Even Republicans can't be THIS naive....

....can they?

A day after ex-Ku Klux Klansman Robert Byrd forced the full Senate to delay a confirmation vote for the first African-American woman ever nominated as secretary of state, White House chief of staff Andrew Card blasted Senate Democrats for playing "petty politics." According to the Boston Herald, Card said that the insult would not soon be forgotten, warning Democrats that they "are poisoning any hopes for bipartisanship."

The Senate's Democratic leadership quickly fell in line behind the former Klansman's move, angering their Republican colleagues.

"If this is the kind of comity we can expect for the rest of the session, we are not getting off to a good start," Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona told the New York Times. "It is churlish."

Senator John Warner echoed the sentiment, saying, "You want continuity in this country, and this is a senior Cabinet minister. This didn't win them any merit badges."

"Poisoning any hopes for bipartisanship"? "Comity"? "Continuity"? Are these guys kidding? Please, tell me they're joking. Seriously, I want some 'Pubbie to jump out and cry, "April Fool!" The knowledge that this was all just collective leg-pulling of the grassroots, a product of post-Inauguration euphoria, would be immensely reassuring.

Otherwise I will be forced to conclude that these numbskulls will never learn that the Democrats are not their "colleagues," or their "friends on the other side of the aisle," not "honorable" in the slightest, but in fact their blood enemies who will do anything - and apparently that doesn't stop short of violence - to defeat and destroy them.

This is war without bullets, Senator Frist. Forget about "getting along" - go nuclear. Now. It's the only language Harry Reid and his fifth column understand.