Like an Angry Bird sitting on her toxic brood for far too long, I present to you the eggs of my take on last week's GOP debate. (Not to be confused with the kernels of any wisdom, or the nuggets of any chicken.)
Why let them sit and crack a bit first? Well, I usually dash off a post as soon as a debate has concluded, and before the media anal-ists (I intended that misspelling) can tell me what I thought. This time I decided to listen to them first. Didn't change a damned thing, I'm happy to report.
Here are the topics of debate I found most interesting, listed in the order in which they were taken.
HOW TO GET RID OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
Santorum: Says not local, state, nor federal employees should be able to join a union. Plans to sign into law "National Right to Work" legislation. (And if that doesn't make you crazy then you already are.)
Bachmann: Says according to the 10th Amendment, she questions the constitutionality of the Government to do anything at all. (Guess she wants to be the President of Iowa.)
Romney: Wants Social Security to remain "nationalized". Ooh, sounds so dirty.
HOW TO GET RID OF THE US GOVERNMENT, ONE PIECE AT A TIME
Cain: Would eliminate the EPA.
Gingrich: Will wage a "21st Century Contract ON America"; then took credit for everything Bill Clinton did in his second term...with one exception, of course. How many marriages is Bill on?
Johnson: The New Mexican ex-Gov entered the fray promising to eliminate the Department of Ed. (I had no idea we had a federal agency just to see to the needs of dead ex-TV star horsies.)
Gingrich/Santorum/Paul/Perry/Romney/Bachmann/Cain/Huntsman: Not to be outdone (or out underdone) by the new debater on the block, the entire rest of the field then piled on about how education is so, so bad. (It's too easy; make your own joke here.) They went on about "localized" which I thought was a type of injection and which I thought Perry would favor. They espoused "parental rights" because I guess "parental lefts" would be child abuse. (Ask how many parents really want the job of educating their kids, and how many--if they are employed--can afford to quit their jobs to do so.) Note: I did homeschool my kids for 2 years--not because of some religious viewpoint--because we were moving a lot and because I went through a spell of finding the school atmosphere to be TOO CONSERVATIVE (gulp). See, I can be just as close-minded as these nuts sometimes. "Opt out" was also a popular refrain.
HOW TO KEEP OUT ALL THE PEOPLE WHO A CENTURY OR TWO AGO WE WOULD HAVE PROUDLY CALLED "OUR FOREBEARS"--And here's a fix: Move Ellis Island to the Bay of Galveston--Problem Solved!
Bachmann: Chides the Big O for suing Arizona. Wants a fenced-in country. Would add even more children to the teeming poverty rolls.
Romney: Tells Perry to turn off his Mexican Magnet.
Perry: (in a moment of unadulterated grace) "If you say we shouldn't educate kids who are here through no fault of their own, you have no heart." Of course he was booed.
Santorum: Just before having a hissy fit of interrupting, told Perry that no one said "they" couldn't go to school, said we just shouldn't give "them" special treatment.
Paul: Paranoid Paul reminded us that "data banks are not just for illegals. With a national ID card, they'll have us all in there." (Sigh.)
HOW TO BE PRO-NEO CON WARS AND STILL BLAME OBAMA
Johnson: (Also known by his preamble to each answer: "I. Promise Johnson".) Would magically cut 43% of the military budget. Good luck with the Tea-O-P and that one!)
Bachmann: No US-to-Cuba flights because "Cuba is one of the four state sponsors of terrorism". Wow, what a sweet, simple little world the wild-eyed one lives in.
Huntsman: "This country's ready for our troops to come home." Met with mixed, unsure audience noise.
Santorum: Blames Obama for "fighting" and cannot begin to pronounce Afghanistan. (Maybe it wasn't listed in his phonetic bible.)
Audience: Biggest boos of the night to a gay Army servicemember currently serving in Iraq. Note: Why is it they boo the two groups whose jobs they would NEVER DO: Gay soldiers and illegal immigrants?
Santorum, again: Says repealing DADT (yay!) "puts sex in the military and it doesn't belong there." He goes on to, evidently, push the self-gratification issue: "Sex shouldn't be an issue--keep it to yourself." WHICH BRINGS US TO YOUR ANTI-CHOICE POSITION. When men can get pregnant, I'll listen to what they have to say about abortion. CASE CLOSED!
PAUL: While on the subject, he interjected his belief that abortion might be okay in the case of rape and that a morning after pill of a certain variety might be okay as well. Thanks for deciding that, SIR.
HOW TO KILL THE UNINSURED, NOT THE JOBS
Cain: Says of his cancer-survivor status, "I'd be dead under 'Obamacare' because the bureacrats would micromanage care." (Please refer to the above anti-choice/hypocritcal (yes) oath rant.)
Huntsman: Evidently channelling Michael Dukakis, Huntsman listens to a question from a kid with heart disease who, still on his parents' policy, is getting healthcare under the President's plan. When the kid asks if Jon would take that coverage away from him, Jon first says he would "let the states experiment with healthcare solutions". Fifty small government studies--just what someone with heart disease has time to see through. Then, if it couldn't get "heart-less", Jon waxes on about his kid with diabetes. Really?! Then he launches into a protracted dissertation of policy positions. (I felt so bad for that questioner.)
