You Are Too Much For Me, Politics, You SOB! I Wish I Knew How To Quit You! My Look At The republican Field, Such As It Is.



The field of 2012 republican presidential candidates is still growing

 Oh, those republicans.  Look at them.  No, seriously:  LOOK AT THEM.  What a sad little herd they are.  All the Serious (R)epublicans are, right this minute, peeing themselves and saying, "Holy shit!  Get out your checkbooks and see if we can get Colin Powell to run!"  Because, really, have you LOOKED AT THEM?

I mean besides the picture provided at the top of the post.

I have, and it is, as my son Jared would say, a dumpster fire.

Nothing but unmitigated glee was in my heart the day Michele Bachmann formally announced her candidacy, for I knew that this was going to be a Sarah Palin/Christine O'Donnell Hybrid Run For The Flames.  That poor woman--she has no idea just how stupid she really, really is. I honestly believe that the media declared her the winner and lauded her performance at the "first big debate" in order to give her a false sense of security and encourage her to make more of her stunningly idiotic pronouncements.  It did not take long.  From declaring nine-year-old John Quincy Adams a Founding Father to saying that she wants to take the country back "from the people all across the nation," Mrs. Bachmann just keeps on proving that anyone can graduate from Oral Roberts with a degree in something.  Or that Minnesota voters just elect women who are somewhat attractive.  And, apparently, liars and hard of hearing or mulishly stubborn, as is showcased in this interview with the astute and patient gentleman, Bob Schieffer, in which she was confronted with her PolitiFact record and simply refused to answer his question multiple times. Need more Crazy?  Click here.  My prediction?  Pretty soon, she'll realize that she's in way over her airhead.  She'll do a CopOut Dropout and use this excuse:  "The constant negative media scrutiny and invasiveness was beginning to harm my family, including my TWENTY-THREE FOSTER CHILDREN.I cannot risk harming them or their privacy, which they deserve.  For their sake, I am reluctantly withdrawing my candidacy. Blah blah blah."  In the meantime, enjoy the show.

Poor Tim Pawlenty.  What on earth is he even about? ; No one, not even he, knows.  This Baloney On Wonderbread Factor is something that the media glommed on to right away, and poor Tim can't shake it.  He's just The Nondescript White Guy Without "It".  He's No Sizzle And No Steak.  And he can't get history right, either.  I saw that way back on 21 February of last year. That was when I took the governor to task about his lax interpretation of the Declaration of Independence and his bullshit parroting of republican doctrine. He basically said Nothing.  And now, when the media is magnifying that Vast Void, he is trying on a bunch of new personalities, like Peter Brady.  But he just sounds goofy and we all know it's just more Porkchops And Applesauce.  He won't last long; the media have already pronounced him DOA after Iowa, which is patently ridiculous, especially in light of the fact that Bachmann is leading there, but all the same, he's a goner, despite his cool, new, urban-chic nickname (yet it, too, has...unfortunate associations).  "T-Paw" is Toast.

"Don't Call Him A Washington Insider" Newt Gingrich is still hanging on, but even he isn't taking it seriously anymore.  This is the candidate who blamed Patriotism for his marital infidelity.  A man whose outstanding balance at Tiffany's is more than most people's net worth.  This guy goes on vacation and his whole staff just says, "Hey, everyone, now that he's gone, whaddya say we quit? Grab your coffee mug and I'll meet you outside in...say, five minutes?"  But let me tell you:  When Newt first announced he was In, I watched him on Meet the Press.  He got down and dirty and bashed Paul Ryan's Almighty Plan and told it how it was.  I was impressed.  Until a few days later.  That's when he caved to Limbaugh and his minions like all the other republicans and had to sob and placate and walk it back like a penitent supplicant.  What a load.  Newt won't go far, but he might be just enough of a sonuvabitch to stick around for a few primaries to be that sonuvabitch.

Oh, Rick Santorum.  He would amuse me if he weren't so scary, like a rogue clown at the circus that hangs around the tent flaps and pops out to scare children but says he didn't mean to.  There's just something awful and unseemly about him. And his Google Problem doesn't help, really.  Yet, he brought it on himself.  He is rampantly, frighteningly, misogynistically, homophobically, unrelentingly conservative with all the tonnage that brings.  He is Sarah Palin's twin, really, except for the Roman Catholic part.  For more of Rick's Ravings, click here.  What really frosts my cupcakes about Rick Santorum, though, is that he's just so maddeningly dumb. He thinks he's being triumphantly sharp and clever and erudite, like this defense against abortion:  "The question is -- and this is what Barack Obama didn't want to answer -- is that, is that human life a person under the Constitution? And Barack Obama says no. Well if that person, human life is not a person, then I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say, 'No, we're going to decide who are people and who are not people.'" Oh, Rick Santorum.  It's not even that you're being racist here. It's...well, wait.  This says it for me. How long for Rick Santorum?  We've already seen the end of this movie in the last presidential primaries.

