Here's a fun mainstream opinion for your "Oh for chrissakes" files:The Week magazine says the GOP is intentionally sabotaging the American Economy so shit will be so bad in 2012, even Willow Palin's pot dealer will be a "sane choice" for president. It makes a certain amount of sense, we guess? Just make things so intolerably awful -- 40% unemployment, cannibalism, nuclear war -- and then sit back and reap the benefits!

Here, from the Washington Monthly blogger, is what the Republicans are doing:

You might start with rejecting the advice of economists and oppose any kind of stimulus investments. You'd also want to cut spending and take money out of the economy, while blocking funds to states and municipalities, forcing them to lay off more workers. You'd no doubt want to cut off stimulative unemployment benefits, and identify the single most effective jobs program of the last two years (the TANF Emergency Fund) so you could kill it.

You might then take steps to stop the Federal Reserve from trying to lower the unemployment rate. You'd also no doubt want to create massive economic uncertainty by vowing to gut the national health care system, promising to re-write the rules overseeing the financial industry, vowing re-write business regulations in general, considering a government shutdown, and even weighing the possibly of sending the United States into default.

So, maybe it "helps the Republicans," but maybe also "people are going to be eating the corpses of their neighbors/enemies in the streets by the end of next year," so it's possible this could backfire at the voting booth or whatever, but then again we don't read political blogs often enough to know if this is just the general theme of leftist political blogs these days. [The Week/Political Animal]