Ah yes, the rose-tinted good old days.

I've been paying fairly close attention to what Congress has been doing for nearly 20 years now. Never, in that entire time, did I see the Republicans in the Senate meet even the minimum standards of conduct that the Senate's playbook demands.

They have operated disgracefully and dishonorably that entire time.

They were always dishonest negotiators, always obstructionists, always the instigators of false crises like shutdowns and debt ceilings, always the first to violate the rules of comity and, on the occasions when they were in control, always first to refuse to hear out minority dissent.

Snowe has consistently tried to give herself a pass by tacking moderate in election seasons, but her voting record clearly shows that she facilitated all of the dirty pool the Republican Party played, year after year, for the entirety of the time I have watched.

What we are seeing here is the Dr. Frankenstein moment of clarity, the moment when the old guard of dishonorable Republican Senators realize that their own machinations have created this monster, and now they are seeking to shackle it down. But it is their own behavior that brought them to this moment and it is far, far too late to contain the monster. All they can do is distance themselves in a desperate attempt to protect their own tarnished legacies.