I've seen this happen once or twice: a complete meltdown of the Republican Party. It starts as an uphill year looking tougher by the day. It ends like a load of bricks falling on the GOP's head.

There's one word that describes the reason for the rubble that likely will be on the Republicans' heads come Nov. 4 -- arrogance.

The fish rots from the head. And I'm not talking about the well-intentioned John McCain, this year's winner of the "Bob Dole Sacrificial Lamb" award. (Dole was allowed by his major party mates to go quietly into that good night in the 1996 presidential election against Bill Clinton.)

Instead I mean George W. Bush, and more importantly, those who served his administration by cajoling, misleading and betraying him. They transformed him into what came to look like a cocky buffoon. They encouraged a good man to self-destruct.

Now Bush has been abandoned by these hacks. He's left to confront a major monetary crisis and the remnants of a war. They built him up and let the world tear him apart as his own hubris blinded him to the facts of the situation.

Left behind is an amateurish House of Representatives, whose silly minority conference appears not only out of sync with their presidential candidate, but with reality. Get a grip, guys: You may get reelected because no one had the sense to take you on, but you are as out-of-step as the Democrats you fought so hard to replace just 14 years ago.

Then there's the Senate. It would be hard to find a collection of folks more suited for silk slippers and ermine robes. Yes, senators were often prima donnas in my Senate staff years of the 1980s. (Fortunately, my boss wasn't one of them.) And Democrats then could be just as bad. A more bizarre and imperious creature than Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia was impossible to find back then.

Conservatives today are frustrated that America appears ready to elect an untested and liberal newcomer, Barack Obama; and to do it with issues still looming about his past political beliefs and associations.

Voters aren't rejecting conservative values this year. They just don't know what they are. All they know is that they can't stand the inarticulate, pompous bunch that now speaks for and represents the Republican and conservative causes. Continued...