The Economist asks the obvious question: "What's Wrong with America's Right?"

As you can see the cover of the magazine portrays Sarah Palin as a crazed gun wielding Alice, while the Limbaugh inspired March Hare and the the always sobbing Mad Becker bellow beside her. And this tableau plays out in the presence of a sly Fox who carefully peers out from the safety of his teapot. Rupert, is that you?

It is a fairly brilliant illustration which also does not miss the opportunity to take a jab at President Obama by portraying him as a Voodoo doll sitting in a cup of BP brand tea, shows two elephants as riveted spectators, and even has a cup of tea labeled "immigrants out!!"

However in the article the Economist, which currently is no fan of President Obama, finds itself completely amazed at the circular firing squad that symbolizes the Republican party of 2010, which finds itself in such disarray it cannot take advantage of the problems that the Democrats and President Obama are currently facing.

Just take a look at this portion of the article:

The Republicans at the moment are less a party than an ongoing civil war (with, from a centrist point of view, the wrong side usually winning). There is a dwindling band of moderate Republicans who understand that they have to work with the Democrats in the interests of America. There is the old intolerant, gun-toting, immigrant-bashing, mainly southern right which sees any form of co-operation as treachery, even blasphemy. And muddying the whole picture is the tea-party movement, a tax revolt whose activists (some clever, some dotty, all angry) seem to loathe Bush-era free-spending Republicans as much as they hate Democrats. Egged on by a hysterical blogosphere and the ravings of Fox News blowhards, the Republican Party has turned upon itself

And later in the article you run across this delightful paragraph:

Out of power, a party can get away with such negative ambiguity; the business of an opposition is to oppose. The real problem for the political right may well come if it wins in November. Just as the party found after it seized Congress in 1994, voters expect solutions, not just rage. The electorate jumped back into Bill Clinton’s arms in 1996. Business conservatives are scouting desperately for an efficient centrist governor (or perhaps general) to run against Mr Obama in 2012. But tea-party-driven success in the mid-terms could foster the illusion that the Republicans lost the White House because Mr McCain was insufficiently close to their base. That logic is more likely to lead to Palin-Huckabee in 2012 than, say, Petraeus-Daniels.

Santa?  I know it is still kind of early to be filling out my Christmas list, but if you could find it your hear to make sure that Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee would be the GOP ticket in2012 I SWEAR I will not ask for anything else. Deal?