Cat Gut and Dandruff

We all remember Judy Garland skipping down the Yellow Brick Road where she met the Cowardly Lion, searching for courage, the Tin Man looking for a heart, and the Scarecrow, who wanted a brain. 

These poor needy creatures bear a remarkable resemblance to the last 20 years' worth of GOP candidates for public office.

If one didn't have a firm grip on reality, one could feel that the U.S.A. was taking on some intoxicatingly familiar aspects of the make-believe kingdom of  Oz during this last election cycle. 

There are long lists of understudies for those three starring parts, but the part of the Wizard may have attracted the most aspirants and, possibly, the raunchiest.

To whom do we assign that part?  Rove? Limbaugh? Hannity? Beck? Cheney? Trump?  

And who gets the job of prompter? Ailes? Coulter? Drudge? Murdoch, himself? 

Press agent? Newtie swung into action in fine fettle, a little late but in predictably full throat. Sununu would be a good bet, too. He seems born to sleazy promotion.

The money guys are easy. Adelson and the Kochs led the big parade. Hard to call them "angels" considering the source of their wealth, but cash, no matter the source, does grease all the squeaky wheels.

Probably the easiest parts to cast were those of the Munchkins. The Tea Party gave it their all and were able to supply hundreds of the little - the VERY little - people.

And the whole production was in service of ?

A candidate who not only did not appear to have a heart, a brain or very much courage, but instead seemed to be comprised mostly of a very big sense of entitlement that was and is held together by nothing more than cat gut and dandruff.

Let's hope the not-so-grand old party spends the next few years looking for a new vehicle in which to launch a come-back.

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Philistines: Spawn of 21st Century Goppers

Maybe I'm not the egalitarian I thought I was.

I've come to recognize one of the biggest drawbacks to democracy is the absolute ability for ignorant asses to spew their hatred and ignorance with equanimity.

And, damn it!.... it has an effect.

Other boobs, finding their own denseness mirrored in the ravings of clods no better educated than themselves, take courage and feel no constraint in broadcasting whatever fool thing occurs to them, with the assurance that some idiot is bound to give it credence.


Back in feudal times, an uneducated peasant would be pulling on his forelock and saying, "yes, sir" and "no, sir. No unlettered oafs would feel free to back talk their "betters" in the rude and stupid fashion that has become manifest in society today.

Reading the comments on Internet blogs, and viewing the handwritten signs carried by the teabaggers, leaves those of us - who truly are not really part of a grammar gestapo, but who have taken some pains to educate ourselves beyond the fourth grade - gagging with disbelief.

This lack of education and respect for culture, wedded to an unholy trinity of avarice, ambition and iniquitous hypocrisy, provides the 21st century a new strain of philistines.


It has become axiomatic for the clear-eyed to observe that the goppers of today are not the GOPers of yesteryear.

Yes, there are some illiterate and venal Dems....but, as my liberal daughter, Paige, says, "Blindly following liberal views doesn't limit people the way blindly following conservative views does."


Goppers, plodding their parochial path, have reached beyond bilious and become a plague on the country.

 “Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
― Isaac Asimov

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Karl Rove: Bag Man Collects Advertising $$$

I don't consider Georgie Porgie perceptive. But, like an idiot savant, he does have a talent:  Distilling people to their essence. In dubbing him "Turd Blossom," W homed in on Karl Rove's likely dung heap origins.


What made me think of Turd Blossom? Because there was his face (along with those of some deep pocketed creeps) on Huff Po's political banner this morning, grinning like a debauched cherub as he reportedly takes command of the Goppers'  $71 Million Plan to oust Obama and put in his place a man the movers and shakers can buy to manage their affairs.

Billionaires appear to be a dime a dozen....and almost all of them  favor Republican candidates. That seems a reasonable result of self interest, but it does make you wonder why so many of this country's great unwashed side with these plutocrats when there isn't a chance in hell that they will benefit from their efforts unless they get hired as one of their butlers, chauffeurs or maids.

Except for a few liberal millionaires who have brains and a heart, the Goppers seem  to have a lock on the cash. But even so, they bitch about all the money that  goes to Democratic candidates from unions..... and George Soros.
 
"The AFL-CIO, the nation's largest federation of unions, contributed $2.3 million to super PACs through April 2012. The federation, boasting 12.2 million members, is made up of 57 national and international labor unions. Its funds come from the dues paid by members" 

They're complaining about the unions' $2.3 million? That's chump change! But it gives political bag men an excuse for their existence. If the public understood how uneven the advertising playing field really was, it would be hard to generate the kind of hysterical pushback these titans require to see their filthy ideas succeed.

