The snazzy power and gossip site Politico gives us strange coverage of Sen. Marco Rubio’s State of the Union response. In case you’d missed it, the young senator was to offer a devastating counter to the President’s lengthy and probably un-constitutional Tuesday address.

What he delivered was Mitt Romney utterly without any polish. At one point the Senator’s nerves got so bad he had to step aside for a water bottle to wet his mouth. This was the bizarre highlight of an address gorged with the same bluster and falsehoods that careened Mittmentum into the permanent ditch of early 2012.

Politico witnessed the disaster. Being a responsible and political entity, it knew it had a job to do. How bad is this for Marco Rubio?

General consensus: Rubio water flap shall pass
Maggie Haberman | Politico

…“The water moment did not bother me,” said Republican strategist Bruce Haynes, of Purple Strategies. “I thought it made him human.”

When you have to gather a “General consensus,” you really need Republicans. GOP strategists and operatives, the more the better.

Alex Castellanos, another Republican operative at Purple, said, “I think it was great first step for Marco Rubio and a great first step for the Republican party.”

It was great? Twitter convulsing in hails of derision is generally awesome. If the scenery had collapsed in on him it would have been Reaganesque.

“Whatever they wanted out of it, I’m not sure they got,” said one Republican operative.

This is nearly sane. But no, Marco didn’t want to be a punchline (‘aqualunge’). Then again given how difficult it is to speak feet from a freshwater source, I’d say he managed fairly well.

“Response to the State of the Union is always one of the most difficult speaking engagements an elected official faces, with the klieg lights hammering down and no ability to get a water break or a breath because there is no audience reaction to allow for a break in the action,” said conservative strategist Greg Mueller.

As Congress tittered at one of the President’s comments, no one noticed him urinate in a bucket onstage. But for Greg Mueller.

“While the reach for water might be fodder for some late night comedians to have some fun with as they do all key politicians, bottom line is the heart-warming delivery of the speech wins out,” Mueller added.

How in the world did Gunga Din play the bugle in a hot desert? Far smaller grudges held he than a love for his fellow man. And that’s how you end up in a Kipling poem, sniff.

The Republican operative [Castellanos] said the water sip amounts little more than a media-driven distraction. The bigger takeaway is “a new generation of Republican that walked out on the stage last night.”

Havana Mittens. He comes equipped with the new ethnic but without the decades of suit raids and spit shining. The New Bungler, without an accomplishment to his name.

Surveying a political life highlighted primarily by self-serving cowardice, I have never seen anything quite so disgusting as John McCain’s latest performance. He had the surely personally gratifying duty of vetting yesterday the President’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel.

The most contentious part of his questioning came when he decided to attack Hagel’s opposition to the Surge in Iraq. Briefly, the Surge was a 2007 introduction of around 20,000 additional troops into mostly Baghdad, some into Al-Anbar province, to try to improve the situation in Iraq.

Politically speaking, the Surge is all John McCain’s baby. While other Republicans then were busy talking fecklessly about the brutal and failing war, it was McCain who decided to publicly double down on a dangerous strategy: sending more soldiers. It may not have actually done much, but the timing worked nicely to McCain’s favor as violence began to drop in Iraq in late 2007. McCain used the Surge politically to rally American patriotism and separate himself from the other Republican presidential hopefuls. It’s the one great success in his political life. That’s how he beat out Mitt Romney for the right to lose to the Democrat, Barack Obama, in 2008. Remember that, then watch this bullshit:

How vomit-inducing. McCain has Hagel over a political barrel and everybody knows it. If Hagel disagrees, the petulant McCain will run to the media replaying the trope that the Surge reversed the course in Iraq and won us the glorious war. Republicans will seize the opportunity to rally around McCain and his brilliant strategy, and Hagel’s nomination will be D.O.A.

So John McCain here is only trying to make Chuck Hagel blow him in public. Sorry about the depiction, but that’s the honest truth. He’s shoving Hagel’s head at his crotch to see how badly Chuck wants the nomination. It’s disgusting.

