... is electing the same leadership after an embarrassing failure and expecting a different result. Robert Novak explores this weird psychosis that will apparently afflict the Republican House caucus this week, as it prepares to return John Boehner and Roy Blunt to their current leadership positions, now in the minority:

The depleted House Republican caucus, a minority in the next Congress, convenes at 8 a.m. in the Capitol Friday on the brink of committing an act of supreme irrationality. The House members blame their leadership for tasting the bitter dregs of defeat. Yet, the consensus so far is that, in secret ballot, they will re-elect some or all of those leaders.

In private conversation, Republican members of Congress blame Majority Leader John Boehner and Majority Whip Roy Blunt in no small part for their midterm election debacle. Yet, either Boehner, Blunt or both are expected to be returned to their leadership posts Friday. For good reason, the GOP often is called "the stupid party."

Denny Hastert retired from party leadership, ahead of the presumptive Republican posse that would have strung him up -- figuratively speaking, of course. Now Republicans have to wonder whether Denny would have gotten the nod as well, had he campaigned for a specific position. Despite the common wisdom that the GOP threw away its majority in an orgy of federal spending and lobbyist influence, the caucus appears unwilling to part from those ways.

First off, the Republicans are holding this election much too soon. The party needs to digest the loss, the data that resulted from it, and determine how best to recover its majority. Holding a leadership election before that process amounts to putting the cart before the horse. New leadership eliminates the possibility of having that debate in any meaningful fashion. Instead of electing leadership that will support the new, revamped agenda, we will get an agenda that meets the requirements of the new leadership -- two very different propositions.

If they insist on holding these elections so quickly, then Republicans should understand that they have no choice but to jettison their current leadership. Re-electing Boehner, Blunt, and the entire slate will be tantamount to an endorsement of the same failed policies that lost the GOP the midterms. They're not bad people, but they failed to protect the Republican majority. Even worse, they failed to protect the legacy of 1994, and at least stood by while the party gave up reform for naked power grabs, through earmarks and sleazy deals with lobbyists.

Is that the leadership that Republicans will trust to lead them to victory?

A number of bloggers have created a slate of questions for the leadership candidates at The Truth Laid Bear, along with a list of the candidates themselves. These are the questions that the entire caucus should be asking themselves before electing any leadership at all. We'll have to settle for them being asked of the candidates instead, and hopefully we can cure the caucus of this strange, masochistic affliction before the damage becomes permanent.

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