"Mass hysteria!"

In case you've missed it, many on the left have seemingly come unhinged since the re-election of George W. Bush. Maureen Dowd wrote, "We're entering another dark age . . . ." Helen Thomas predicts "a further easing of environmental regulations and a chipping away of workers rights and at health and safety standards in the workplace [and] deeper inroads in the constitutional precept of separation of church and state. During the campaign, he played up his religious fervor and so-called traditional values (translate that as 'no gay marriage'). Not the least worry for liberals is the matter of the Supreme Court, already stacked with conservative appointees." According to Garry Wills, "The moral zealots will, I predict, give some cause for dismay even to nonfundamentalist Republicans. Jihads are scary things."

Lawrence O'Donnell (who came unglued during a pre-election MSNBC appearance opposite John O'Neill, and could not refrain from screaming "Liar! Liar!" at O'Neill -- a review of the transcript confirms that he did not say "pants on fire,"), stated on The McLaughlin Group that "the big problem the country now has, which is going to produce a serious discussion of secession over the next 20 years, is that the segment of the country that pays for the federal government is now being governed by the people who don't pay for the federal government. . . . Ninety percent of the red states are welfare client states of the federal government. They collect more from the federal government than they send in. New York and California, Connecticut, the states that are blue are all the states that are paying for the bulk of everything this government does, from the ward of Social Security to everything else, and the people in those states don't like what this government is doing."

I am reminded by all of this hyperbole of a scene from Ghostbusters, in which the Ghostbusters team is describing the magnitude of their problem to the mayor:

Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, biblical?
Ray: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor. . . real Wrath-of-God-type stuff. Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies.
Venkman: Rivers and seas boiling!
Egon: 40 years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanos.
Winston: The dead rising from the grave!
Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats, living together... mass hysteria!