What should the government do? Folks build entire philosophies to answer the question. Notions abound. You ask this of the Arizona Tea Party, they’ll tell you it’s the government’s job to fuck off.

Two state representatives have proposed bills requiring Arizona students to show more respect for their country in a move that is stirring constitutional arguments and a threat of lawsuits.

All public high-school seniors would have to recite an oath supporting the U.S. Constitution to be able to graduate, under a proposal in House Bill 2467 sponsored by Rep. Bob Thorpe, R-Flagstaff.

And all students in first through 12th grades would have to say the pledge of allegiance each day if House Bill 2284, sponsored by Rep. Steve Smith, R-Maricopa, passes.

. . until they realize they can turn your daughter into a good little stormtrooper. Then the government is pretty cool.

What a great political ad.

There Nancy Pelosi is. In her Satanic mansion of zombies.

There you go, there’s one. The dead can grow thick facial hair, that’s a rule.

Here another zombie tries to stab a sheep (actually a goat).

Here Nancy’s Republican challenger John Dennis swings into action.

Now he lectures Pelosi about sacrificial lambs. See the goat?

And Nancy makes the Pelosi face.

Then she tells everybody to “Talk to the hand.”

And there goes the greatest political ad ever.

So Clint Eastwood balls up his actor’s courage and delivers a doddering stumbling diatribe to an empty chair (in his mind, to the President) at last week’s GOP convention. It was bizarre. It wasn’t rehearsed or scripted, that’s for sure. It was even painful to see. And it was a great way to set a professional tone for the high-profile Romney coronation minutes before the World’s Greatest Man takes to center stage and pleads that he should be your next president.

Quote Rachel Maddow: “I don’t — I don’t — I don’t know what was going on there,” Maddow said, seemingly tongue-tied. “Clint Eastwood is 82 years old and I think that — I don’t know if that’s what was going on there.” . .

“That was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen at a political convention in my entire life, and it will be the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen if I live to be 100,” she said.

Weirdness. What’s the fallout from this surrealist escapade? Turbo weirdness. The wingnuts grabbed their cameras yesterday and took pictures of empty chairs. Why? No idea. It was an insult to Obama apparently. Chairs are empty 99% of the time, incidentally.

But boy howdy did people get excited about it though. And everybody chose the same chair for a prop, one of those mass-produced $20 white patio plastic things that seems to get filthy dirty before you can even get it out of your car. But they added flags or hand-written messages to the setting to make the insult clear: “Take that Obama.” And the Keystone pipeline, buddy.

If I remember these people correctly, Obama has been a dictator. Been seizing control of everything in sight, most luridly and illegally the world’s greatest healthcare system. In parallel he’s driven the nation into a death debt-spiral, entrenched Soviet socialism into government practices, handed both the borders and the Supreme Court to Mexicans, and he’s brought indefensible Chicago politics to the fray which means he’s about to get re-elected, probably for life. This is why Chuck Norris predicted that Barack defeating Mittens in November will kick off a “thousand years of darkness” in America. It’s the application of empty chair politics, you see.

And so the Republican convention ends. There were so many things to be impressed with. There was the uh and also then some other thing. But asking Clint Eastwood to entertain the faithful by carrying out a doddering unscripted conversation with the Obama in his head was frighteningly charming. Groundbreaking too in a daunting way. We can assume a Reagan in his 90s with his mental drapes permanently drawn would have slayed the hell out of this bunch. We can also assume the poor homeless schizophrenic working the taxi stands outside, though plenty sharper, wasn’t nearly famous enough for this crowd.

Here were the lowlights:

Arch-conservatives continue their banner August. In the first week of the month unemployed white supremacist Wade Page shot and killed six Sikhs at a temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. In week two unemployed gun nut and Palin/Beck/O’Reilly fan Thomas Caffall killed two people, one a constable, in College Station, Texas. Also in week two a group of barely-employed “sovereign citizens” and their girlfriends shot four Louisiana deputies in and around St. John the Baptist Parish, killing two.

