Maybe I am over thinking this, but as I look at the Republican intransigence, and total abuse of the filibuster, I ask if there isn't something more than the 24 hour news cycle and throwing red meat to their base at issue.
Follow me over
If you go back to the days of Reagan and Bush 1, the one thing the Republicans hated more than anything else was the office of the independent council. The OIC was a thorn in the side of the Republican administration, exposing corruption and general malfeasance.
So, as soon as there was a Democratic administration, what did the Republicans do?
They put in the hyper partisn Ken Starr - who totally abused prosecutorial power. Starr's abuses were so bad, that when the IOC authorization came up for a vote, it was defeated pretty easily. The result? No IOC to slow down Bush 2, or look into any of the abuses of power or corruption of that administration.
When the Republicans held the presidency and a 51 seat majority in the senate, they hated the filibuster. Remember all the times they yelled "Up or down vote"? Remember how they threatened the "nuclear option to get rid of the filibuster?
So now that they are in the minority, what are they doing? Abusing the filibuster as hard as they can. Filibuster and obstruct everything. Aside from preventing the democrats and the congress from actually solving any of the problems that face this country, is part of the goal to get the Democrats to destroy the filibuster, so the next time they have the levers of power, they can ram anything they want through.
Update - Or maybethey are just Dicks