As the Republicans flail about in desperation these days, there are a lot of moments that one might call scary-funny-scary. A good example is this startling story from Liberty University, which just banned the campus Democrats. If this had happened in, say, 2003 or 2004, with Republicans in power and ascendant, it would have been seriously chilling. But in the tea-party days of 2009, it seems sort of funny: a purposely provocative attempt to ratchet up the rhetoric against the so-called “socialist” Democrats etc. by people who really don’t run anything in Washington right now.

Then, though, it gets chilling again. I mean, everything tends to come around again, and the current Liberty undergrads will probably get their Washington jobs (like they did in spades under Bush) eventually. This is all political theater to the older right-wingers, but is it to the kids? I.e., all of this purifying that’s going on in the Republican party seems so comically hopeless right now — but what if that purified thing is actually what comes back to power?