Now in week four we come across these wingnuts.

Four Army soldiers based in southeast Georgia killed a former comrade and his girlfriend to protect an anarchist militia group they formed that stockpiled assault weapons and plotted a range of anti-government attacks, prosecutors told a judge Monday.

Prosecutors in rural Long County, near the sprawling Army post Fort Stewart, said the militia group of active and former U.S. military members spent at least $87,000 buying guns and bomb components. They allege the group was serious enough to kill two people — former soldier Michael Roark and his 17-year-old girlfriend, Tiffany York — by shooting them in the woods last December in order to keep its plans secret.

The patriots had big plans.

. . plotted to take over Fort Stewart by seizing its ammunition control point and talked of bombing the Forsyth Park fountain in nearby Savannah, she said. In Washington state, she added, the group plotted to bomb a dam and poison the state’s apple crop. Ultimately, prosecutors said, the militia’s goal was to overthrow the government and assassinate the president.

They were going to kill a lot of innocent people, including President Obama. These stalwarts who practiced politics through terror called themselves “Forever Enduring Always Ready,” or F.E.A.R.

Isaac Aguigui, the Army private and alleged ringleader of a plot to assassinate Barack Obama and “take over” Ft. Stewart in Georgia, apparently served as a page at the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minnesota. That’s his mug shot after he was arrested for the alleged murder of Pvt. Michael Roark on the left. At right is a 2008 Reuters photo with the caption: “Republican National Convention page Isaac Aguigui watches from the edge of the floor at the start of the first session of the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota September 1, 2008.”

The ladies of Brooklyn could use some pointers. Three weeks from today, the right Republican New York Senator Marty Golden will hold an event on 76th street, at Bay Ridge Manor. Lucky youze.

It won’t be no boring fundraiser. Naw, it’ll be like a debutante’s ball, or a cotillion. Or like a 17th century Viennese social, replete with powder-flecked waltzes and some delicious palace intrigue. If you don’t know what that is (I don’t), don’t you worry. Professor Higgins will be there to tell you:

SENATOR MARTY GOLDEN invites you to Refresh your Business Etiquette and Social Protocol Skills!

· HANDSHAKES AND INTRODUCTIONS
· POSTURE DEPORTMENT AND THE FEMININE PRESENCE

. . so. Youze been putting Marty in a headlock? No, no, ladies, that is no way to behave. We run a polite society here. Marty is a Republican. Upon presentation to Mister Monsignor Senator Fancysox Golden, you lie on your back and present the parts for wanding. Legs high, pinkies askew. Here I am. Now let me know who’s hiring, pal.

Syrian tanks are ripping civilians to shreds. The pedophiles in Los Angeles’ unified school district multiply by the day. And mass-less neutrinos may be flying faster than the speed of light. Who knows? The world is a hash.

Reality titters at us. If only someone would make sense of it all.

Jonah Goldberg
Mr. Right Eludes the GOP
National Review | Feb 22 2012

“If we could just take a little bit from each of them.”

I’ve lost track of how many people I have heard say some version of this in the last couple of months.

Cream soda and biscuits! Jonah Goldberg. Goldberg! He’s here. taaah-daaah.

If there’s anyone who can patch a mess — wait, did I say Jonah Goldberg? He’s here! He’s . . huum. He’s doing whatever he does. And soon everything becomes white on white, by bright white, fluorescent lit. Tinged with marshmallow, highlighted with frosted cotton, dusted in quick lime. Look at all the details.

You say, sir, none of your drooling, pine-headed sloths qualifies for the presidency? Stragety brainyhoo time. Jonah Time. A little bit of one here, and a little bit of the other there, and no one goes to the penitentiary. Is that it? You could sew the liver of one on to the face of the other, and you’d have yourself another Ronald Reagan. He was a bole-spotted jack o’lantern if ever there were one. Dude was sharp like a tack. The stupid, soul-rending process of sailing right into the wind, he was. Where did we all leave the football, Agent, eh, Beaner Suit-guy?

