World comes to a halt as Republicans take to the stage in Iowa to debate future of humanity

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Ah, yes, there was a Republican debate last night in Ames. Good times. Maybe if I weren't on vacation I would have cared. (I was too busy watching The Makioka Sisters -- a stunningly beautiful film.)

Or maybe not.



No, no, let me be serious for a moment.

Did last night's debate mean anything? Well, not as much as Saturday's straw poll -- which won't really mean anything either, though it will clarify both public and insider GOP perceptions and possibly even help separate the wheat from the chaff, as they say.

Not that we don't already know what's wheat and what's chaff.

Romney is wheat. He's the national frontrunner -- though doubts remain on the right (if not venomous opposition from conservatives and other Tea Party types, and he may have a fairly low support ceiling.

Bachmann is also wheat, or at least what passes for wheat these days in the GOP (and on the far right generally). She's a serious contender, craziness notwithstanding.

Other than that?

It's amusing to see Santorum and Gingrich try to convince us we should take them seriously. Do they take themselves seriously? Of course. Do they know they've become joke candidates without a hope of winning anything other than the political equivalent of a Razzie? Maybe -- if they're being honest with themselves, but one doubts either one is capable of such self-effacing honesty.

It's also amusing to see more of the Bachmann-Pawlenty spat. T-Paw, lagging far behind in the polls (not even doing well in Iowa, so close to his Minnesota home), is still so desperate for attention that he's taking the gloves off, as they say, hopeful of emerging as the compromise candidate (particularly liked by the Beltway punditocracy) between the establishmentarian, business-oriented Romney and whoever ends up leading the charge from the radical right, either Bachmann or Perry (or both). Yes, I suppose he still has a shot. Yes, it's a long, long one. And he doesn't stand a chance against Bachmann in their little ongoing feud.

Pawlenty death watch: He'll "reassess" matters if he does poorly in Ames. Now there's a nice, lovely euphemism for "make up some self-aggrandizing excuses and get the hell out."

Perry life watch: It looks like he'll take the leap on Saturday. Not that he's trying to upstage the Ames straw poll or anything. No, of course not.

Cain? Yes, he took time out of his busy schedule scapegoating Muslims to grace us with his presence.

Paul? Hey, did you know he really hates government and much, much prefers the Hobbesian state of nature?

Huntsman? Oh, yes, Huntsman the Formidable, as I've dubbed him. He remains to me and impressive figure, an old-school, Reagan sort of conservative who in other, saner times would have been the clear GOP pick. Now? Not so much.

Wait, you want substance? Come on, you all know how it went. Obama is the satanic incarnation of anti-American evil. And taxes are bad, so very, very bad!

(But if you want some helpful fact-checking, check here. Needless to say, there was some fastness and looseness going on last night. What else is new?)

Besides, that spat is what seems to have gotten the most attention.



And, overall, it does now seem that civility in this Republican field is a thing of the past. As Slate's John Dickerson explained:

The debate had the makings of a serious discussion about leadership,
what form it should take, whether the candidates have demonstrated it,
and how it should be applied in Washington. However, this discussion
took place in a roller derby where that underlying theme was obscured by
people trying to bruise and batter each other. Criticisms and veiled
critiques broke out into the open among candidates desperate to avoid
being eliminated from consideration. In the end, there was a lot of arm
flailing. Everyone went round and round, and the lot of them wound up
where they had stood before the debate began.

Fight, fight, fight! Isn't that what we all crave -- what really gets us going? Who cares that the global economy is imploding or that our civilization is crumbling? Or that it's this right-wing ideology, so much on display last night, that is one of the main causes of our present (and future) crises?



Politics is a bloodsport.

And now, on that note, I'm going to go sit out on the deck and read (about something that has nothing to do with American politics circa 2011).

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This day in history - July 21, 1925: High school teacher John T. Scopes is found guilty of teaching evolution

By Richard K. Barry

In Dayton, Tennessee on this date a high school teacher was found guilty of teaching evolution. Yes, John T. Scopes was found guilty of teaching science. (That's Darwin to the left, by the way, not Scopes).

