Letters to the Editor
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It would be so tempting to make fun of them. But...
...in a poll Salon reported in War Room, "Rudy Giuliani leads Barack Obama 44-41 percent, Hillary Clinton 49-40 percent and Al Gore -- who isn't in the race -- 48-41 percent; John McCain is tied with Obama at 42 percent but leads Clinton 46-41 and Gore 47-41."
After a brief bit of hope, the Democratic Party is wimping out again. The Democratic candidates never really took off their pink tutus which they put on the first day of Bush's Presidency. They will be seated at the card table, preparing to explain the rules of bridge by Hoyle, and the Republican candidate and his lap dogs will pull out Glocks and cap 'em.
It would take monumental mistakes by the Republican candidates for them to lose, and it would take a Democratic candidate with courage, intelligence and a soul to take advantage of those mistakes. And none of them do.
All right, Gordon Wagner, it's time for you to post here, explaining why this post is wrong, and Salon should never, ever, talk about anything except your personal fetish of impeaching Bush, which is about as likely as a Democratic candidate not shooting him or herself in the foot.
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GOP Debates As Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade.
Well, I was feeling a little guilty about missing this entire debate, at least for historical reasons, until I realized, wait a second, this is the current Republican candidates... being moderated by Chris Matthews! Egads! I'm no masochist.
Given the choice, there are certainly more pleasurable things people can do than watching the Republican debates (particularly those where MSNBC's Tweety is involved), like perhaps, rubbing sandpaper all over their face, pounding themselves repeatedly in the head with a hammer, or running a cheese grater over their tongue for an hour. Any of these things would be more relaxing than watching the modern GOP shamelessly suckle on the tail of the religious right for an hour in front of perhaps the world's most bone-headed cable news network host.
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Simi Valley, North of Hollywood. Not!
Simi Valley is not north of Hollywood. A small point, perhaps, but if you don't know where you are, you won't know where you're going. Actually, the Reagan Library is about 30-35 miles west of Hollywood and north of Thousand Oaks.
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We need a man's man
Remember, they looked in Ronald Reagan's eyes, and in two minutes, they released the hostages.
Of course, the funny part here is that George Bush was the man's man they were looking for.
I was reading an old thread on FreeRepublic an hour or so ago, about Bush's flight deck performance. It was full of:
"Bush is a great MAN and a great President."
"Bush looked great in that flight suit. The MAN makes the clothes!" (I am not adding the capitalization, by the way)
"Bush is what we need - a man's man."
At least half the comments commented on what an amazing MAN Bush was.
So what happened? Bush was the James Dean cowboy type that Camille Paglia (genius that she is) swooned over. Weren't our enemies supposed to look into his eyes and back down?
All we've heard about Bush is what a great MAN he is - so manly! And he has failed utterly.
But rather than learn from their mistakes, the Republican solution to electing a man's man that turned out to be an idiot man-child is to...wait for it...
elect another man's man.
What is the old saying about the definition of stupidity? Repeating the same actions and expecting different results?
Electing a tough guy didn't work - what we need to do is elect a tough guy! That's our new improved plan - same as the old inferior plan.
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Oh, go ahead, make fun of them
"They faced an audience of several hundred, divided into three sections, each one named for the site of a Reagan summit with the Soviets. The network executives sat in Moscow. The journalists and VIPs sat in Reykjavik. Most of the candidate families and friends sat in Geneva."
1. the Journalists and the VIPs aren't good enough to sit in Reykjavik. Terre Haute or Buffalo, maybe. And wouldn't it be nice if we could ship all the network bigwigs to Moscow, and force the Idahoans to keep them?
2.What, no normal people?
2b. Oh, that's right, we're talking about the republicans. They don't bother to pretend.
3. I thought it was interesting that they asked about who didn't believe in evolution in an oblique long shot, making it difficult for the viewer to tell who raised their hands. It was as if NBC was trying to protect the candidates from the consequences of their own nuttiness. Quite a contrast from the baiting that Brian Williams offered to the democrats, daring them to not denounce the "traiterous" Harry Reid.
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Waiting for the
Ping, ping, ping. The shoddily engineered military contracted bolts holding up the giant airplane hanging above everyone's heads...snapped and the plane to came crashing into the audience and candidates. Mitt Romney was desperately trying to retrieve a pinned Rudy Giuliani only to look in horror as his last tug revealed that Rudy had lost his entire lower torso. John McCain was wondering around in a daze holding the limp smoldering body of little Karl Rove in his arms and...well...o.k. so maybe it wasn't that exciting.
During the actual debates:
At one point all the candidates were asked if any did not believe in evolution and about 4 raised their hands.
Giuliani had this weird bit of revisionism: "Remember, they looked in Ronald Reagan's eyes, and in two minutes, they released the hostages." Anyone who remembers those events would know that the hostages were held longer than needed be because Reagan (in a back room deal) had asked for them to be held until he got into office. In exchange the Iranians got arms (the Iran contra scandal.)
Guiliani went on and on about Radical Islam a lot. If I were a Muslim in this country I'd be afraid of the whole bunch of them. Out of one corner of their mouths they would go on about freedom of religion and how faith, any faith, is the cornerstone of the family...then out of the other corner they would fear monger about evil Islam.
A few went on about the sanctity of life and how life was starting point of many issues. This pertained to the Terry Schiavo case, embryonic stem cell issues, Roe v. Wade. I was waiting for follow up questions about the sanctity of Iraqi life, or positions on the death penalty for proper juxtaposition...but they never came.
Mitt Romney came off as the winner and least creepy. Most of the rest of them came off as weird or dull. A lot of finger poking of the air.
Unfortunately the only person who called the party (GOP) on being big government, non representational of the people, and supporting an illegal and poorly conceived war, was a Texas congressman Ron Paul. He was the only one making any sense. He looks a little goofy, so like Dennis Kucinich...his voice doesn't matter and he doesn't get to be our president.