Mitt Romney, bless him, at least has a brain.  When the WackJobs over at some Christian fundamentalist conservative exclusionary society hauled out their Naughty Things List, Mitt said no.  He said signing any oath or pledge or God Warrior Scouts For Jesus Promise was a non-starter, and that the document "contained references and provisions that were undignified and inappropriate for a presidential campaign."  That, the Brain Thing, and being a Mormon just lost Mitt all of the teabagger vote and there goes the republican base for the early primaries.  Add to that Massachusetts Mitt's Healthcare Albatross, and he just can't get a break. Mitt also made a lousy joke about feeling the pain of those without a job because he was also unemployed.  Wow.  Really?  This from a guy who most pundits agree lost the nomination in the last go-round because the perception of the (non-teabagger Christian fundamentalist God Warrior) republican electorate was that he tried to buy it. With his own money.  Entirely.  That, and he is a dead-ringer for the Muppet Guy Smiley, as I noted here in 2007.

I cannot even go on.  Herman Cain? The man's PAC is called "The Hermanator."  Ron Paul is getting to be like the old comedian Pat Paulsen or Lyndon LaRouche.  He keeps running for President of the United States, gets a few fans/supporters and a platform, and then what? ... Exactly. And of course the media are on High Alert S.Palin Watch.  Once she dropped the Paul Revere Quote and had to answer for that, she cut her summer vacation pretty short, didn't she?  Let's review that, though, because, well, it's just too wonderfully asinine not to wallow in its Snark Potential.  Remember, Sarah Failin' said that it was a typical "shout-out, gotcha-type question" that provoked this sad, gnarled, I-didn't-study-but-maybe-if-I-fill-up-the-space-the-teacher-will-just-give-me-credit-and-not-really-read-it, remedial second-grade response:

"He who warned, uh, the British that they weren't going to be taking away our arms uh by ringing those bells and making sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be secure and we were going to be free and we were going to be armed."  Oh, and that "gotcha" question?  Ahem.   “What have you seen so far today and what are you going to take away from your visit?” Oh, bless me.  I would have Ever So Much Fun if she decided to run, but she's in the perfect situation right now.  She has all the power and no responsibility whatsoever.  She can peddle her Crazy to the Faithful with impunity and get paid for it.  If she falls out of favour with The Media Machine, she and her husband can go somewhere outdoorsy or significant and become amourous, have another child, and name it after the place wherein they did it.  That's how they named all the other ones, obviously.

The republicans would love to be able to pin their hopes on Jon Huntsman..if he had not already worked for President Obama.  He's sane, he's smart, and he's moderate.  But he's a Mormon.  Can he or Mitt pull a JFK ("it's not what church I believe in but what kind of America I believe in")--or should they, even--and confront the republican base with at least that One of their Many Prejudices?  Sigh.  Not worth it.  Huntsman can't be The One either.  He favours civil unions and, as I said before, he's Mormon and moderate.  He's already done.

And can someone please tell me who is the Doodah advising Gov. Rick Perry?  Although considering how long it took for most of the republicans to wake up and really see Sarah Palin, I should not be surprised that he is considering entering this Clown Wagon Of Candidates.  This is the Texan who appeared at a teabagger rally and offered secession if Washington didn't snap to and behave itself while he was an acting governor.  I have to agree with my DemCrush James Carville who says, regarding a Perry candidacy, "He talks a lot and he's not very bright. And that's a combination I like in republicans."  Besides, America--think!  Republican, Texas...been there, done that.  At the risk of quoting Lord Help Me, Dr. Phil, "How'd that work for ya?"

 Right now, I have to say I'm not Entirely Thrilled with the Current President.  But run him up against any of these yahoos, and he looks like a winner.

If You Are A Fan Of Tim Pawlenty, Thomas Jefferson, Or David Gregory, You Might Want To Read Something Else Today. Like, Perhaps, My Pet Goat

Even though I have broken up with David Gregory and Meet the Press, Rick has not, and against everyone's better judgment, I sat in the livingroom this morning, perusing the Plain Dealer while Gregorius Interruptus played softball with Governor Tim Pawlenty. Tragically, I had already read the more...cerebral sections of the paper by this point of the show and had moved on to the Target ad, so more of my brain was available to process the republican bullshit that was plopping from Pawlenty's maw. This particular exchange, however, made me riproaring, hooting mad:

MR. GREGORY: Finally, a more personal question, I, I heard your remarks this week and something caught my attention. You're an evangelical Christian. And when you talked about the conservative movement, you said what comes first for you is that God is in charge. Describe your relationship with God.