So, where do the current crop of declared and potential GOP presidential hopefuls stand on teaching science in our schools?

Michele Bachmann has said that evolution is a theory that has never been proven one way or the other and that schools should teach intelligent design as an alternate explanation for the origins of life.

Tim Pawlenty thinks that creationism should be taught alongside evolution, which is Sarah Palin's view.

Rick Perry supports teaching creationism in Texas public schools.

Rick Santorum is a creationist, obviously.

To his credit, Newt Gingrich seems to have a more nuanced view (hell, let's give him credit for something).

Mitt Romney, also to his credit, once said that while he "believed that God designed the universe and created the universe," he also believed that "evolution is most likely the process he used to create human beings."

Even those who want to support science see the need to equivocate in order to keep a large segment of the conservative base happy.

All in all, things really haven't changed that much.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Right-wing evangelical theocrats love them some Rick Perry

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Republican presidential field is still embarrassingly weak (and even more embarrassing because the best Republican candidate by far, Jon Huntsman, isn't really catching on at all), and there is still a good deal of talk about some savior coming to the rescue.

With Huckabee not running this time, social/religious conservatives perhaps more than any other core Republican constituency seem to be driving that talk. Much of the rest of the party is already represented, after all, particularly the moneyed establishment (Romney) and the Tea Party (Bachmann, Paul). The theocrats only have Santorum, a distant also-ran with zero electability, and Gingrich, a joke of a candidate who's in it to glorify his ego and fill his coffers, and also Bachmann, though she doesn't seem to be what they're looking for.

The so-called "social conservatives" (actually moralizing right-wing evangelical theocrats) used to be a powerful force in the party, if not the dominant one, but they've been reduced to a bit of an afterthought, even though they still wield enormous influence at the grassroots level. And so it would be foolish to ignore them.

And who are they now looking to as their savior? Why, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, of course, who has done a great deal to appeal to them, presenting himself as their kind of theocrat. They're pushing him to run and no doubt he'd be a formidable candidate if only for their support. Could he actually win the nomination? Maybe. Or maybe he'd be the #2. (How does Romney-Perry sound?) Either way, social conservatives aren't about to let this election cycle pass without trying to wield their influence, and they may just be able to do that through Perry.

For more on this, see Amy Goodman's piece at Time: "Christian Right leaders have sought to find a new – preferably electable – candidate to carry the social conservative banner." They've picked Rick Perry.

WARNING: GOP presidential candidates cause brain damage, coma & media-assisted suicide during CNN debate

By Nicholas Wilbur

What an embarrassing performance by the Republican presidential candidates during the CNN debate Monday evening. 

The voting public's general lack of enthusiasm for any one candidate was reinforced by their anti-Obama bandwagon harping – blaming him for everything from Bush's bailout to the price of tea in China (it's cheaper) – and their hollow promises to right every alleged wrong that this country has ever seen. They offered nothing but clichéd, tired, and overly rehearsed talking points about how much they love our troops, how much they sympathize with those effected by the recession, how much they worry about their children and grandchildren, and how much of a better job they would do if they were president.

ChristianPost

We are no closer to a Republican candidate than we were yesterday, and if the debates continue to provide no more than political platitudes and make-believe prescriptions for solving the country’s problems – if the candidates can't go beyond promising blanket repeals of everything Obama has done – then they are securing their own fate as uninspiring, unelectable, and unqualified talking heads. This was a waste of time.  

I'm sure I am not alone in feeling dumber for having tuned in to this poor excuse for a debate. 

My reactions to the debate, in reverse order, via Twitter:

@MuddyPolitics: Bachmann is using multi-syllable words during CNN debate: "vital," then falls back on "the," to," "it," "I."

@MuddyPolitics:Pawlenty, in answering question about bringing home U.S. troops from Afghanistan: I just want to say thank you…

@MuddyPolitics: Coming up: withdrawal or don't withdrawal troops from Afghanistan? expect mass anti-Obama lectures. 

