Friday, January 27, 2012

Putting All Their Eggs in One Basket-Case

After last night's GOP Debate - Nightmare on Elm St, Part 753 - Newt's chances seem to be diminishing faster than the wind from a manatee's ass (actually, now that I think about it, Newt resembles a manatee's ass). What are the Teapers and the evangers gonna do now? I think in some ways this is the biggest question - not who's going to be the nominee.

The far right of the GOP doesn't want Mitt. That much is obvious. Hell, it was obvious back when they were ready to jettison him for Michelle Bachmann or Herman Cain - talk about theatre of the absurd. They only settled on Newt when everyone else they'd ever consider had been bumped off. But Newt got them all hot and bothered during the debates because he went all sideshow geek on us and ripped apart a live chicken with his teeth, flinging flesh and feathers everywhere. That crowd loved it. That's of course the crowd that cheered when Rick Perry bragged how he executed a couple of hundred human beings. They cheered. These people are out for blood - and for a while there Newt was prepared to give it them. His debate performances were, for a while, show stoppers. The Bloodlust Crowd had finally found the Freddie Kruger of their dreams.

This is what they want - they keep saying it: they want someone who is going to get on the debate stage with Obama in the fall and rip him to shreds. The man who represents everything they despise - that black, liberal, Muslim, food-stamp loving black man over there - well, Newt was going to devour him like of those chickens.

So here's what I find interesting about this: forget the loons in the GOP and their Ten Years Hate. What's interesting is that debates have now become the main focus of presidential campaigns. To such a degree that these folks were going to nominate a guy simply because he had demonstrated the ability to attack viciously in a debate (forget for a moment that he was attacking, y'know, Wolf Blitzer). They would have bet the farm all on Newt's fangs showing in the debate.

Given his flaccid performances in the last two debates I wonder what they're thinking now.

Regardless, let's say Newt got the nomination. And let's say he remained true to their evisceration-longing hearts. Take a moment and try to picture Newt debating Obama. Imagine what that would be like. Frothing, spewing, attacking, gnashing, preening Newt versus - remember him in debates with Hillary and with McCain? - calm, reasonable, respectful, decent Obama.

I don't care whether you like the President or not. I do. Very much. But get your head out of your ass long enough to comprehend that most people don't hate him, don't want to attack him, don't want to rip him to shreds like an overplump Rhode Island Red. All the majority of America needs to see is that beatific calm and steady-handedness against the spluttering, spattering, feather-laden spewing of Newt the Merciless. You will be astonished by the groundswell of support the president gets the next day.

In other words, no one outside your inbred family wants blood, gullets and teabaggers' jizz staining their walls. The Civil War's over - you lost; the Vietnam war's over - we lost; the election of a liberal wasn't a tragedy. His re-election may just be the only sane path we have.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

How the Fuck Did We Get Here?

I keep hearing people say how desperately we need a third party, something to offer a choice other than the Democrats and Republicans.

This country doesn't need a third party, it needs a second party. We already have a third party: it's called the GOP. Those three letters stand for Batshit Crazy Party.

The Republican Party is no longer the party of the country club set. A long time ago, 1980 to be exact, the country clubbers let the holy rollers in to the club so they could add votes for the flailing party. It made the holy rollers feel part of the club for a while, but the reality was that the party elders knew the holy rollers would be at church on Sunday, when the suits and their wives were having their martini's at the club. Thus, no need to associate with the riff-raff.

But on Monday-through-Saturday the riff-raff, aka the holy rollers plus the feeble-minded tea partiers and the John Birchers - YIKES! who let them back in? - became the majority of the GOP. And the suits are finally freaking out because they've lost control of their creation. If you've ever seen a Frankenstein movie you already know how this turns out.

But there's no going back. The GOP is now so far to the right that even a sharp left turn would barely help get them anywhere near the center. The party's only hope is to get the lunatics out - split the sucker in half (or thereabouts) and pray the surviving half isn't the half with the deranged brain.

Or maybe Frankenstein is the wrong analogy. Right now this party nominating process resembles nothing so much as a bad roadshow version of Marat/Sade. It's third parties that are supposed to be the domain of the lunatic fringe. Well, welcome to the GOP.

Meanwhile, for the first time in my life I'm thoroughly enjoying a
Republican primary season. What a glorious fiasco.