Jennifer Rubin Finds a Mirror

Jennifer Rubin, who people say is smart but who nonetheless rattles off a predictable set of talking points and often makes hare-brained assertions, comments on Ted Cruz,

Smarts don’t always equate to common sense. In the case of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), there is an inverse relationship between the two. I’m told by smart lawyers that he has a sharp legal mind, can think on his feet and has remarkable recall for facts, cases and even page numbers of the briefs. But his political judgment has become distorted by ambition.

Hm...

Her illustration of Cruz's 'smarts' reminds me of an anecdote about a lawyer who was similarly famed for his ability to provide pinpoint citations, on his feet, in court. Somebody asked him, eventually, how he managed to recall cases and even page numbers with such specificity. "I make them up. Nobody ever checks." But with a bit less cynicism, having a good memory - even an eidetic memory - is proof of good memory, not intelligence. Cruz may well be as smart as some people say, or he may be smart in the same sense that Newt Gingrich and Paul Ryan are touted as intellectual giants among their Republican peers. When the pond is that shallow, you don't need to be a particularly big fish to stand out - and sometimes all it takes is for you to be the one people see because it's sticking its head out of the pond with its mouth constantly open. I'm also reminded of a certain trial lawyer who once ran for President, who strikes me as having been deemed a great trial lawyer by virtue of having a well-rehearsed presentation of a particular type of big money case, and who retired into politics when that particular line of litigation dried up. Or a certain TV host who brags about her conviction rate for homicide prosecutions, never mind that homicide cases are often open-and-shut with defendants going to trial only because they have nothing to lose. You have to look beyond the surface to find out if somebody truly is as brilliant as he and his friends claim him to be.

Rubin notes that Cruz was spouting nonsense about how Mitt Romney was the greatest guy in the world before he lost, at which point she contradicted her prior claims about him and denounced his deep flaws without appearing to notice the contradiction. No, wait, that was Rubin. She notes that Cruz is pretending that the President might sign a bill defunding the PPACA/Obamacare, and purporting that the public won't blame the Republicans if they shut down the government.

Well, maybe he understands something else. Perhaps he is as smart as his admirers claim and he is wildly ambitious, hoping to draw attention and fundraising dollars for his windmill-tilting scam. Later in the CNN interview he made it clear he was playing to the base on this one... And who better to pull the tsunami to shore than Cruz, right? Send money! Come to his events! Become outraged when the “unprincipled” Republicans won’t support him!

Read his blog! Oh, wait...

Cruz is emblematic of a group of conservative hucksters peddling outrage and paranoia who contend that the strength of the political resistance they generate is equivalent to their own importance, and that one dramatic, losing standoff after another is the pinnacle of political success. Alas, they confuse their own fame with achievement and divisiveness with progress.

And if that doesn't work out for him in politics, maybe Fred Hiatt can give him a job?

Rubin suggests that Cruz would be better off following the lead of Speaker Boehner, and "trying to put the monkey on the Democrats’ backs (as the speaker of the House is doing) in the Obamacare fight". Nobody has ever accused Boehner of being a genius, but perhaps Rubin should take note of the fact that pretty much every aspect of Obamacare is popular, save for the mandate which is a necessary part of the popular provision that requires insurance companies to provide coverage without respect to preexisting conditions. Pushing a fantasy about defunding Obamacare is probably more sensible than crossing your fingers and hoping that the mandate proves so unpopular that people are willing to throw the baby out with a few inches of bathwater.

A political loner and man of rhetoric, not of action or achievement, he bears a striking resemblance to the current Oval Office resident. Each considers himself the smartest man in any room (inducing annoyance and resentment among his party members) and each fails to understand rhetoric is not effective governance.

Projection, much? Seriously, how many people other than Rubin look at Cruz and say, "Wow, he's just like President Obama"? This would be one of those "predictable talking points and hare-brained assertions" to which I previously alluded.

If I read more of Rubin's pontifications, I might know who she is pushing as the next Republican presidential nominee. Perhaps somebody who, unlike Mitt Romney, doesn't see himself as God's gift to the country and the smartest man in the room, who scurries away from his own record whenever it becomes politically inconvenient? Because Rubin doesn't seem to like those characteristics in candidates she doesn't support....

