Dueling Echo Chambers
 |
| "SOCIALIST" |
 |
| NATIONAL SOCIALIST |
To what has to be the continuing existential chagrin of Jon Huntsman (arguably the most electable Republican in a deck filled with jokers...) professor Newton Leroy Gingrich has plopped himself into the musical chair stenciled "Anybody but Romney". The one freshly vacated last week by serial groper Herman "Who's Your Godfather?" Cain. Latest in a seemingly endless stream of Mitt Romney straw men, Newt (PhD European History, Tulane 1971) - no stranger to Swinger family values himself - has been running around the country for several months reminding everyone how brilliant he is.
While it may be difficult to argue that being the smartest guy in the room is an especially valuable qualification in the mind of the average Republican voter, there has never been any realistic alternative to "letting Newt be Newt." Given the notional half life of Republican front runners this season, the party will need additional cannon fodder for the primaries if it is to continue denying Mr. Romney till next summer. The nightmare scenario (for both Donkeys and Elephants) is that once Santorum is fed into the wood chipper in the late Spring, Huntsman ascends to the ABR chair at some implacably late moment and ends up with the nod in Tampa. This would accomplish two things: the GOP proves (against all odds) that it remains capable of nominating a candidate with an IQ above room temp, and; Obama is - finally - placed in actual danger of rejoining the ranks of the Community Organizer profession.
Believe me no one is more aware that the word 'surreal' is overused than I am, but at some point in this bizarre process one must begin to seriously contemplate the notion that Ron Paul (following the untimely death of President Bachman) ends up with the nuclear launch codes. I'm not saying that three cabinet departments, a return to the gold standard and the imprisonment of the entire Fed board of governors for treason is necessarily a bad thing. But I am saying that, at some point, what passes for the Republican polity in The Greatest Country In The History Of The World better turn off the televisions and begin seriously thinking about precisely what it is that they're up to.
Not to say that my close friends in the Democratic mosh pit aren't driving a little drunk themselves. Insisting that Obama endorse transgender marriage (you have to think about that one for a few moments) and post-natal abortions in cases of disappointing eye color is not an ideal path to consensus building either. Not content with having sent a more than faintly liberal black man to Pennsylvania Avenue, the Left seems to have sneaked a look at the Right's playbook and become complicit in the conspiracy to jam a rag down the mouth of the Center. For that matter, where's the Silent Majority when you need them?
(Don't answer that - I know, they're glued to Dancing With The Stars wolfing pork flavored textured corn gluten. Or plotting FarmVille strategies.)
I know that once you reach the point where you think everybody is crazy, you're usually the next one who ends up in a straight jacket. But I have a friend who went to Yale who's driving around Houston with a 'Honkies for Cain' bumper sticker on his Bentley.
I am not making this up.
If things don't begin to resolve themselves into a little more cogent scenario by the Super Bowl, I'm going to lay in a supply of blotter acid and launch a 'Draft Berlusconi' movement. In addition to a fondness for the same shade of pancake foundation, Silvio and House Speaker Boehner have enough in common to be a plausible ticket for what I'm calling the Dada Party.
I know, I know, the former Italian prime minister is not a native born American - but then again, neither is Hussein Obama. Besides: do I look like I actually give a shit? To paraphrase Dylan, you don't need a particle physicist to tell you that the world is stranger than you can imagine.