You've got to be kidding...

In the wake of Sen. Lincoln Chaffee's 8-point victory in the Rhode Island Republican primary yesterday, National Review editorializes about it here, showing a density I don't often see in the publication's editorial staff.

The editorial talked of the GOP establishment's belief that Steve Laffey couldn't win the general election (thus jeopardizing the Senate majority), so the GOP spent millions in favor of Chaffee, the man USA Today called "the most liberal Republican in the Senate." It also talked about Chaffee's history of voting against the GOP, whether the vote be about George W. Bush, John Bolton, Samuel Alito, tax cuts or the war on terror.

The editorial's conclusion:

Laffey, a capable mayor of Cranston, ran an energetic campaign that mixed conservative and populist themes. His loss was by no means an exercise in futility: Sometimes it’s better to fight and lose than not to fight at all. Two years ago, Pat Toomey nearly defeated Sen. Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania’s GOP primary. Yesterday, Laffey gave Chafee a genuine scare. Both Toomey and Laffey received crucial support from the Club for Growth. Senators are a notoriously risk-averse crowd. And now, for the second election cycle in a row, Republican senators have received a sharp reminder that if they behave too much like liberals, they may not be senators for long.

A genuine scare or not, how is it that two losses equals a sharp reminder "that if they behave too much like liberals, they may not be senators for long"? This is wishful thinking by the folks at NRO and, unless Lincoln Chaffee loses the November election to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, it is not legitimate analysis.