David Brooks, Master Craftsman of Republican Talking Points

Okay... it's really not worth my time to dissent a column this risible, but... today, David Brooks gives a lecture on bipartisanship that, true to his standard, consists of his spin on the latest Republican talking points, recast to appear measured and moderate to those who might be... normally I might say, average to less-informed voters, today I'll say, people who aren't very good at thinking. How many sharks can you jump in a single column?

Brooks starts with a Richard Dawson impression. Survey says.... "viewers loved Mitt Romney’s talk of professionalism and bipartisanship." No need to argue why that is or what it actually means.

In other words, primary campaigns are won by the candidate who can most convincingly champion the party’s agenda, but general election campaigns are won by the candidate who can most plausibly fix the political system.

As any Tea Party member can tell you, there is a difference between "bipartisanship" and what it might take to "plausibly fix the political system". Brooks also knows as a matter of policy, reaching a bipartisan solution can weaken a policy proposal. That's not always the case, but by definition a bipartisan solution is going to be less partisan than, if I need to say it, a partisan solution. If you're looking for purity of ideology, you want partisanship.

Brooks then goes through a Romney-like list of elements he deems essential to "break[ing] through the partisan dysfunction and mak[ing] Washington work". Let's start with what it doesn't take:

1. It "doesn’t take moderation". Brooks points to Ted Kennedy, whom he argues "had the ability to craft large and effective compromises on issues ranging from immigration to education and health care."

   That of course explains why Ted Kennedy won the nomination to be the Democratic Party's candidate back in 1980, sailed into the White House and... oh, right.

   Well then, it explains why David Brooks and the Republicans view Kennedy as a pillar of bipartisanship, a figure they respect and admire, and regard the culmination of his career of work in favor of healthcare reform, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as what you can achieve through a true bipartisan effort. Oh... right.

   Well, Ted Kennedy did cosponsor the DREAM Act, and that sailed through the... oh, right, the Republicans changed their mind.

   Recall, Ted Kennedy is not only Brooks' best example in support of his point, Kennedy is his only example. I'm not going to dispute that over the course of a very long career Kennedy cosponsored some important legislation with Republicans, but anyone with knowledge of history knows that much of that cooperation occurred during a prior era when the parties were less polarized, when the Republicans didn't see obstructionism as a winning election strategy, and worked in contexts in which the Republican cosponsors saw an opportunity to benefit from attaching their names to the bill. John McCain didn't drop his support for the DREAM Act because Kennedy became less persuasive. He dropped it because he was afraid of losing his seat to a primary challenger.

2. Might doesn't "make right". Brooks lectures that the effective President has to avoid thinking that his position is objectively the correct one, and that he can "win the debate" and get everything he wants simply by "get[ting] the facts out there". Brooks somehow forgets to tell us where "out there" is, or what any of this has to do with passing legislation.

   Were Brooks honest about it, he would admit that he's not talking about what it takes to pass legislation, but what it takes to defend legislation that is not popular. If the opposition party is lying about the legislation and its effects, can you count on convincing people of the truth merely bu putting "the facts out there"? Obviously not.

   As you work through his column, it becomes increasingly clear that Brooks is making little effort at internal consistency. He's instead alluding to right-wing criticisms of President Obama.

3. Don't live in a fantasy world - "distant fantasies almost never come true", so it's better to work for incremental change. What Brooks actually means here is that a President who has the opportunity to pass legislation that Brooks opposes should instead pass something modest, perhaps inconsequential, in the name of "partisanship". Never mind that the actual fantasy would be believing that, after another election, somebody like Mitch McConnell will change his stripes, apologize for setting a legislative agenda around defeating you, and suddenly become a partner for progress.

Of course by now you're wondering, what does it take to be the bipartisan savior - the "governing craftsman" for whom Brooks so hungers.

1. Having a "dual consciousness" - "[T]he governing craftsman has to... distinguish between a campaign consciousness and a governing consciousness." Campaigning involves "simplifying your own positions, exaggerating your opponent’s weaknesses and magnifying the differences between your relative positions", while governing involves doing "the reverse of all these things".