If the dummies the bag men's ads succeed in convincing -  to vote for the well financed loudmouths who rely on lies and exaggeration - ever found out that "louder and oftener" don't equate to "truth and reality,"  they'd be up the creek  where they belong.

Advertising gets the job done....by hook or by crook.  When it's political, you can bet it's both. 

Hey, man on the street! Hey, WalMart mom! Before you cast your vote in November, let me clue you in on something. One of the most successful beneficiaries of advertising to the mindless is the Venus Flytrap.

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Barf Bag Sunday

I watched Republican "strategist" Ed Gillespie holding forth this Sunday. He looked so sweetly sincere in his pity for President Obama's lack of a snowball's chance in hell to be returned to office in November, that I couldn't help admiring his brass. He delivered his malevolence without raising an epithet or an eyebrow.

This is the talent of the present day Goppers.  They have, through their belief they are the favored species, practiced and perfected the appearance  of infallibility while they spit out their Shinola.

You absolutely know they are lying, exaggerating and spinning when they lay down a memorized carpet of offensive barbs with a deftness that defies belief. Those of us with the benefit of functioning brains, but the drag weight of a sense of honor and  fair-play, are left in the dust, sputtering like Tin Lizzies. (Witness Rachel Maddow last week dealing with the supreme condescension of a Goppy activist on MTP.)

I couldn't believe the idiocy spouted on this past airing of ABC's This Week. Bay Buchanan is the quintessential narrow minded Irish biddy that Maeve Binchy evokes in her amazingly candid stories about the Gaelic psyche. Buchanan, like her brother, is so full of venom, I can feel it splashing on my face 10 feet from the TV set. 

And shame on Tavis Smiley for having to fault Obama for not making the world free of murder and mayhem concomitantly with his having to surmount the devastating effects of a bloody-minded opposition in his own government.

And can you imagine McCain defending his selection of Palin and then asking us to believe it is Obama whom "...history will view  with the scorn and disdain he deserves."?

Where does the gall come from and why is it so hard for liberals to ingest it and then disgorge it at will as Goppers can and do?

Oh, I can and do say mean things. I can and do rant and rave and be generally and insultingly dismissive of Gopper nonsense. But I find it almost impossible to dissemble with the artistic finesse of a Rove or Gillespie or that really creepy Castellanos. There definitely is something in the DNA of these critters.

With all the books coming out analyzing the Republican mindset,  I see I am not the only one who has noticed that there is something very wrong about conservatives this year.

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Thoroughly Modern Meggie

John McCain's little girl, Meghan, has assumed the mantle of a moderate modern maiden whose claim to fame appears not to be  her father, but her "refreshingly" candid views of the political scene.

Sure, I love it when a Gopper sounds reasonable. Witness: Joe Scarborough taking on the right wing - and then cashing in on the approbation of the left wing for being so "fair-minded."

Machiavelli would approve your baby step, Joe.

Heaven knows the left and right are at a standoff at the OK corral of collegiality. And the hell of it is that conservatives have become so entrenched in their extreme positions that they cannot ameliorate them without appearing to decamp from what they consider their right to be right in their righteousness.

It is, therefore, always encouraging when someone on the right admits that all is not coming up roses in republican-land.

The following remarks are from Meghan McCain, who has apparently recovered from her boo boo on the Alex Wagner show where she misspoke, using "emoticon" for "modicum" during her on-air punditry. She writes in the Daily Beast that she finds little hope for her fellow Goppers:

"(1)   Santorum, who is a lunatic, right-wing fringe candidate that is hanging on to his candidacy for no other reason than, once this election cycle is over, he knows no one will ever listen to him again. I half expect Santorum to start throwing a tantrum on stage after he loses yet another primary and scream: “If I’m not going to be the nominee, no one is!”

(2)    Then, there is Newt Gingrich, the over-blown relic of the 90s, with so much baggage and anger that he really should move to a country where he can be dictator."

Good going, Meggie! I couldn't have nailed it better.

You could believe that maybe here is one infant conservative who'll grow up to be an fully functioning, contributing and reasonable member of society.

Until we come to this: 

"(3)    Finally, there’s my boy Mitt—whom, yes, I support and no matter what, will vote for  him.....but as his wife says, he has to unzip"

No matter what?

No matter than he plans to defund Planned Parenthood? No matter that he has embraced every side of every issue - sometimes within the same week? No matter that he has proved to be unpatriotic....sending his money offshore to avoid taxes? No matter that he has no character? You think all he has to do is unzip? Unzip what? His head?  His mouth? His trousers? 

Where does he keep his ethics?

Come on, Meghan; put your brain in gear before you put your mouth in motion. If you are going to try for believability, you gotta go whole hog.

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