@MuddyPolitics: Santorum's only chance in 2012 was to have a presence at the debates. He doesn't. He's done.

@MuddyPolitics: Summary of #CNNDebate #GOPdebate : get rid of the courts, the federal government & Congress – that is, the U.S. government. Problem solved.

@MuddyPolitics: Cain doesn't believe in the 14th Amendment. Must have consulted Palin on that answer. #GOPfail 

@MuddyPolitics This is weird to say, but Ron Paul is the most sane, most realistic of the bunch. I know...I know... #oxymoron 

@MuddyPolitics: Ron Paul: protect our borders, not those between Iraq and Afghanistan. 

@MuddyPolitics: Bachmann stands for life, and gets a round of applause. No pro-death candidates so far... 

@MuddyPolitics: Bachman: I've fucked up 5 of my own children, 23 foster children. Poor bastards. 

@MuddyPolitics Santorum: we need 2 look @ the authenticity of a candidate – throws Romney under the bus, & for good reason. #abortion

@MuddyPolitics: Bachmann would consult "commanders in chief" over DADT. Past presidents?

@MuddyPolitics: Pawlenty says, "I was in a union." He just lost all his chances of winning the nomination. 

@MuddyPolitics: Cain doesn't know what "right to work" is.

@MuddyPolitics: Newt's second accusation of Obama policy being "stupid"

@MuddyPolitics: Pawlenty's only valid quote of the night: "We live in the United States of America." True...true... 

@MuddyPolitics: Santorum mentions "trickle down." #GOPfail

@MuddyPolitics: Bachmann uses her hands a lot when talking. Especially when talking about liberals. #CrazyArmCircles

@MuddyPolitics: Paul: I have no uplifting metaphors, just boring details. Hence my popularity.

@MuddyPolitics: Bachmann "We're going to win...President Obama is a one-term president!" 

@MuddyPolitics: Bachmann: Tea Party is a group of "disaffected Democrats." hahahahahaha

@MuddyPolitics: Newt cites Heritage Foundation. Bravo! 

@MuddyPolitics: Romney: "I can't wait to debate him." Declares he's the GOP's nominee!!! 

@MuddyPolitics: I think American Idol is more stimulating than this. 

@MuddyPolitics: Ohhh... #Obamneycare comes up. Mitt says he'll overturn #Obamacare. Goes on defensive about Romneycare. Hilarious.

@MuddyPolitics: Bachmann "will not rest" until she overturns #Obamacare ... 

@MuddyPolitics: These aren't candidates, they're candidebts. Intellectually speaking. 

@MuddyPolitics: Ron Paul says Federal Reserve caused the financial bubble. Government's fault. Duh. & people don't understand. Duh. 

@MuddyPolitics: Ron Paul can't think of anything Obama has done to boost the economy... wow... 

@MuddyPolitics: Bachmann says: "I filed my paperwork today to seek the office of the president today." Today she did that. 

@MuddyPolitics: Newt: "They ought to start creating jobs." Great details so far in this debate.

@MuddyPolitics: Romney pulls "Pelosi/Reid" card in demagoguing Obama." FUCKING ORIGINAL!

@MuddyPolitics: Romney gives kudos to Pawlenty for recognizing that the president needs to go. BRILLIANT! 

@MuddyPolitics: CNN asks, where were the jobs after Bush's tax cuts? Pawlenty doesn't answer, but talks to time limit.

@MuddyPolitics: Santorum says "I'm...uh...not...uhh...wait...what was the question?"

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)

Why the GOP is f***ed in 2012

By Nicholas Wilbur 

The future of the Republican Party rests on the shoulders of one candidate. Unfortunately, not even the Republican Party has any idea who that candidate will be. 

The long list of potential, possible, likely and too-stupid-to-calculate-basic odds second-string presidential hopefuls include: a flip-flopping Mormon with a soft spot for government-run health care; a libertarian advocate of legalizing heroin and prostitution; a perpetually stoned former governor from a state most Americans don’t know is part of the union; another Mormon (this one who worked for a socialist as ambassador to communists), a paranoid Constitutionalist whose followers have threatened to rape a high school girl who challenged their candidate’s knowledge of America’s founding documents; an evangelic whose last name has come to mean “the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter”; a hopelessly unattractive Minnesotan with no redeeming qualities other than his own self-awareness in admitting publicly that he’s boring; and a pizza maker.

