GOP got liberal gift horse but looked it in the mouth

Where do Republicans get that special talent for turning gold to dross? They score an electoral “massacre” in 2014 and, a year later, what do they have to show for it other than another threat to shut down the government? Hillary Clinton is caught in email flagrante and Benghazi mendacity and yet, with one Kevin McCarthy gaffe and an ineffective 11-hour Benghazi hearing, Republicans render her sanitized.

And now their latest feat. They win a stunning victory over their perennial nemesis, the mainstream media, and within a week they so overplayed their hand as to dissipate whatever sympathetic advantage they gained.

The CNBC debate was a gift for the GOP, so unadorned a demonstration of liberal condescension, hostility and arrogance that the rest of the media — their ideological cover exposed — were forced to denounce their ham-handed colleagues. What happened then? Instead of quitting while they were ahead, the Republicans plunged into a week of meetings and statements, whining and complaining, bouncing around a series of demands, including control of the kind of questions that may or may not be asked at future debates.

Who’s the genius who thought up that one? First, it instantly allowed the liberal media to turn the tables and play defenders of journalistic independence against GOP bullies.

Second, it made the Republicans look small. To paraphrase Chris Christie’s “fantasy football” moment, the economy is in the tank, Russia is on the move, the Islamic State is on the attack — and the candidates are debating the room temperature for a debate?

Third, this continues the season-long GOP diversion from what should be its real target — the wreckage wrought by seven years of Barack Obama. The greatest irony of this campaign is that Clinton and Bernie Sanders are the ones making the case that the economy is stagnant, inequality growing and the middle class falling behind, exactly the case Republicans should have been making all year. Instead, they’ve wasted months trading schoolboy taunts.

Now another distraction: debate structure. The party is demanding there be no repetition of the CNBC debate. Why? That debate was the best thing to happen to the GOP since Michael Dukakis.

John Harwood’s obnoxiousness and Becky Quick’s incompetence earned most of the opprobrium heaped on the moderators. But it was Carl Quintanilla who demonstrated just how unmoored liberal delusions about conservatives have become. He asked Ben Carson how, as an opponent of gay marriage, he could remain on the board of a company that is known for its generous treatment of gay employees. Quintanilla seemed unable to fathom that one can oppose the most radical change in the structure of marriage in human history without wanting to see gay people denied decent treatment by their employers.

Ted Cruz has suggested that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Mark Levin moderate Republican debates. Good idea, wrong target. Limbaugh & Co. should moderate the Democratic debates. What a splendid blood-soaked spectacle that would be.

As for the GOP? Bring on the liberals. The Republicans should demand the return of Harwood, Quick and Quintanilla, until the end of time.