chat away …. (anyone watching the freak show?)

texas says sorry

From politicalpackrat (thanks a4Alice)

MeetRickPerry.com

‘live by the freak show, die by the freak show’

Greg Sargent (Washington Post): A funny number from Gallup, which finds that Donald Trump’s “positive intensity score” among Republicans and GOP leaners has plummetted to a lower level than that of any other 2012 GOP presidential hopeful: “….Trump has the unenviable distinction of receiving a Positive Intensity Score of 0 ….”

And let’s not forget that all this was followed by the killing of Osama Bin Laden.

….What a ride! At first the Donald skillfully played the media, adopting a strategy of deliberately tracking in lurid, freak-show-friendly falsehoods in the full knowledge that the resulting media attention – even if negative – would buoy his presidential hopes among GOP primary voters. At first, it worked. But Trump was defined by the freak show, too, and his antics quickly came to look pathetically buffoonish and small when reality – Obama’s birth certificate, the killing of Bin Laden – came along and popped Trump’s balloon, causing him to crash back down to earth.

Live by the freak show, die by the freak show.

Full article here

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My most loved finding in that poll is that 4% of Republicans still don’t ‘recognize’ Sarah Palin’s name and 2% have never heard of Donald Trump …. hey, aren’t they lucky! 😉

‘the dim-witted freak show’ (updated)

Joe Klein (Time): ….It is excruciating watching the Republican Party presidential candidates who, on a daily basis, pronounce some ignorant racist or irreligious twaddle…today’s example primo is Newt, who really needs to get back on his meds, worrying about his grandchildren:

“I have two grandchildren – Maggie is 11, Robert is 9,” Gingrich said at Cornerstone Church. “I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they’re my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.”

There is genius in this: no other human had located the secular humanist wing of radical Islam before. And then there is Herman Cain, the former chief executive of Godfather’s Pizza who is pretending to run for President, proving that a black man can be as gutter-cheap bigoted as anyone. If elected, he would not appoint a Muslim to his cabinet or the federal bench because: “There is this creeping attempt, there is this attempt to gradually ease Sharia law and the Muslim faith into our government.”

…This is my 10th presidential campaign, Lord help me. I have never before seen such a bunch of vile, desperate-to-please, shameless, embarrassing losers coagulated under a single party’s banner. They are the most compelling argument I’ve seen against American exceptionalism. … this is the dim-witted freak show the Republicans want to present in 2012…

Full article here

Here’s a reply from Steve Benen to Klein’s ‘plea’ for Mitch Daniels and Jeb Bush to run (see the link above, Klein mentions them at the end of his article):

“….where I part ways with Klein is his expectation that Daniels and Jeb Bush could somehow put things right. For one thing, when it comes to the major issues of the day, the substantive differences between these two and the Seven Dwarves (Romney, Pawlenty, Huckabee, Barbour, Gingrich, Santorum, and I suppose Bachmann) are quite narrow.

For another, Klein doesn’t explain how a sensible, self-respecting, qualified Republican is going to win primaries without also becoming some ridiculous caricature. Indeed, note that Klein made no mention of Jon Huntsman — who presumably would qualify as a reasonable GOP candidate unwilling to “behave like a public clown” — probably because no one seriously believes the party base will tolerate him.”