Romney is ready to take on
supporters of Medicare. Other
potential GOP candidates,
 order your red man suits online today

With such a pathetic roster of uninspiring candidates, the Republican Party was more than happy to leave the media spotlight for a weekend as the perpetually campaigning Mama Grizzly from the Upper One state launched a Memorial Day “Rolling Thunder Magical Mystery Bus Tour” along the east coast. Riding into DC on an all-American hog and dressed in full leathers, the still unpopular, still unqualified former half-term governor of the Great Frontier, who sold her soul to Rupert Murdoch in order to prolong her short-lived 2008 Mama Grizzly publicity tour, kept the limelight burning for one last-ditch effort to sell some books and boost her public image before the media finally catches on and permanently turns the cameras away from the publicity hound and onto the real, equally hopeless but nonetheless inarguably “legitimate” candidates for the presidency. The most that will come of this magical bus tour is a Fox News segment on patriotism and motorcycles – and possibly a sequel to Hustler’s 2008 porn flick “Nailin’ Paylin.” (“Nailin’ Paylin Part II: The Bang Bus Tour,” or maybe “Paylin Does Pennsylvania.”) 

Whomever the GOP trots out as the next “savior of the party” better come equipped with a red man suit, a dog-eared copy of “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” and either Scott Brown’s Cosmopolitan centerpiece photographer, Brad Pitt’s personal trainer or Bristol Palin’s cosmetic surgeon – because he’s going to have a lot of heartened hearts to soften before Election Day. 

Between near-riotous town hall meetings prompted by Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan to “voucherize” Medicare, the party’s backing of anti-union laws, and the continuous state- and federal-level efforts to defund family planning services and undermine women’s right to choose, the Republican Party’s presidential nominee will face the seemingly impossible feat of convincing retirees, women and laborers – not to mention the unemployed, the LGBTQ community and college students fighting for grants and scholarships – that the GOP cares about more than securing the votes of the Tea Party base. 

Then, of course, there’s the question of party’s post-primary strategy: how will he (or, less likely, she) go toe to toe with the supercandidate (and popular incumbent) Barack Obama, who enters the race with the political equivalent of a Seal Team 6 campaign apparatus? President Obama – the Commander in Chief who captured and killed Public Enemy No. 1, the international uniter, the eloqutionist and the level-headed pragmatist – is already salivating at the prospect of debating a presidential challenger about the fiscal ramifications and social consequences of continuing tax cuts for millionaires, abolishing the health care reforms that stopped insurance companies from dropping coverage on a whim and bankrupting families without mercy, eviscerating the social safety net for seniors and the poor through radical changes to Medicare and Medicaid, holding hostage federal funds for disaster relief to ravaged states until Democrats embrace more budget cuts and every other radically unpopular policy the GOP has pushed since 2010. 

All of this is to say that the candidate Republicans nominate to face off against Obama in 2012 won’t be a candidate who is capable of actually winning. There is no such candidate. Not even in the party’s wildest, homoerotic political wet dream does such a candidate exist. But that isn’t what the 2012 race is all about. If Republicans are smart (a rhetorical question if there ever was one), they’ll take advantage of the free publicity, use the opportunity to train a future leader in the art of presidential campaigns, save the estimated $1 billion they’ll have to spend in order to make a dent in the Obama incumbency, and use 2012 as a primer for the only election race in which they have a fighting chance: 2016.

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)

Mitch Daniels: Feel the excitement!

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Republicans, and specifically those in the party establishment, are understandably concerned. So far the GOP has thrown up a pretty pathetic field of potential presidential nominees.

