I just keep getting this feeling, with regard to the Republicans, that seldom before has the fate of a proud and free country depended so much on selfless and patriotic statesmen stepping into the breach, yet been so thoroughly let down when the challenge went out.
Churchill immortalized the pilots of the RAF in the Battle of Britain by saying "Never before has so much been owed, by so many, to so few". I always think of that statement now, and how the Republicans are (predictably) proving to be the exact opposite in our own time of great challenge.