Holding a Tiger by the Tail

By Zamboni

Yes, it's a tired metaphor, but it is cat-related — and in the case of the Republican Party, it happens to be true.

That's because the teabaggers are giving the GOP establishment another headache: This time, in Alaska. They've thrown their support to Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski's primary challenger, Joe Miller.

The situation couldn't be more obvious to us cats. At some point in early 2009, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Eric Cantor, John Cornyn and other members of the Republican inside-the-Beltway crowd met privately over drinks, and decided not to try to rein in the racist, right-wing extremists who call themselves the Tea Party.

What choice did they have? After all, Mitch, John, et. al. must have been scared to death that if they stepped a foot wrong they could lose the fealty of their crazy, foaming, gun-nut base. Which, since they were already shut out of both the executive and the legislative branches of government, would have left them with next to nothing.

So they decided to let Sarah Palin and Rand Paul — and all those other mental cases running around as Republicans — do and say whatever they wanted, without a peep from Washington. And they're reaping what they've allowed to be sown.

Guys, you miscalculated badly, and we cats PURR.

(IMAGE: "The Jungle Book," of course)