GOP Marching to Beck's Drum

Hendrik Hertzberg uses his valuable real estate in the front of the New Yorker this week to attack what he calls the “heart” and “brain” of the this summer’s town-hall movement: conservative media hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and Michael Savage. Actual Republican Party leaders, Hertzberg says, have become followers of this group. According to Hertzberg, Joe Wilson, the Republican who shouted “You lie!” during Obama’s prime-time address, did the president a favor by showing how futile bipartisanship has become, thanks to the new structure of the opposition party. “A bill that reflects a necessary compromise among Democrats,” he writes, “is bound to be stronger than one that reflects an unnecessary compromise between Democrats and Republicans.”