*For those just joining us, “Bunched Knicker Syndrome” — a condition of extreme irascibility as a result of relatively minor provocation.

Old friend Angry Jack Lindley, the perpetually dyspeptic captain of the Tita– er, that is, chair of the VTGOP, has found a great way to keep warm during our first big cold snap of the season: working up a great big fit of outrage. Call it the Angry Jack Workout Program.

This time, his knickers are in a bunch over the release of the Shumlin Administration’s report on single payer health care. The study was commissioned from experts at the University of Massachusetts at a cost of $300,000; it concluded that Vermont could, indeed, offer better quality and universal access for slightly less money than the current system. But in Jack’s eyes, the report is so badly flawed that he wants the state to take a stand:

Refuse to pay the bill.

That’s right: welsh out on a legally incurred obligation.

Remember when the GOP used to be the party of responsibility — of sober, efficient, workmanlike government? Well now, as embodied in the person of Angry Jack, it’s the Party of Rage. Its stock in trade is the out-of-control overreaction to anything (however great or small) that offends its sensibilities.

But wait, there’s more. Just to show how far Angry Jack is removed from reality, he contrasts the Shumlin plan with the allegedly superior positions of failed candidates Randy Brock and Wendy Wilton. Obviously, Jack still blames the voters for turning their backs on Republican wisdom, rather than looking at his own party to figure out how it got so far out of the Vermont mainstream, and how to get back into it.

And we encourage this myopic approach to rebuilding a moribund party. Keep it up, Jack, and we’ll be in for an unbroken era of liberal dominance.