Republicans Are Really Serious About Knocking Off Jim Bunning

Unlike some people, we're not totally delusional. Just because we report something in this space does not mean we believe everyone reading will accept it as fact.

So we can understand if some of you were skeptical last week when we reported that the Republican Party would field a primary challenger for Sen. Jim Bunning (RHP-KY), who then threatened to sue the party or resign his seat altogether.

But now the New York Times is on the case, and they've reached a similar conclusion...

While the Democrats are preoccupied with Senator Roland W. Burris and his ties to a tainted Illinois governor, the Republicans are trying to rid themselves of Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky, the former baseball star who clearly has little use for some colleagues and party leaders, and who keeps exhibiting what one senator calls "behavior issues."

Key Republicans are gently (or not gently enough) trying to dissuade Mr. Bunning from seeking re-election in 2010 out of concern that his paltry fund-raising, declining approval ratings and irascible conduct have made him something between vulnerable and unelectable.

Bunning's enemies in politics are numerous, but prominent ones include:

* Sen. John Cornyn, the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, who intends to intimidate Bunning by making a hilariously awful YouTube video about himself.

* Fellow Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader who has withheld public support for Bunning-- and is currently beating him in a jowl-growing contest.

* Democratic Senator Robert C. Byrd, who mocked Bunning as "a great baseball man" and drooled in his general direction.

* Kentucky Lt. Governor Daniel Mongiardo, whom Bunning said looked "like one of Saddam Hussein's sons and even dresses like them too." Mongiardo is challenging for Bunning's seat, having come within 2 percentage points of beating him in 2004.

* Associate Justice of the United States Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose death Bunning recently predicted.

With opponents of all political stripes lined up against him, you'd think that Bunning would be ready to accept reality and hand over his Senate seat to the next generation, right?

Well then obviously you, dear reader, aren't a doddering 77 year-old ex-Major League Baseball pitcher with "little green doctors pounding on my back."

When asked in a brief hallway interview on Tuesday whether he was feeling betrayed by some Republican teammates, Mr. Bunning unleashed a high hard one.

"When you've dealt with Ted Williams and Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra and Stan Musial," he said, "the people I'm dealing with now are kind of down the scale."

Think it might be telling that everyone Bunning listed is either senile or dead?