“Help: We’re in a living hell and don’t know how to get out,” blares the title of an Esquire exposé on how difficult it can be to hold a seat in Congress. Specifically, how difficult it is to be conservative in Congress – but it’s not what you think. The story summarizes one emotional congressman’s lament: “People in public life should take stuff back more often, apologize more, and correct course more – now that would be making a real statement, maybe even be a breath of fresh air for the public. But he would just be screwing himself, he goes on, because those guys at Heritage Action or Club for Growth or Americans for Prosperity or some other g-dd–n group with an Orwellian name that thrives off of division and exists to create conflict might primary him, drop $3 million on his head, and he would be dead. And the way his district is drawn, you can’t ever be conservative enough. He could get up at one of his town halls and say that the president is a transvestite Muslim from Mars and get a standing ovation. He wants to do the right thing and make a public stand for greater decency and civility in public life. But he can’t.” If only those hillbilly conservative voters would get out of the way, this Republican might be able to “get things done.” As Red State’s Eric Erickson writes, “The article is an admission that members of congress lie to voters who they actually hold in great contempt. They want to go to Washington not to get it out of our lives, but to make it work as they see fit. And they resent like hell the accountability foisted on them by outside groups.” More…