And the hits just keep on coming.  I had hardly pushed the “Publish” button on my religion and politics post when Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kansas, Tea Party drone and Koch brothers boy toy) made an appearance on “Morning Joe.”  I’m only guessing, but it seemed to me he was there specifically to validate every negative impression I’ve ever had about the current crop of House Republicans.

I not absolutely certain that Huelskamp is one of the true believers I wrote about in that last post.  I suspect he is because he did spend two years in a seminary before switching to the College of Santa Fe to study social science and education and this morning he happily bragged about his plans never to move an inch to the left in negotiations with the Democrats.  In other words, no compromise.  Not now.  Not ever.  Never!  

On the Budget/Fiscal Whatever-you-want-to-call-it, he stuck to the tired party line that “We don’t have a revenue problem; we have a spending problem.”  Blah, blah, blah.  That’ll carry some weight when he’s more willing to deprive the Air Force of the latest and greatest in fighter planes than he is to withhold hot breakfasts from poor children.

After Huelskamp had had ample opportunity to prove that he will be yet another obstruction to the legislative process, the discussion turned to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings and whether they prove stricter gun laws are warranted.  Unbelievably, he parroted the NRA line that even brining gun restrictions up is “politicizing” the tragedy.  And while I marveled at that, he said repeatedly that “We don’t have a gun problem.”  Like his owners, he fell back on the old tactic of blaming Hollywood, Nintendo and bad parents.

I’d like to invite Rep. Huelskamp to make a special appearance.  I’d like him to join 20 sets of parents from Sandy Hook Elementary to pitch that manure – to see if he has the guts to do it and to see how long it would take for one of these grieving people to wipe the smug little smile off his face.

Tim Geithner once said Huelskamp has an “adolescent perspective” on how the economy works.  Today he showed he has a slightly less-developed understanding of civics.  Let me suggest that the Republican leadership provide their freshmen with a remedial course in democracy so they can begin to grasp the basics of how representative government works.  (Always helpful after one has been elected to office.)

By the time they graduate, they may realize what the rest of us already have:  that their approach is far better suited to a junta than to a government of the people, by the people and for the people.  All of the people.