Where's Chicken George when you need him?

We know that according to a Village Voice expose, Alex Haley's Roots was a fabricated story, but it was a good story, nonetheless, and the mini-series and book alike had quite an impact on an entire generation.

One particularly memorable scene is when a Reconstruction-era character, Chicken George (nicknamed by his owner prior to the war for his skill at managing the birds in cockfighting rings) is using the skills he learned while fighting in the Union Army to deal with the KKK.

He has a plan, and it is a good one, but the KKK guys figure it out and foil the scheme. Things are looking bleak.

But then Chicken George shows up with unexpected reinforcements from an unexpected direction, and explains to the befuddled and defeated KKK hoodlums that he had learned in the Army that when you have a plan, sometimes the enemy figures it out. "So then, you need another plan," he tells them.

The House Republicans up in Helena had a good plan, but easy success with that plan depended on cooperation from at least a few Democrats.

Getting zero cooperation from Democrats had to be counted on as a possibility (if not a probability) from the very beginning, though. So we assume that the GOP has had a creative secondary plan all along. We're looking forward to seeing what it is.

And no, falling into complaining about a lack of cooperation from the Democrats doesn't count as a plan. Republicans have been pretty good so far about playing it cool and not letting themselves get drawn out into whining competitions. Republicans always lose those in the court of public opinion (we're just not as good at it -- let's face it.)

As we have said before, rhetorical discipline is at a premium right now on the Republican side, and is more important than any specific policy compromises or the outcome of any given procedural skirmish.

And we do hope that Chicken George shows up soon with those reinforcements.