Texas: Speaking on behalf of its governor, the state reported in with 25% uninsured and tough eligibility rules for Medicaid, giving the state a ranking of 49th in that service. Only one more to go!!
Romney: Wants every state to get a waiver to exempt itself from the President's plan. You get the theme here, with strains of "Glory, Glory, Haliburton" playing the background of your head, right? Where were these get-the-government-off-my-back people in the last decade of Constitution shredding??
HOW I WOULD FIX WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE USA or HOW TO BRING BACK THAT AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM (yes)
Romney: Actually says: "There are lots of reasons not to elect me" but says he will stand by what he says in his book and that he has the experience to "get the country going again". In a sleezy play to the audience, he says that patriotism will save us because we are the "only people on Earth who put their hand over their heart" when they sing the Pledge of Alliegiance? Say the National Anthem? See 40 percent of black kids in poverty? (I think I must've dreamed that last bit.)
Huntsman: Going to his widdy-biddy base in this one county in New Hampshire, Jon laments its woes: "It's sad that for the first time ever a county in New Hampshire is giving out foreclosure notices to the Middle Class." I guess it wasn't sad when poor people got 'em everywhere else. Is there still a Middle Class anyway?
Bachmann: "Brass Ring of Liberty." I don't know what the hell she was trying to say. "'Obamacare is the #1 reason there's no hiring." Ditto. Explain all the unemployment/offshoring/reckless spending/economic collapse that occurred BEFORE the inauguration, please.
Paul: He's worried about bubbles--they'll kill us all if they have their way--and wants less regulation. Remind me again, how did we get into a lot of this financial trouble in the first place? That's what I thought. "Free" market.
Santorum: "Obama doesn't understand what this country is about." Now I just don't know where to start there. (Maybe, if he'd immigrated to Texas instead of Hawai'i when he came over from Kenya he'd have gotten his US History and Civics lessons?) Then Santo calls the President the "New King George III." Uh-oh. If you will recall, there were some other history re-enactors in Colonial garb who toured the country during the 2004 election cycle reading the writ of complaints lodged against KG3 by the Colonists. The re-enactors were quick to point out that the then current President was guilty of committing many, if not all, of the same fouls. No, Ricky, the New King George III was the Old Bush II. You've just hooked up with the uninformed branch of the re-enactors. Again, history lessons. Then, in a nod to Bush I, Santo seemed to suggest those 1,000 points of light as a foreign aid policy.
HOW TO CHOOSE MY FACILITATOR
The "Field of Screams" was asked to select their VP pick from amongst each other. Here's what they said:
Johnson: He'd pick Ron Paul, Liberty, and Freedom. (Don't think you can have three. Maybe he's going for a Caesarian Government, or a barbershop quartet.)
Santorum: He'd pick Newt Gingrich because "he'd do what I'd say". (Nervous laughter.)
Gingrich: Immediately follows Santo and refuses to pick.
Paul: Stomps his little foot and says he won't choose until he's ranked number 1 or number 2.
Huntsman: In a nod to...something, picks Herman Cain.
Perry: Asks for a love child combo of Cain and Gingrich. (Nervous upchucking.)
Romney: Won't pick because he wants to stay number 1 or number 2. Adds, "We all have stuff in our past that would make our election difficult." Not as difficult however as, say, their nomination nor their inauguration.
Bachmann: Would pick a "straight, Constitutional, Conservative". (The punctuation may be mine.) Then she adds the much ballyhooed falsehood of: "Obama has the lowest public approval rating in modern history." Yeah, unless you include every US President going back to Truman and Tricky Dick.
Or perhaps "modern history" to Hysterical Michele-ical is the very last "thought" she had. Look at the facts: Oh, that's right. She is in possession of none.
Cain: Would pick Romney if he would go along with Cain's 9-9-9 which I believe is a special mix of fertilizer for the economy. If Romney said "No" to the soil amendment, he'd go with Newt. (I think in some cultures, that's actually a curse.)
THE TAKEAWAYS
1. The GOP platform seems to be two-fold:
WHEN WE WANT YOU...TO DO SOMETHING= NATIONALISM!!!!!
WHEN YOU WANT SOMETHING FROM US= STATES' RIGHTS!!!!!
2. If you "work" at Fox you can actually ask a question with actually in it and get away with said actual statement. Miss Meagan sez: "Sixty-six percent of people actually believe in raising taxes on the wealthy..." The dirty bastards! Don't they know they are defiling the JOB CREATORS. (Say that in a "calling on the Super Heroes" voice and let it echo. It's fun! Takes your mind off the hunger pangs, too.)
3. Wal-Mart has no sensitivity training seminars for their ad agency. During this debate, one commercial compelled me to rewind it again and again to be sure of what I'd seen. They go through this whole montage of small towns with Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard signs placed prominently. Then they end with a Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard sign with a Wal-Mart store in the background. The voice-over dude reminds us that Wal-Mart has always been "with us" or "on our side" or some such platitude. Maybe it's my own problem, but that struck me as creepy. Seemed to cheapen it somehow: Like a false equivalency. Or like anything you buy at Wal-Mart. (And yes, I shop there sometimes because the option is driving for 45 minutes each way. I'm a hypocrite, but an honest one, at least.) But then again, corporations are people. Hey, maybe some of my best friends are Wal-Marts!
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