How Can We Even Consider Electing the Irrational?

This election cycle's crop of Republican president wannabes has been referred to as a "clown car," and with good reason. They are vying against each other for the admiration of their base, which apparently is looking for some combination of Bozo, Daffy Duck, and Mortimer Snerd.

Here's a sampling of The Crazy provided by the elite of the GOP. This list is very, very far from exhaustive.

Michele Bachmann:  In one of the debates she said under her administration paying taxes would be optional.

Just before the Iowa Caucus, with polls showing her far behind, she promised a Miracle: "So polls don't -- are -- sometimes belie the truth on the ground, and that's what we see. This isn't just about polling. This is about what we're seeing in reality, and I think Tuesday night people are going to see a miracle." We know how well that worked.

Bachman wants to invade Iran (although Santorum claims to be the only candidate that wants to invade; Romney and Gingrich also pledged to invade Iran).

Bachman would like the US to become more like China: "If you look at China, they don't have food stamps. If you look at China, they're in a very different situation. They don't have AFDC [Aid to Families with Dependent Children]. They save for their own retirement security. They don't have the modern welfare state. And China's growing. And so what I would do is look at the programs that LBJ gave us with the Great Society and they'd be gone.”

Rick Santorum:  This is the fellow whose hatred of homosexuals led him to become known as "He Who Must Not Be Googled."

He talks tough--would invade Iran (so much for "right-to-life").

Santorum accused President Obama of unspecified "un-American activities."

He thinks diversity is bad:  For Santorum that means cutting government regulation. Making Americans less dependent on government aid. Fewer people getting food stamps, Medicaid and other forms of federal assistance — especially one group.
"I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money," Santorum begins. "I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money and provide for themselves and their families."
Santorum did not elaborate on why he singled out blacks who rely on federal assistance. The voters here didn't seem to care.

Let's not forget the Santorum "Amendment"--Ricky's attempt to teach Creationism under the auspices of the "No Child Left Behind Education Act" signed by George W. Bush in 2002. In a March 14, 2002 op-ed for the Washington (Moonie) Times, Santorum "claimed his language was a 'provision' of the bill"--when, fact is, it is not.

And today, Santorum likened President Obama to Italian dictator Mussolini.

Newt Gingrich:  Newt likes dinosaurs, and claims therefore to be an expert on climate change.

Patriotism made him unfaithful.

Newt wasn't labbying when he lobbied Freddie Mac for $1.6M.


Willard "My-First-Name-Is-Mitt" Romney:  It's hard to tell with Romney, because we can't be sure which Mitt is the real one (if there even IS a real one).

Romney claims to be a member of the middle class, despite having a net worth of up to $250,000,000. 

He also claimed, on "Morning Joe" on MSNBC, “Somebody who’s fallen from the middle class to poverty, in my opinion is still middle class.”

Rick Perry:  He thinks Canada is part of US.

Perry claims to be very pro-life, yet allowed 234 prisoners to be be executed (and covered up an investigation into evidence that at least one of those was not guilty of the capital crime).

Ron Paul:  Paul claims he was not responsible for the hateful things his Ron Paul newsletters said.

Paul has ties to Christian Reconstructionism (aka "American Taliban"), and has been praised by Gary North, extremist son-in-law of the late Pope of the Theocrats, R.J. Rushdooney. Apparently Paul is enamored of the group's favoring of the death penalty for numerous behaviors as called for in Leviticus.


Jon Huntsman:  Huntsman is the least loony of the Republican contenders, yet he has his moments of whackiness. He wrote an op-ed critical of the Dodd-Frank reform that misrepresented that reform and President Obama's efforts, and calling for its replacement by something that is supposed to do what Dodd-Frank already does.

Half a year ago, Huntsman adopted a strategy of pandering to the polls. He sort of backtracked on his switch to global warming denialism (or maybe not), and I don't think he's been overly enthusiastic about his pandering. Not like Mittens, anyway.


Herman Cain:  Well, never mind, his brain is still twirling.


Gary Johnson:  Who? He found it both difficult and easy to switch his efforts to run as a Republican to Libertarian.

Okay, candidates, please raise your hands if you think you're whacky enough to be the Republican Party's 2012 presidential candidate.

Bachmann is an Ignoramous--Part MCCXVIII

An astute political observer recently noted that Repub-
lican disdain for learning has gotten so bad that nowadays one is required to have an IQ in single digits to qualify for the party's nomination.

To prove the point, Michele Bachmann, in a question-and-answer session during an education forum at the University of Northern Iowa November 30, said that Intelligent Design Creationism should be taught in schools. She suggested that it is an equally valid scientific theory as evolution, and referred to several "problems" with evolutionary theory--problems that Creationists frequently raise, such as the Second Law of Thermodynamics, irreducible complexity, and the "dearth of the fossil record" (whatever that means; my house is full of fossils, and I think the American Museum of Natural History has some more)--and which have been refuted over and over again. To teach only science in science class, Bachmann feels, amounts to "government censorship."

Bachmann could scarcely be more wrong. Intelligent Design Creationism has no place in science class, because it is not science. It is not an equally valid alternative theory, because there is no "theory" in it. It is no more than the Abrahamic religious creation myth.

But the most mind-numbing foolish thing that Bachmann said on this issue was "So I think intellectually, the best thing to do is to allow all scientific facts on the table and let students decide." If that were done, putting all scientific facts on the table, why, one would simply have a lesson in evolution, because Creationism is fact-free; it is non-science. However, Bachmann obviously means present religious and supernatural claims as if they were scientific facts. And then, leave it to the students, who are just being introduced to the material and have not yet acquired sufficient knowledge and understanding to adequately judge the matter, to...judge the matter. Ms. Bachmann--if the students have the capability to judge such things, why are they in the class?

Remember the runup to the 2008 election, when Republican contenders were asked to raise their hands if they thought Creationism should be taught? That's right, boys and girls, show us that you don't need no stinkin' education. Rick Perry already claimed (falsely) that Texas schools teach both evolution and Creationism, and he, too, suggested that the students could decide which view they prefer. Yes, I think there may be something to the rumor of that single-digit IQ prerequisite.