A ringmaster may have emerged to tame the party loons

When the circus animals take over the circus, it is time for someone to brave the threats of being trampled and move to bring some order to the goings-on. There is only one marching order: Get them back in their cages.

It has happened.

Former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough has finally done what someone on the conservative right should have done long ago. Scarborough, who now hosts a show on MSNBC, has said publicly that Glenn Beck is bad for the conservative cause because of his wild, unsubstantiated commentaries and his ongoing appeals to manic paranoia.

Scarborough has gotten loud with his attempted marching orders by saying that anyone interested in running for President the next time around should plant their flag on the small hill of rationality that seems virtually impossible for most Republicans to find.

When calling out Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich on the issue, Scarborough also might have called out Michael Steele. He probably felt that would do no good after seeing some of Steele's embarrassing genuflections to similar nonsense. After all, the first black chairman of the Republican National Committee shuffled into place and did an apologetic buck dance in the wake of referring to Rush Limbaugh as an entertainer and being rebuked over the air waves by dittohead commander in chief.

The reason is not that they agree with Beck, or find him no more than the circus clown that he calls himself. It is for a reason that we all have seen far too often in American politics whenever an irresponsible person with incendiary rhetoric arrives and develops a big following, or seems to have developed one.

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