A few weeks ago, I asked the rhetorical question–since 911, are Democrats still calling some members of the opposite party “Taliban Republicans,” as Julian Bond did at the NAACP convention last summer?

Question answered. Apparently, according to US News and World Report:

Democratic lawmakers have adopted the language of the antiterror war to mock Republican conservatives, especially Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, House Majority Leader Dick Armey and House Majority Whip Tom DeLay.

Says a prominent Democrat: “They’re the Republican Taliban.”

I wonder how that prominent Democrat would feel if he (or she) and colleagues were called “the Stalinist wing of the Democratic party”? It would be equally odious, and equally accurate.

Brit Hume on Fox News just blasted what happened up on the Hill today. Apparently, the House just decided to close up shop because of the anthrax scare. The irony is that the only place that it’s been found is on the Senate side, and they’re staying in session. Brit appropriately pointed out that for all of the fuss and fury, we have had only one death, and only one serious illness from this, that the situation has been overhyped (e.g., it turns out that all the claims about the Senate attack being “weapons grade” were nonsense), and that if we’re going to react like this to such a relatively trivial concern, what will we do when we really have a major problem?

Right on, and I wish more of the press would be as clear thinking and rational as Brit. Congress is supposed to lead by example. Now, normally, I’m all in favor of Congress shutting down, and recessing early, on general principles, but this sends the entirely wrong message to whoever has been sending out these little love letters–that for a tiny investment in “powdery subtances” (aka powder, even wheat flour) and postage, they can shut down the American government.

Denny, you’re supposed to be a wrestling coach. Get a testosterone injection.