Take Newt Gingrich’s verbal dexterity, encyclopedic grasp of politics, and techno-optimism. Add in Rick Santorum’s authenticity and religious conviction.

Throw in a billion dollars, and you, sir, have yourself a deal. That way, I’ll be long gone before Rick Gingtorum accidentally sets fire to the wheat fields, killing milllions.

Combine that with the essence of Ron Paul’s principled passion for liberty and limited government.

So President Paul Santorich can then lynch the African-American rioters.

Stir vigorously and then pour into the handsome, squeaky-clean vessel of Mitt Romney (while keeping his business acumen and analytical skill).

And you have visited Satan upon this planet.

And voilà, you’d have the perfect candidate.

Rick the Dragonheart, surging Republican candidate, 15th century body snatcher, is on some momentum mojo tear today. On a serious Santorum roll. If I recall, that’s a traditional Medieval biscuit larded with goat brain, turned over an oxen dung fire, and made ashes with a blazing cross. They used to do the exact same thing for cowhide, magicians and saints. Why ever did we stop being Europe?

Speaking of the greatness of the past, Rick is something of a Medieval biscuit himself. Can you believe the interest the world’s taken in him? The internets have been going crazy today tracking his every cross-eyed campaign stop.

Staring at my computer, I can hardly believe the dumb, anachronistic stuff he’s putting out as policy positions. One: what women will be allowed to do in President Santorum’s America. One A: what sorts of planes he’d let them fly. Somehow, these are suddenly IMPORTANT. In Rick’s Victorian world, these are issues that have become dangerously unhinged from the wisdom of, eh, well, his Victorian world:

“I don’t think you see the same problems they would find on the front line.” He says, “It’s not a matter of putting women in dangerous roles.” He tell[s] me, for example, that women are fully capable of “flying small planes.”

Micky Axton

Mildred Darlene “Micky” Tuttle Axton was one of the best pilots of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) program. Micky flew the four engine B-29 Superfortress back in 1944. 57 years ago. But campaign-Rick feels like putting everyone straight about the true nature and genetic capability of women today. This would have been a stupid opinion around the Korean War. It’s absolutely Neanderthal by the Reagan era. More:

. . I do have concerns about women in front line combat. I think that can be a very compromising situation where — where people naturally may do things that may not be in the interests of the mission because of other types of emotions that are involved.

This is so much gobbledygook, it’s barely parse-able. I think he’s saying that a platoon with a woman in it can’t shoot at the enemy when they’re playing spin the bottle. Why Rick refuses to acknowledge the realities of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is especially mysterious given the way he’s promised to extend them both, at great cost to us all. The Army has seen what women are capable of, and they’re moving in the direction of giving those soldiers more combat-ready roles on the front line. And it ain’t like the armed forces have ever been a haven for feminists.

Holy thatched huts, digital people. How are you supposed to deal with a guy like this? What do you say? We say that Rick mounts a selfish campaign to take America back in time. He would return us to a century more comfortable for himself. Unfortunately, nothing he believes will suddenly become any less bullshit than it is right now.

Anybody could have predicted this from Rick Santorum. Any time one of these donkey-slapping clowns gets an ‘attaboy’ from the caucus [(def) 'Attaboy': We avoided the bigger clown], he fires up an exploding cigar. These guys cannot stand success:

“This is a president who, just recently, in this Hosanna-Tabor case was basically making the argument that Catholics had to, you know, maybe even had to go so far as to hire women priests to comply with employment discrimination issues. This is a very hostile president to people of faith. He’s a hostile president, not just to people of faith, but to all freedoms.”

The president demands female priests. I think he’ll have the freedoms, please, in a scramble a la’ martinet. This makes absolutely no sense, so it must be true. If the president tied his shoes, Rick Santorum would know he just got lynched. He’s such a wuss, I’m pretty sure I could will him to pee his shorts. That makes sense. Therefore, your honor, little Ricky’s soggy bottom notwithstanding, it is a lie.

