12 | August | 2011 | Existential Ennui

Tags

Election 2012, GOP, Iowa, Iowa debate

Okay, so first of all I don’t want to be accused of making fun of intellectually challenged people. But how else to describe the “debate” last night between a few of the Republican presidential wannabes?

I mean think eight people with IQ’s in the 80’s range playing Jeopardy. That about sums it up. Very little in the way of factually accurate or even logical discourse occurred.

We had the Santorum position on abortion–none, ever. But then Santorum wanted doctors prosecuted as criminals, but not the ones who sought abortions. Pawlenty wanted to limit abortions except for the “life of the mother”.

The most exciting moment was when Michele Bachmann was asked about her going to get her masters in tax law. She was reminded that she said something like this:

“I absolutely hated the idea. But then God came to me and reminded me that in the bible it said that women should be submissive to their husbands.”

Michele (the eyes, the eyes) Bachmann, stared at the questioner for a full minute. She looked for all the world like the proverbial doe caught in the headlights. Then she mumbled about how Marcus and her had been married for some 35 years and had raised 400 thousand foster children blah blah blah, and that submissive really meant respect. So she ignored it.

T-Paw was a feisty dude, knowing that he was facing the abyss. He accused Michele of basically having accomplished nothing in her public life so far. Michele responded that she had “introduced a bill to allow people to choose the lightbulbs they used,” for God’s sake and wasn’t that a huge accomplishment. It’s called the Lightbulb Freedom of Choice Act for you out of the loop of what’s important. What should have been met with guffaws of laughter was met with nods by the chimpanzees in the stands paid with fried butter on a stick to attend the circus.

Newt, becoming the butt of every joke, decided it was time to attack the questioners, and went off on Chris Wallace for asking “gotcha” questions. Note that we learned about this form of question from the perennial victim, Mizzz Palin, who was NOT there to “debate” but promised to bring her fun bussy tour in on Saturday to disrupt the counting of the straws on Saturday.

Ya see, a gotcha question is one of two things: it is either a question you don’t have an answer for, or one that shows your predilection to say in opposite things that are embarrassing to have shoved in your face for explanation. In this case Newt was asked what his position was on Libya, since he had both declared that we should go in and take out Qaddafi and then said the President’s intervention was utterly wrong, on another. Newt, as you might expect, claimed that all such comments were taken out of context, and therefore he didn’t have to ‘splain further. Gotcha!

Ricky (don’t Google me) Santorum, erupted several times in utter petulance, reminding everyone that he was actually there, and nobody was paying any attention to him.

Step-‘n-fetchit Cain tried to tiptoe around his Muslim hating statements and his apology which he pointed out, wasn’t really one at all. He further assured everyone that he had learned a lot more “stuff” about Israel and the wars ongoing than he had at the last “debate” and that after all, he was the only one who understood how to solve our economic woes.

All eight of the dwarfs agreed that even if they got a 10-to-1 gimme on spending cuts versus taxes from the Democrats, meaning that the Democrats had reduced their collective IQ to three, they would NOT agree to a penny in taxes. The follow-up question was NOT, and when are you guys gonna stop buying unicorns and painting them orange, and putting grapes in your piggy banks?

Mitt? Oh Mitt was Mitt. He was still wincing from the drubbing he got at the State Fair where he was roundly laughed at when he said asked the assembled crowd:

“And where do you think those tax savings to the wealthy and corporations go?”

He seemed astounded when several people yelled: “Into their pockets”.

“But,” he stammered, “they go to the people! Corporations are people too!”

Mitt ignored the “candidates” around him and tried to keep his focus on the President–the man who is simply in over his head when it comes to economics. Read–cut corporate taxes, balance the budget and give more help to the “job creators”.

All the candidates seemed to have differing ideas on the 10th Amendment and the power of states versus the federal government. Most of them had no clear understanding of it, and hadn’t thought about it much until that moment. Some said that nobody should be forced to buy any product or service, by the federal government, which pretty much eliminates medicare and social security and taxes in general. Taken to its logical extension, local governments can’t raise property taxes to pay for schools, but it was increasingly clear that such mental gymnastics were way way over the head of most of the contestants.

All were pretty much at odds about Iran, although Santorum (well-known defender of gay rights) pointed out that Iran must be stopped in order in part to protect gays, whom the Mullahs in Iran don’t cotton to too much.

Huntsman? Oh he was there. He made sense. He is the strongest candidate by far. He is irrelevant. The GOP is still ruled at this point by the TeaNutz®.

Paul? He’s like everybody’s slightly senile, slightly drunk uncle. Everybody smiles, and nods. Nobody pays any attention. He’s a bit like a blind squirrel–he occasionally by luck finds an acorn.

Meanwhile, Ricky Perry is sending a thunderstorm over Iowa tomorrow by starting up his official campaign tomorrow in South Carolina. He will take over from Michele, and we were just getting to have fun with her! And of course Sarah is pouting and demanding to be relevant once again. She is but a shower I suspect at this point.

The only thing that could make this better is if Joe Walsh and Allen West should declare. Now then we could really have a carnival.

**Once again, let me thank all of your for your kind words at the loss of our dog Brandy. It has been much harder than I expected, but we are working through it.