that thing tonight

Charles P. Pierce (Esquire): Willard must be destroyed. Seriously, isn’t that what we’re all hoping for this weekend, when the 10,987th and 10,988th of 12,322 scheduled debates between the Republican presidential contenders are held?

…. N. Leroy Gingrich demonstrated quite clearly on Tuesday night that his sole purpose in political life now is the removal of Willard’s spleen with a melon baller….

…. Attack politics is Gingrich’s legacy. It is his only material contribution to the political history of this country … nasty, hopelessly shameless, comically megalomaniacal, and altogether about as healthy to the political dialogue as a case of the mange…

…Other than Gingrich’s descent back to the Dark Side, the biggest question on Saturday night is who will hammer Rick Santorum, Papist nutter and new GOP It Boy……

Full article here

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If you can bear to watch, WMUR are showing the debate live here 9:0 EST – and ABC

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‘un-american activities’

George Packer (New Yorker): In the tenth paragraph of a Times piece, Rick Santorum accuses Barack Obama of engaging in “absolutely un-American activities”. What are they? The article doesn’t say. The quote appears without explanation or comment ….

…. this kind of gutter rhetoric is so routine in the Republican campaign that it’s not worth a political journalist’s time to point it out…. once demagogy and falsehoods become routine, there isn’t much for the political journalist to do  ….political journalism long ago stopped being about what is true or important…

The great puzzle of the Republican campaign is that, in an era of unprecedented ideological fervor, the party will almost certainly nominate the candidate who is the blandest …. Romney understands his situation acutely, and he’s telling anyone who will listen that he loves America … hates illegal immigrants as much as the next guy, and thinks that Obama has destroyed this country at home and abroad …. He’s doing a credible job playing an intellectual thug, because that’s the only way to win the nomination.

It would be a mistake, though, to believe that, if he’s elected, Romney could suddenly flip a switch, clear the air of the toxicity left behind by the Republican field, and return to being a cautious centrist whose most reassuring quality is his lack of principles. His party wouldn’t let him …. once a sellout, always a sellout; once a thug, always a thug.

Full article here

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Chat away, will be back later 😉

rise and shine

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Morning everyone – more later, chat away 😉