Is it possible to embarrass Republicans? Apparently not. As they get more desperate about their prospects in the midterm election, Republicans have become ever more hysterical in their denunciations of the Democrats. The Republican National Committee’s ad depicting a scantily clad blond flirting with Rep. Harold Ford (D‑TN) at a Playboy party has gotten the most attention. But it’s not the worst.

Take the latest charge that Sen. George Allen (R‑VA) has leveled at his opponent, Vietnam veteran and novelist James Webb: Allen is shocked, shocked to find sex scenes in Webb’s novels. Or at least, since Allen doesn’t claim even to have read a novel about the Vietnam War, he’s shocked to have been told that there are sex scenes in realistic novels about men at war. His campaign “leaked” the text of Webb’s bestselling novels to the Drudge Report Thursday night, having failed to persuade any journalist that it was a real story. By noon Friday, Rush Limbaugh was in full-throated outrage: “Get the kids away from the radio,” he warned listeners. He was determined to read the sexually explicit bits of Webb’s writing. “I don’t think you understand the importance of this,” he declared. Having listened to him, and read Saturday’s Washington Post article on the topic, indeed I don’t.

And then there are the various ads Republicans are running around the country. Honestly, if you didn’t know better, you’d think that Republican politicians are obsessed with sex. In Wisconsin, an ad for challenger Paul Nelson declares, “Rep. Ron Kind pays for sex!” with XXX stamped across Kind’s face. As the Washington Post reports, ” It turns out that Kind — along with more than 200 of his fellow hedonists in the House — opposed an unsuccessful effort to stop the National Institutes of Health from pursuing peer-reviewed sex studies.” Meanwhile, in New York, the National Republican Congressional Committee “ran an ad accusing Democratic House candidate Michael A. Arcuri, a district attorney, of using taxpayer dollars for phone sex. ‘Hi, sexy,’ a dancing woman purrs. ‘You’ve reached the live, one-on-one fantasy line.’ It turns out that one of Arcuri’s aides had tried to call the state Division of Criminal Justice, which had a number that was almost identical to that of a porn line. The misdial cost taxpayers $1.25.” In North Carolina, challenger Vernon Robinson’s TV ads blare, “If Brad Miller had his way, America would be nothing but one big fiesta for illegal aliens and homosexuals.”

And let’s not forget Sen. Sam Brownback (R‑KS), who is holding up President Bush’s appointment of a federal judge on the grounds that she attended a commitment ceremony for two lesbian friends. What’s the matter with Kansas, indeed? And what’s the matter with the Republican Party?