Chris Matthews: Why, these Republicans are basically economic terrorists, aren't they?

Via Mediaite. Lest you miss his point, in another segment of today’s show he described the GOP as “the Wahhabis of American government.” Expect lottttts more like this as the debt-ceiling clock ticks down, even though Republicans like Cornyn are already floating the possibility of a short-term deal to avert a crisis. In fact, Richard Cohen will see your terrorist analogy and raise you a death cult:

Someone ought to study the Republican Party. I am not referring to yet another political scientist but to a mental health professional, preferably a specialist in the power of fixations, obsessions and the like. The GOP needs an intervention. It has become a cult…

Not every GOP candidate adheres to all of these cockamamie beliefs. Mitt Romney has not signed the antiabortion pledge (he has some quibbles), and in the Senate, Tom Coburn has broken with Norquist about raising revenue. But the net effect is to establish an intellectual barrier for admittance to the presidential race: Independent thinkers, stop right here! If you believe in global warming, revenue enhancement, stimulus programs, the occasional need for abortion or even the fabulist theories of the late Charles Darwin, then either stay home — or lie.

This intellectual rigidity has produced a GOP presidential field that’s a virtual political Jonestown. The Grand Old Party, so named when it really did evoke America, has so narrowed its base that it has become a political cult. It is a redoubt of certainty over reason and in itself significantly responsible for the government deficit that matters most: leadership. That we can’t borrow from China.

$14 trillion in debt and counting, with Obama having chosen his own electoral viability over a serious entitlement reform package that would obviate the need for future debt-ceiling standoffs, and yet somehow it’s Romney and Pawlenty who are the Jim Joneses in this guy’s universe. Perfect. Exit question: Now that he’s dealing with “terrorists,” does that mean The One can use extrajudicial procedures to take ’em out?