For the GOP, it's dumb & dumber

The Republican National Committee is meeting this week for a "rebranding" session. But the target of their labors isn't the GOP.

No, the bright lights of the conservative movement plan to dub the Democratic Party the "Democrat Socialist Party."

Yeesh.

The future health of the Republican Party is vital to the health of the nation. But so far, the GOP has preferred quack remedies to tough medicine.

Consider some of these recent flights of fancy:

Rep. Pete Sessions from Texas -- a leader of the House GOP -- told the New York Times that President Obama is deliberately sabotaging the economy, hoping to “diminish employment and diminish stock prices” and “to inflict damage and hardship on the free enterprise system, if not to kill it.”

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican from South Carolina, declared that waterboarding might be a worthy tool for American intelligence agents: "One of the reasons these techniques have survived for 500 years is because apparently they work."

In talking about the climate change, Rep. John Boehner -- House minority leader -- told ABC News the following: "Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know, when they do what they do, you've got more carbon dioxide."

Three of the central issues of our time: The economy, national defense, and environment, and Republicans sound like boobs.

But perhaps the worst of it is the name calling. It comes across as churlish and small-minded.

If Republicans want to beat Democrats, they should do it by formulating policies that solve problems and by mounting positive, forward-looking election campaigns.

This kind of kookiness won't do the trick.