GOV. PAWLENTY: Well, the founders of this nation embraced, also, that same perspective. They said that we were endowed by our creator by certain rights. We're not endowed by Washington, D.C., we're not endowed by the state government or the local government. And so I believe that there is a divine power, I believe there is a God, that God is in charge. And if it's good enough for the Founding Fathers of this country, it's good enough for me.

Now, I'm used to the republicans co-opting God. Believe me, I don't give a crap about any of that. Pretty soon, they'll take sole credit for Him, and that's okay, too, as long as they take credit for all the trouble that organized religion has caused as well, like the Salem Witch Trials, for instance. No, I'm talking primarily about that last sentence uttered by the governor/presidential hopeful from Minnesota. "...if it's good enough for the Founding Fathers of this country, it's good enough for me." ... Wow. Really?

In his defense, Mr. Pawlenty is not the only republican/presidential aspirer who does not know his history. (Or his grammar, for that matter.) But how sad is it when this man not only deliberately misrepresents the intent of the Declaration of Independence, but also---well, let me elaborate:

I. Bless his heart, Mr. Pawlenty did paraphrase pretty well the Declaration's lovely prose, which reads, in part: We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. But he conveniently forgot the next qualifying sentence. Here it is: That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Pardon me, for I do not wish to be tedious here. I am always blissfully and proudly aware of the intelligence of my readers at the Dept. Certainly all of you can see Mr. Pawlenty's tragic error and are shouting at your monitors as I did at my television. How pathetic and sad he is that he cannot see how he is, in fact, not in disagreement at all with anyone. He is merely reiterating the role of government, period. To secure citizens' rights. Who is arguing that? What, then, is he really saying? Was he elected by the consent of the Governed? Oh, Tim. Shut up. Before you hurt yourself. Some more.

II. I think even Tim Pawlenty would agree with me that Thomas Jefferson was a Founding Father. After all, as a primary author and signer of the Declaration of Independence, and our country's third president, his credentials are stellar. So, if Mr. Pawlenty's measuring stick is merely "if it's good enough for this country's founding fathers then it's good enough for me", I think a little History Lesson about Founding Father Thomas Jefferson might be in order. Allow me:

--Thomas Jefferson was not a Christian. He believed in God, but completely rejected the idea of the divinity of Christ. On June 25, 1819, he wrote to Ezra Stiles, "I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know."
--Jefferson owned 200 slaves. He often wrote dreadfully of freed slaves being permitted to remain in the United States, expressing a disgust that they might intermingle with whites: "Their amalgamation with the other colour produces a degradation to which no lover of his country, no lover of excellence in the human character can innocently consent."
--The above becomes all the more incredible when we recall that Thomas Jefferson had a biracial mistress, the famed Sally Hemings (whom he never freed, by the way), with whom he fathered at least one son, who he never acknowledged, but possibly as many as six illegitimate children.
--Finally, this Founding Father believed that women, "to prevent depravation of morals and ambiguity of issue, could not mix promiscuously in the public meetings of men." It was not, therefore, even a remote possibility, that a woman could vote, let alone run for public office because as Jefferson said, "The appointment of a woman to office is an innovation for which the public is not prepared, nor I." Remember, this is the man whose close confidante and adviser was Abigail Adams, one of the Great Ladies of the Age, and until Barbara Bush, was the only woman to be married to and mother to an American President. (You have no idea how much it destroys me to type that sentence. None.) Jefferson also had a great distaste for women who read novels. They risked "a bloated imagination, sickly judgment and disgust towards all real business of life. For a like reason, much poetry should not be indulged." As far as I know, Jefferson did not mention anything about "barefoot and pregnant", but he did say, even to his own daughters, that the happiness of a woman's life depends upon pleasing her husband, period. All other things are secondary, and to his credit, he said "even their love for [him]."

So...this is what is "good enough" for Tim Pawlenty?

My point, and I do have one, is this: Before Mr. Pawlenty--and other republicans who like to toss zingers from America's historical documents and former presidents (like Ronald Reagan, who is now a god for them, even though his trickledown Reaganomics never really did work)--they should do their complete research and know of what they speak.

Or, perhaps most sorrowful, they know that they really don't have to. The vast majority of Americans lately seem to be of the "teaparty"* ilk. They deal in soundbites and one-liners and suck down like pap everything they hear from whom they most want to hear it. It's sickening. No one is calling them on their shit. Well, I am.

*I'm just not capitalizing this dumb organization, either. So there.