Ah-ha. Gotcha’. Republicans in Congress eager to show the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups are now gleefully reporting they have been handed a selection of emails written by Lois Lerner, in which the former IRS officer refers to some members of the Republican Party as “wackos,” “crazies” and “assholes.”

Republican Dave Camp of Michigan says this demonstrates Lerner’s “deep animus toward conservatives.” Apart from the surprise at finding a Republican who knows the meaning of “animus” — Michele Bachman no doubt thinks it has something to do either with animals or enemas — Rep. Camp’s assertion brings evokes a reply of so-what?

Whether Ms. Lerner has an animus or not, she’s hardly off base in referring to a large number of Republicans in those terms. Really. How else can you seriously characterize people like the witless Bachman and Sarah Palin, with her constant cries of ‘impeach him.”? What else would you call Republicans like Ted Yoho and his suggestion that only property owners in this country be allowed to vote? Or Ted Cruz, who shut down the government and cost this nation hundreds of millions of dollars for his own selfish wants? Or Louis Gohmert, perhaps the most amoeba-like congressman currently holding elective office? Or the brain-addled Glenn Beck or drug-addled Rush Limbaugh, among the densest of the conservative commentators?

Seriously, what else can you conclude when you look at that group, and so many others in and out of the Congress who cling to the Tea Party branch? They are indeed wackos and crazies, and the worst of them are assholes. And while Speaker John Boehner doesn’t qualify — he’s merely a wasted opportunist — he’s behind the wacko, crazed effort to sue President Obama for not properly implementing Obamacare, a program Boehner and his Republicans have wasted a vast amount of time and money trying to repeal. Does that make any sort of sense?

Now, yes, I know name-calling doesn’t advance the political agenda, nor does it help us move toward nonpartisanship in government. But frankly, there’s little hint that many Republicans in Congress — and unfortunately, some Democrats — really want any sort of nonpartisan role. The result is a Congress that has done nothing, making for this to be perhaps the worst session in memory, and which continues to applaud a stance that abhors the very nature of government.

For that they deserve the label of assholes. Now let’s move forward.