   Needless to say, Brooks offers zero examples to back this claim up.

   Let me give you an example for how presenting complicated positions, attempting to bridge the differences between yourself and the opposing party, and taking up their opposition works in practice. A President might take, say, a health care reform idea that has its roots in the Republican Party and right-wing 'think tanks', and has even been adopted in one state by a Republican governor, attempt to tweak and update it so it will work on a national basis, and repeatedly attempt to reach across the aisle for bipartisan support. Sound effective?

   Now let's consider what "the opposite" looks like. The sort of approach Brooks would surely tell us would be a one-way ticket out of Washington. The opposition leader might sniff that his number one job is to defeat you, not work with you. The opposition might engage in demagoguery about the plan, asserting that it is socialism, a government take-over of health care, that bureaucrats will decide the care that you get, that it will have death panels that can deny you life-saving care.

   Thank goodness we live in a political culture in which "governing consciousness" rules the day, because one would hate to think what might happen a president or opposition leader couldn't get past his "campaign consciousness". The horror.

2. "Being able to count".

   Is Brooks trying to rule out Mitt Romney at this point, based on budget numbers that don't add up? No, Brooks is pointing ot the obvious fact that if a President wants legislation to pass he must gather enough votes in the House and Senate to get it to pass.

3. Being able to "distinguish between existential issues and business issues." Brooks evokes that famous American politician, Winston Churchill, and contents that "Churchill would have made a terrible mistake if he had compromised with the appeasers". That assertion is going to make little sense to a casual reader, but immediately evokes the right-wing tropes against President Obama - Mitt Rommey's demagoguery and his persistent lies about an "apology tour". Brooks, a good Republican to his very core, is articulating a set of rules for others, specifically Democrats, not for himself.

   Brooks has one other example he offers in support of his point, "On the other hand, Dan Rostenkowski and Robert Packwood were absolutely right to compromise to get the tax reform of 1986 passed." Let's see... so far his examples of politicians who live up to his deals are the late Ted Kennedy, the late Winston Churchill, the late Dan Rostenkowski, and the long-politically dead Robert Packwood. As I said, he's describing what happened in an era during which the parties were less polarized, and pretending it carries over into a significantly different era.

   Assuming Brooks is aware that Winston Churchill would be ineligible to run for President, which of the two additional names he's mentioned does he imagine would have been the "craftsman" politician who would have been elected to the presidency in a walk and presided over a golden era of bipartisanship?

   Brooks feigns child-like innocence, that "in the middle of the fight almost every issue will feel like an existential issue, though, in reality, 98 percent of legislative conflicts are business issues". Perhaps Brooks is describing his own confusion, because although I can see plenty of examples of the opposition party turning "business issues" into stumbling blocks - preventing appointments from going through, needlessly obstructing the progress of legislation that it will ultimately support, spreading misinformation about what should be relatively non-controversial passages in new or pending legislation, and the like.
   
   I'm not coming up with an example of a president confusing business issues with existential issues. It's fair to observe, though, neither does Brooks - we know he's attacking President Obama through innuendo, but Brooks knows how foolish he would look if he came right out and made that claim.

4. Brooks offers the brilliant insight, that his bipartisan leader must be "able to read a calendar". Brooks explains that the politician must understand that they cannot postpone their agenda until after the next election in order to act - that it's "usually better to make a small step next month than do nothing in hopes of a total victory next generation".

   Let's imagine then, that the President is facing a large deficit and national debt, and that people are urging a so-called "grand bargain" that will supposedly balance the budget for decades to come. "Never mind the fact that this Congress cannot bind future sessions of Congress", those maximalists might argue, "You can't take seriously any budget proposal that doesn't fix everything for decades - or longer!"

   The David Brooks who wrote the current column might lecture those politicians and peers that they are being absurd, not only due to the fact that the next session of Congress might undo the work, but because it's not a realistic outcome to expect. He might argue, "If you calm down and take a look at the President's tax plan, you'll find that it does a lot to accomplish your stated goals. This isn't an existential issue - it's business. It's what can pass through Congress, right now. Think of it as a first step down a long road."

