Don't believe the brave talk about the CC's forced reorganization making it "better and stronger" than before. At least one former staffer quoted by Isikoff doesn't: "What we're seeing," said this former Christian Coalition official, "is the internal implosion of the organization."

According to Isikoff, some strategists worried "that if the coalition can't right itself soon, it could go the way of Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority -- the now defunct '80s political powerhouse -- becoming an influence group without influence."

What Isikoff didn't mention is the role that the CC's tenuous finances must have played in its failure to consummate two business deals that would have likely kept it alive well into the next millenium. Granted, both the Bank of Scotland and clothing retailer Laura Ashley's decisions to sever their ties with Robertson were affected by the massive outpouring of negative press in the UK. But five pounds will get you ten that the CC's shaky balance sheet didn't exactly help Robertson's cases with either the BoS or the Ashley clothing empire.

Bottom line (sing it, everybody - to the tune of a song Mr. Pat's favorite 60's group, Simon and Garfunkel!):
Where have you gone, Mr. Robertson? Who'll save Georgie Shrub from the right wing? (Ing Ing Ing!)
What's that you say, Mr. Robertson? Dubya's ass is toast by early Spring!
(Schwing Schwing Schwing! Ka-ching Ing Ing!)

Now for the main course:

Wonder why the GOP full-mooners are even more strident than usual in attacking Hillary Clinton and her Senate run?

Think hard: What do Republicans value over everything else?

You got it: Money.

The GOP's contributors in NY are still tapped out from the expensive disaster known as "Schumer Beats D'Amato" last November. They were hoping to take the Moynihan seat quickly and easily from "nonentity" Nita Lowey, and to do it for less than $5 million.

Instead, Hillary comes in - and suddenly, the New York Republican Party must spend at least $25 million to have any hope of beating her. This isn't even taking into account the fact that they'll be blowing off about $5 million, if not more, in the internecine warfare between the various GOP candidates.

Meanwhile, the Dems already have their candidate picked out without having to go through an expensive nomination and primary fight.

Bear in mind also that the folks who really, really hate Hillary also hate Giuliani and Pataki, and for the same reasons: "too 'liberal'."

They aren't going to be as willing to open their pockets for Rudy or Pataki the way they would for Jesse Helms, if he were running in NY. They may well sit on their pocketbooks right now and on their hands in the general election.

The money problems for the GOP mean that in order to truly fight Hillary, they will basically wind up conceding several Congressional races, both in New York and elsewhere, to the Democrats. These will most likely be those Traitors to the Republican Cause that dared show a glimmering of backbone and intelligence on the impeachment issue this February. DeLay has already put them on notice that they may face GOP opposition for their own seats, in the form of hard-right-wingers sure to win the hearts of minds of the GOP's core voters.

Brilliant move, Tommy: waste money anointing hard-right idiots who are sure to lose to their Demo opponents, rather than let those evil moderate GOPers stay in power! This is one of the things that sometimes makes me wonder if the BugMan is really a Democratic operative with one hell of a deep cover.

Meanwhile, the Democrats have on their side a candidate who will cause wallets long-frozen-shut to snap open. The crossover potential from female soccer moms is tremendous: they can't abide the real right-wingers, and Rudy and George make them barf blood. Plus, Hillary's coattails in NY will be on the order of Reagan's in 1980 nationally: she will help, not hurt, the other Democratic candidates.

And now for dessert:

Example #85,776,305,796,078,850 of the logical disconnects suffered by the Clinton-haters:

What was good enough to prove Clinton's seduction by Adventuress-in-Training (j.g.) Lewinsky -- most notably, that the DNA on the little blue dress matched that of the DNA samples held by Bill's doctors, the DNA Starr used to nail Big Bad Bill -- somehow isn't good enough to prove that he didn't impregnate a hooker about fifteen years back.

This little twisted-pretzel of a concept has been all over the usual right-wing outlets for the past week or so. One of the Kix-box-decoder crowd even tore himself away from Rush long enough to write a nicely self-contradictory letter to Salon about it.

If anyone needs any more evidence for the final degeneration of the rabid racist religious right, look no further.