet Democrats as liberators, but the collapse of the GOP will certainly be a liberating event for everyone who once pledged allegiance to its banner.

I'm counting on the eventual reconstitution of a more principled Conservative side. When Republicans were diddling themselves to rapture over the thought of a "permanent Republican majority", I denounced the idea as profoundly unAmerican, and compared it to history's dreary record of other one-party states. American won't survive one-Party rule, whether by Republicans or Democrats. Our system is a catamaran, designed to be stable with both pontoons in the water. Remove one, for too long, and we'll capsize.

We live in interesting times, but I hope not forever.