   But the David Brooks we have come to know and love? He wants none of that incremental stuff.

   Obama would be wiser to champion a Grand Bargain strategy. Use the Congressional deficit supercommittee to embrace the sort of new social contract we’ve been circling around for the past few years: simpler taxes, reformed entitlements, more money for human capital, growth and innovation.

   So guzzle that Kool-Aid and shoot for the moon! But... what if the public resists?

   Don’t just whisper Grand Bargain in back rooms with John Boehner. Make it explicit. Take it to the country. Lower the ideological atmosphere and get everybody thinking concretely about the real choices facing the nation.

   Doesn't that translate into the big "no-no" of thinking, "all I have to do is get the facts out there, win the debate and then I’ll get everything I want."? No, you see, this is completely different - all you have to do is get the facts out there, win the debate, and then David Brooks will get everything he wants. No rules or principles should get in the way of that.

5. Be "socially promiscuous." Brooks argues that a good deal maker will have lots of friends, be constantly glad handing the opposition, "celebrate their anniversaries and birthdays". You know, the sort of thing that helped Clinton have such a smooth, carefree relationship with the opposition party during his presidency.

   Were Brooks an honest man, he would admit that he's merely parroting an Republican talking point that the President does horrible things like... eating dinner with his family when he could be out at cocktail parties glad handing Republicans and lobbyists. Never mind that, by a number of accounts, Mitt Romney is no social butterfly, and came to be detested by pretty much every one of his primary opponents in two consecutive primary seasons. Never mind that many Republicans openly hated him right up to the second they were stuck with him.

6. Be a really good liar, and conspire against your base. Seriously. Brooks lectures,

   It is relatively easy to cut a deal with the leader of the other party. It is really hard to sell that deal to the rigid people in your own party. Therefore, the craftsman has to enter into a conspiracy with the other party’s leader in order to manipulate the party bases. The leaders have to invent stories so that each base thinks it has won.

   On the little issues - the "business issues" - that's relatively simple, politics as usual. A bit of spin, the issues not that important, you make a deal. How in the world, though, does Brooks believe that will work in relation to solving big issues. Might it sound like President Obama, at a debate, telling the public that he and Mitt Romney aren't very far apart on how to fix Social Security? If so, what are the odds that John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are going to get out of the way and allow the passage of a modest reform bill that will fix Social Security's balance sheet for the next 50 - 75 years?

7. Next, you have to compromise in advance - show "substance pragmatism". Your base wants Medicare for all? A public option alongside private health plans? The insurance industry and healthcare industry want to be sure that the reform will not affect their bottom line profits? Insurance companies want to ensure that they will stay in business, perhaps even become more profitable, despite changes that will otherwise reduce their bottom line? A "craftsman" President might do what President Obama did - work with the various industries and their lobbyists to overcome their opposition to any reform, build the reform on the platform of a right-wing, Republican-endorsed system of private insurance, a mandate to purchase insurance, and keeping the reformed system as market-based as possible. He might get a true craftsman like Ted Kennedy to strongly endorse the bill and its passage.

   No, of course that's all wrong. Stop arguing based upon those facts with their icky "liberal bias" - Brooks' column is about advancing Republican spin. What an honest Brooks might describe as the outcome of his "conspiracy with the other party's" leadership to "manipulate the party bases" and "invent stories." Because that's what pundits do when they are approached for help by a "governing craftsman".

Brooks knows he's being dishonest when he argues that voters are demanding "craftsmanship" in advance of the "brutal trade-offs that loom ahead". Were he an honest man, he would note that Romney's new "talk of professionalism and bipartisanship" is belied by his own campaign trail rhetoric and that, rather than addressing any of the "brutal trade-offs" that Brooks sees as inevitable Romney is promising the Sun, moon and stars - tax cuts for everyone, a huge increase in military spending, pain free spending cuts (trust him, even though he only states support for cutting PBS and the unpopular parts of Obamacare), and that he'll cure the nation's woes by magic - why, if people simply believe he's going to be elected, flowers will burst forth from the ground, the stock market will reach uncharted heights... yeah.