Now that we’ve set up a real-er reality (real traditional American flavor), let’s be sensible. Let’s marvel at Republican candidates.

Newt Gingrich won in South Carolina. So he asked his Florida fans to skip to the moon with him where he’ll establish the U.S.’ fifty-first state (sorry, Kashmir). Because that was so cool-headed, presidential and professional, Gingrich was immediately elected high-holy Galactic Viceroy, a position he’s had for centuries now. Lunacy policy wins the day.

Mitt Romney trounced the field in Florida. So he reaffirmed to a national television audience (or to those of us who can still afford cable service, a TV, plus some electricity) the reason he’s running for president: “I’m in this race because I care about Americans. I’m not concerned about the very poor.” Once everybody remembered that one of every four kids in America lives in poverty, they hoisted Mitt onto their shoulders and carried him across The Great Finish Line. Where he collapsed into the arms of Fabio, or Providence, maybe ecstasy, the end.

Somebody new won last night. So it’s Rick The Dragonheart’s turn to flex some muscle (bladder?). Surely, he’s seen how the other geniuses cashed in on success. Surely, he’s learned that the key to victory in the long run is to remain calm and to talk in measured tones. That’s all anybody would ask from a politician they might throw a vote at. ‘Dear clown: Act presidential, please.’ Can you do that? Rick?

“I for one understand just from science that there are one hundred factors that influence the climate. To suggest that one minor factor of which man’s contribution is a minor factor in the minor factor is the determining ingredient in the sauce that affects the entire global warming and cooling is just absurd on its face.”

Yes.

Just came across this ad put together by the GOP. They go after the president in this one. They’re betting that a politician who constructs a fundraiser to include New York, scarves and shopping is faggot-y by regular American standards and shouldn’t be president. Maybe someone will see this and go chase Barack out of the White House at the business end of a Colt .99. Somewhere, fate tickles the will of a home-schooled minibike mechanic who masturbates over Dale Earnhardt’s Bible:

My reaction is “You must be kidding.” It’s glitzy fashion week in New York, and the GOP are pointing at a $40 bag? With nail polish in it? It probably costs you $50 to wave at a taxi on Fifth Avenue. Perhaps something went wrong with capitalism overnight? Or maybe Republican fundraising, which is American beyond question, is just better than that, and this is a reminder. $10,000 for a plate of chicken and broccoli beats the hell out of a bag of Petal Pink. When you dispose of your donation the next morning, you can exclaim “Much better!” when you pull the handle.

That’s not a couple of Jacksons insultingly spent. That’s not the latest outrage in the Great Recession. What’s outrageous is the way rich, disgusting Republicans attack the people who are cleaning up their disaster: by calling them disgusting and rich.

The GOP is annoyed we’d “host a ritzy NYC fashion show while 12 million Americans remain out of work?” What about putting those 12 million people out of work? How’s that for bad? If you were honest or gave a damn about anybody but yourselves, Republicans, you’d have offered a decade-long apology and lashed Phil Gramm to the pillory so we could piss on him walking home from the bar. YOU CAUSED THIS MESS.

And to pretend that anybody’s richer or dumber than you is some kind of prank. Your 2012 nominee for president is probably worth more than half the countries in Africa. The Koch brothers will funnel $200 million of their money into elections to select idiots who will strip away environmental protections and welcome global warming. Karl Rove will cram upwards of $240 million into this election cycle to favor people who promise to hate gays, bomb Iran and rub your nose in the gospel of Bizarro Jesus. Newt Gingrich, civilizer of our black children, would have been blown out of these finishing school talent shows if Shelly Adelson weren’t capable of signing $5 million checks in his sleep.

All Sheldon wants is that Jerusalem be recognized as Israel’s capital and that we invade Iran. Newt, of course, has publicly promised to do the former mere hours after he takes the oath of office. What he’s promised in secret we can look forward to finding out. This is traditional Republican politics. Nail polish is harmless.