You've got Romney, who's still trying to prove he's actually a conservative; Pawlenty, who's dull and uninspiring; Santorum, who's best-known for this; (Ron) Paul, who's such a crazy libertarian extremist he scares the god-fearin' crap out of 'em; and Gingrich, who stuck his foot so far in his mouth criticizing Republican wunderkind Paul Ryan's anti-Medicare plan he's been spending the past few days trying to extract it from his ass. Not to mention various forgettables, like Roemer, Cain, and Johnson.

So what are "depressed" Republicans to do? Why, pray for a savior, of course! And look to Indiana:

Top Republicans are increasingly convinced that President Barack Obama will be easily reelected if stronger GOP contenders do not emerge, and some are virtually begging Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels to add some excitement to the slow-starting nomination race.

It's a sign of the GOP's straits that the party is depending on the bland, wonkish Daniels for an adrenaline boost.

Mitch Daniels? Excitement? Adrenaline?

Really?

Such is the state of things these days that, yes, Daniels is the GOP's knight in shining armor. Which, let's be honest, isn't much of an endorsement, given the competition. Actually, it's a sign of just how bad things really are.

I've written about Daniels a few times already -- see here, here, and here -- and won't repeat myself here. Suffice it to say that he's not without some serious flaws that desperate establishment Republicans are apparently overlooking. He isn't much of social conservative (he even called a truce on social issues in Indiana) and, while he's certainly got some conservative cred on economic/budget policy, he's shown far too much flexibility in the past, including backing a tax increase -- that just won't fly with the GOP's Tea Party grassroots base, not to mention with the Grover Norquists among the party's anti-tax elite. (And let's not get into his, er, marriage problems.)

So, sure, maybe Daniels can come in and fire things up a bit. But likely not. And I just don't see him pulling it off over the long haul.

But don't despair, Republicans! There's always Michele Bachmann!

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Santorum says McCain doesn't get torture

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Really, Rick Santorum? You don't think John McCain knows what torture is all about?

I get that you're a torture enthusiast like so many in your party, but are you really that much of a fucking idiot?

Reality bites (Rick Santorum in the ass)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

At Thursday night's GOP "presidential" "debate" in South Carolina, Rick Santorum said that President Obama deserves zero credit for killing Osama bin Laden:

9/11 families and everybody else in America should be furious at this president that he's walking abound taking credit for, you know, getting Osama bin Laden. He didn't get Osama bin Laden!

Basically, Obama just gave the order, which was easy enough to do (as if there were no question at all, as if the mission weren't risky at all -- clearly Santorum has no idea what it means to be president and to have to make decisions like this). It was Bush who did all the work. 

It's predictable enough that all five Republicans went after Obama and that Santorum in particular, who is so desperate to gain traction (but who really doesn't have much of a shot of actually winning), said something so ridiculously stupid, something that goes beyond even what most other conservatives are saying in response to the mission. This isn't just denying Obama full credit, or trying to share some of the credit, this is saying that Obama did virtually nothing and is shamelessly taking undeserved credit for something he knows he didn't do.

Aside from the facts that Obama was closely involved in the planning stage of the mission and was making the key decisions all along -- and, indeed, there were other options and things could have gone differently -- what Santorum gets wrong is just how differently Obama has approached the "war" on terror compared to Bush:

[A]s Michael Hirsch writes today in the National Journal, President Obama was sucessful in catching Bin Laden precisely because he broke with Bush's terror policies. The conservative "assessment couldn't be further from the truth," Hirsch writes. "Behind Obama's takedown of the Qaida leader this week lies a profound discontinuity between administrations — a major strategic shift in how to deal with terrorists," from Bush's bombastic and overly expansive "war on terror," to Obama's "covert, laserlike focus on al-Qaida and its spawn."

In other words, the mission to kill Osama bin Laden was planned and succeeded not in spite of Obama, or regardless of Obama, but because of Obama. This is not to say that another president wouldn't have made the same or similar decisions and wouldn't have similarly succeeded, but it's just plain wrong to suggest that Obama deserves none of the credit or even just some of the credit.

This is politics, I know, and the truth matters little to extremist partisan ideologues like Santorum. But it's yet another example of just how reality-denying the Republicans really are.

And it's only going to get worse.

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