Brooks also cannot be so obtuse as to believe that "Voters [were] astonishingly clear. In 2000, they elected George W. Bush after he promised to change the tone in Washington". If Brooks checks his history books, he'll find that if you look at the popular vote the 2000 election was won by Al Gore. Last I checked, losing the popular vote was an "astonishingly clear" message that more people wanted your opponent to win than wanted you to win, even if you carry the electoral vote. Similarly, Brooks might realize that more was going on in 2008 than the Republican's self-proclaimed maverick, campaigning on a claimed record of "reaching across the aisle," lost to a candidate who merely "promised to move the country beyond stale partisan debates". The country I was in was suffering from a profound economic crisis, and McCain's response was not perceived as impressive. Where was Brooks?

Brooks would have done better to have written a column about how politicians will try to sell you snake oil while on the campaign trail, but alas, that would have ended up being a column in support of the wrong party.

Romney's Need to Define Himself

Ross Douthat shares a thoughtful perspective on the struggles Mitt Romney faces as the Republican Convention and presidential debates approach. I'll note, though, that he falls prey to the tendency of the political junkie to obsess, months ahead of the election, over slight movements in the tracking polls as evidence that one candidate or another is likely to win. Douthat sees the lack of movement as reassuring,

So Obama isn’t actually being borne upward by the Bain contretemps any more than he was actually dragged down by his own “the private sector is doing fine” facepalm moment. Instead, public opinion has been remarkably stable since the spring, with both candidates moving up and down between the mid and high 40s, mostly within the margin of error.

I think he's mistaken, though, to suggest that the criticism of Romney on Bain, and the increasing number of Republicans who are calling on Romney to release his tax returns, can be dismissed based upon those poll results. They tie directly into what Douthat tells us Romney must do: Define himself in positive terms. He has abandoned his tenure as governor as a qualification for the White House, his tenure at the Olympics isn't really something he wants scrutinized, and that leaves Bain.

Romney's political opponents are aware of that. Four years ago we saw John McCain complain about Bain's outsourcing and dismiss it as a qualification for the presidency. Four months ago we saw Newt Gingrich accusing Romney of "vulture capitalism". If we use the words of Romney's surrogates, that pretty much means that Gingrich and McCain are socialists who don't even know what it means to be American.

Although Romney has devoted the past two decades attempting to position himself for the White House, and the past six years to actively campaigning, as Douthat observes, he has yet to define himself. He seems to be premising his entire campaign upon two things: 1. He's not Obama, and 2. rich people need more tax cuts. Did I leave anything out? Douthat seems to agree,

For Romney to accomplish the same feat, he will need to reassure voters that he represents something more than just a rubber stamp for the interests of the wealthiest Americans.

It's not as if Romeny's failure to "introduce himself" is new news.

When the press is all punched out, Romney will have $100 million and his own formidable political skills available to make his rebuttal. ... The fact is, Mitt Romney will have enough money and enough political skill to define himself when the time is right.

Update that to about a billion dollars and you might not realize that's what a Romney supporter was arguing five years ago. The same guy supporter, four years ago:

I hope Mr. Romney does well enough in Michigan today that he gets the opportunity to introduce the public to the real Mitt Romney.

Here we are, four years later, and it has become a joke:

Douthat believes that Romney should watch a few Reagan speeches and... emulate? Imitate? That Romney should articulate even a weak tea vision for America,

They would involve supplementing his critiques of the Obama White House’s crony capitalism with an acknowledgment of the financial sector’s sins as well. They would involve supplementing his promise to repeal the Democratic health care legislation with a vision of what might actually replace it. They might involve returning to a theme that he struck in April, when he suggested that this election will come down to “jobs and kids,” and offering more to struggling middle class parents than just a tax cut on their (meager) capital gains.

It tells you something, though, doesn't it, that we're almost four years past the collapse of the financial sector, and it's still necessary to ask Romney to acknowledge a problem? That the Governor who signed Romneycare into law demagogues against a federal law that, for all intents and purposes, is the same as the one he passed - and, despite claiming to have solutions and having previously suggested that he was the man to bring health insurance reform to the nation - has nothing to offer?

