There's also no off switch on "crazy"

Matt Taibbi, who has been right about many things and at least entertaining on the rest, responded to Jim DeMint's resignation with this:

The Tea Party is about purity, and DeMint doesn't want to sully himself with the congress's probably-inevitable decision to raise taxes to avoid this budget collapse. So his highly-symbolic resignation is his wing of the party's Picking-Up-The-Ball-And-Going-Home moment. The message of the DeMint move is simple: We tried to work within the system, but the system turned out to be dirty, so we are leaving the system.

That, of course, would be a-w-e-s-o-m-e. Like Kos, I also think it will not happen. Delusional people don't suddenly because reasonable like any good cult they just believe more than ever. Maybe, just maybe, Jim DeMint is not crazy -- but rather just an opportunist who sees a chance of a seven-figure salary where he doesn't have to suck up to rich douchebags anymore -- because now he'll be the rich douchebag being sucked up to. The rest of Teabaggers will remain crazy, or at least vote that way until their slot opens -- to be replaced by the next aspirant. Unless there's a Red Adair for puke funnels, they'll still be more of them flowing out for a while. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]