"In short, the Republican base wants to know: Where's all this partisan extremism we were promised? Nothing better exemplifies the world-turned-upside-down madness than the response to the gas 'crisis.' If the GOP was intent on educating the public, it would explain obscure concepts like 'supply' and 'demand' and how this big country called 'Chi-na' has been sopping up more liquefied dinosaurs than usual... Rebates! If there's anything that exemplifies the nanny-state mentality, it's driving up the federal armored car and pitchforking sawbucks out the back. For a moment the nation braced for the Democratic response—if it had been true to form, the rebates would have been twice the size, adjusted for income, paid for with a tax on those chrome fish emblems Christians like to stick on their cars, printed on recycled paper with soy ink and introduced at a press conference featuring a leading liberal strategic theorist like Susan Sarandon, who would use the opportunity to complain that Karl Rove has been giving her movies one star on Amazon.com review sites... Anything but drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, of course. Some GOP senators still balk at that. Look: The only possible reason for a Republican senator not voting to drill the heck out of ANWR is that he has been informed, in secret briefings, that the Earth will split and millions of armed Mole-Men bent on conquest and pillage will spill out. Make that liberal Mole-Men. Conservative Mole-Men could form a new base of support. But no: We can't drill anywhere, because some constituents at a tony fund-raiser might make sad faces about the elk."

—James Lileks