Fever Pitch

Matt Yglesias on the curious phenomenon of Republicans panicking even while getting exactly what they want:

But another issue is simply that this is the recovery conservatives say they want. The balance of economic activity is shifting away from the public sector and toward the private sector. So why is it that we have people running around the country—not just ignorant grassroots folks or talk show entrepreneurs, but billionaire political organizers like David Koch—screaming about incipient socialism?

The answer seems to be that the GOP can't accept things as normally functioning, they must always be at fever pitch.  Along with running around screaming "socialism!" while getting the exact opposite, a good example is terrorism (as well as taxes, it turns out.)  Instead of simply treating terrorism as it should, with carefully orchestrated, quiet inner workings by the many organizations set up to do just so, we have to be at WAR!!!!!  And the war must never end, and it must never be seen as anything less than complete and total war.  Even the victory of victories, ie killing Bin Laden, is used as a reason to be even more frightened and on edge for MORE terrorists attacks.

The GOP simply cannot live with itself unless it's members and anyone else whose attention they can get are convinced the sky is falling, and everyone's about to die.  If they ran Kentucky Fried Chicken, they'd be running around screaming that chickens are taking over the world, and not enough are being battered and deep-fried.