Rush Gasbag and the conservative media are all up in arms about the disrespect shown Michele Bachman when she recently appeared on Jimmy Fallon’s late night talk show. She was serenaded onstage by The Roots, playing a song called Lyin’ Ass Bitch and, somewhat predictably, when she discovered the name of the song, she and her campaign went ballistic. Her outrage was echoed and amplified by other conservative voices desperate for an opportunity to slam the Hollywood liberal elite, etc., etc. However this outcry misses the point entirely.
The truly unfortunate thing for Ms Bachman is that the song isn’t true; she isn’t a lyin’ ass bitch. The garbled nonsense that she routinely spews is what she really believes to be true! She truly believes that carbon dioxide is harmless and that The Lion King is gay propaganda. In her heart of hearts she actually thinks that eliminating the minimum wage would create jobs and that “hundreds of scientists – some Nobel Prize winners” believe in intelligent design. And that’s OK; at least you know where she’s coming from…or, at least where one of her personalities is coming from. When she criticizes Obama she swings hard and puts both cheeks into it; no apologies, no mercy, no regrets. But at least she doesn’t out and out lie and put words into his mouth like Rick “I think that’s what he said” Perry and Mitt Romney, who have both released campaign commercials recently taking public Obama speeches, deconstructing them and intentionally mashing them up into something completely false and utterly misleading. In the voice over both parties solemnly and harshly accuse the president, distorting his position in a blatant bullshit shoveling session intended to confuse already confused low-information republican primary voters.
It’s one thing for dim-bulb Perry to accuse Obama of being a socialist; I would bet he doesn’t even know what that means and he’s a dead man walking anyway. Erstwhile front-runner Romney, however, is another matter. He may dodge and dissemble, flip and flop, equivocate and spend more time lying in the weeds than a garter snake but he isn’t the dumb-ass that Perry is; he can’t use that as an excuse. His disingenuous use of doctored Obama speeches is reprehensible and pathetic. Moreover, the fake speeches he creates by doing so are used to highlight "terrible" Obama policies like holding rational and adult conversations with our “enemies” and not supporting the half-crazed notion of bombing Iran back to the stone-age. Romney is trying so hard to prove he has enough sack for the job that he appears – to anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of foreign policy and diplomacy – completely unsuitable for the job and the naive and uninformed former governor of Massachusetts that he is. What a clown…
Compare these two knuckleheads with Ron Paul, a man whose foreign policy is so sane and sensible he doesn't seem to be in the same party as the rest of the General Jack D. Ripper-wannabes. How is it that a candidate who doesn't like the two extremely questionable wars in which we’re currently involved and who doesn't want to get involved in any more comes to represent the fringe of a major American political party, an outcast? He’s usually treated like a nut, like the addled uncle who lives in the attic and only comes out at Christmas time. He may be proudly outside the mainstream of American domestic policy – waaay too libertarian, even for the tax and government hating elements of the party, who are fine with shutting down NPR but who might balk at eliminating the Federal Reserve or punching holes to drill for oil down at the car wash. But he and Jon Huntsman are the only two I’d trust with the red telephone and even then I’d be nervous.
So where’s the explanation for Newt Gingrich? Gingrich has crashed and burned more times than Orr in Catch-22. That may be the answer – his dirty laundry has been hanging on the line for a long time now and people are used to seeing it, disturbing as it might be. At the same time, a new story line seems to be developing, one that suggests that the republican debates are exposing the American public to new ideas and that will be a tipping point in the general election because everyone is so dissatisfied with what Obama has done that they want something – anything- different. Unfortunately for him, Newt doesn't have any new ideas. But it might explain why polls indicate that Obama loses a match up with a hypothetical republican – the proverbial, “anybody” – by a few points but is 6-10 points ahead of any of the current specific candidates, including Mitt Romney, lying swine and current leader of the pack.
The simple fact is, people are pissed, disappointed, angry and afraid and that’s poison for any incumbent, period. All this carnival midway crap – Obama’s a Kenyan, he’s a Muslim, he’s a socialist – is a distraction for the weak-minded on their way to the big tent for the main show. The muddled republican race is so confusing that it’s no surprise that the terrified residents of the village who are hiding in the basement from the zombies understandably embrace any “good guys” who show up with the flashlight to lead them to safety. But as they quickly discover, they’re not the answer to the fundamental problem and at the end of the day, creepy things still want to eat them. Mitt and Perry running blatantly misleading and untrue campaign ads is no shock. What else have they got? They’re the real Lyin’ Ass Bitches…
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