"In the wake of last week's landmark passage of the House climate bill, conservatives have focused their fury on the handful of Republicans who voted in favor of the sweeping legislation.

Conservative commentators are blasting the eight Republican "aye" votes as betrayers of GOP principles and, perhaps more important, holding them accountable for the bill's seven-vote margin of passage, 219-212.

The eight Republicans are Mark Kirk of Illinois; Mike Castle of Delaware; Mary Bono Mack of California; Dave Reichert of Washington; John McHugh of New York; and Frank LoBiondo, Leonard Lance and Chris Smith of New Jersey.

"I don't think one can minimize why this was a truly hideous vote for those eight folks," a commentator on the conservative blog the "Next Right" wrote. "Here we had a chance to derail the Obama socialism train and restore the Republican party to policy relevance, and these guys bailed out so they could get a nice mention in the NY Times."

Rush Limbaugh on his radio show yesterday accused the eight of voting for the bill sponsored by Democrats Henry Waxman of California and Edward Markey of Massachusetts because of Wall Street's influence and argued that they should be voted out in 2010 along with Democrats who supported the legislation.

"You've got these northeastern Republicans -- New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, it's all the same -- who are tied to Wall Street," Limbaugh said.

He added, "This is an outrage. This is something that everybody who voted for this thing needs to be sent packing because it wasn't even written."

For many conservatives, the vote on the comprehensive energy and climate bill vote was one of the two test votes of party loyalty in the Obama administration's early days. The other was the vote in February on the economic stimulus plan. On that vote, no House Republican broke with party leadership."

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Partisanship is senior to good policy in some circles; and Rush is as incoherent and bitter as ever he was.