Robert Draper has a long piece...

...in the New York Times Magazine this week, "Can the Republicans Be Saved From Obsolescence?" It's a good read, and on page five you can find this paragraph:

“And we can’t be afraid to call out Rush Limbaugh,” said Goodwin’s fiancée, S. E. Cupp, a New York Daily News columnist and a co-host of”The Cycle”on MSNBC. “If we can get three Republicans on three different networks saying, ‘What Rush Limbaugh said is crazy and stupid and dangerous,’ maybe that’ll give other Republicans cover” to denounce the talk-show host as well. 

And I had a bit of an Ah-hah! experience. I had been thinking the same thing as Ms. Cupp for a while now: What the Republicans needed was a Sister Souljah moment.

But I may have been wrong.

Rush Limbaugh and his ilk say the things they say because that's what the GOP base wants to hear. They don't shape opinion; they reflect it. And to contradict them is to contradict the party faithful (which is, of course, electoral suicide).

So until this present generation of Republicans passes from the earth, there's just not a lot anyone can do to change the GOP. I'm afraid they're destined to be the out-party for some time to come.