Douthat should note that Romney has offered "struggling middle class parents" more than "a tax cut on their (meager) capital gains" - he's offered to make it harder for them to get and keep health insurance, and to cut government programs that benefit them. I suspect that's not what Douthat has in mind. Douthat imagines that Romney could promise to get government off of our backs, Reagan-style? The man who can't utter a word of criticism for the financial sector, who pays lower taxes on his fortune than most working Americans, who has a $100 million IRA (based upon supposed $6,000 annual contributions), who has six houses, friends who own NASCAR teams and have private back yard golf courses.... Yeah, the government has crushed him.

Douthat's invocation of Reagan brought to mind the fact that, love him or hate him, the man had fantastic delivery. He cultivated an image, style of presentation, style and wit that was highly effective. Douthat inspired an image of Reagan, at my door, apologizing for running over my cat - and that by the end of his apology I would probably both like him and feel sorry for him. Romney? Why is it I'm picturing a stammering explanation punctuated at some point by the emergence of his checkbook?

Romney does need to define himself, but he needs to define himself credibly. I suspect that the reason we haven't been introduced to "the real Mitt Romney" is that his advisors have been trying out various costumes and personas, and are discovering that Romney really is the businessman in a suit, staid, boring, gray at the temples, and yes, self-interested, we've been seeing all along. Romney trying to be Reagan would likely seem as genuine as Dukakis in a tank.

Hey, Pleb - Why Aren't You Kissing The Ring?

Yesterday, when I was spending a ridiculous amount of time troubleshooting a server, I missed a lecture from David Brooks in whose view our nation, it seems, is no longer sufficiently deferential to authority. After an odd sort of introduction in which he complaints that modern memorials tend to humanize rather than deify their subjects, Brooks asks, "Why can’t today’s memorial designers think straight about just authority?" And by "memorial designers" he appears to mean "average Americans".

Some of the reasons are well-known. We live in a culture that finds it easier to assign moral status to victims of power than to those who wield power. Most of the stories we tell ourselves are about victims who have endured oppression, racism and cruelty.

Then there is our fervent devotion to equality, to the notion that all people are equal and deserve equal recognition and respect. It’s hard in this frame of mind to define and celebrate greatness, to hold up others who are immeasurably superior to ourselves.

But the main problem is our inability to think properly about how power should be used to bind and build. Legitimate power is built on a series of paradoxes: that leaders have to wield power while knowing they are corrupted by it; that great leaders are superior to their followers while also being of them; that the higher they rise, the more they feel like instruments in larger designs. The Lincoln and Jefferson memorials are about how to navigate those paradoxes.

I disagree with Brooks' initial premise. We live in a culture that, on the whole, idolizes fame, wealth and power. We have an enormous population of celebrities who are "famous for being famous", people with little to no skill or talent beyond attracting media attention. From the Kardashians to Joe the Plumber, they're not necessarily bad people but they have nothing to offer beyond their fame. We assume that anybody who has become wealthy or who has succeeded in business is admirable and worthy. And yes, that extends to politics. You need look no further than the host of mediocre politicians who sought the Republican presidential nomination - and were taken seriously.

I am not sure what to make of Brooks' second point, save for this: If Brooks could make a genuine case that we're tearing down "others who are immeasurably superior to ourselves", he would provide an example. It's fair to say we're living in a very polarized time, and that there's a strong partisan effort to tear down individuals and politicians associated with "the other side", but that's far from new or unique to this era. It's fair to say that we know more about people of prominence than we did in the past, and that it's easier to deify a business or political leader if you don't know about his quirks and foibles - but although it may be easier to imagine that somebody is "immeasurably superior to ourselves" if we don't know the facts, it's not unreasonable to judge a person based upon facts instead of myths.

Really, in this context it would be helpful for Brooks to clue us in, by naming at least one individual whom he concedes to be "immeasurably superior to" himself.

In terms of a "fervent devotion to equality", Brooks may not realize this but one place you can get the idea that "all people are equal and deserve equal recognition and respect" is... wait for it... the Declaration of Independence - "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights...." One might also note that the preamble to the Constitution does not begin, "We the others who are immeasurably superior to you...." Brooks may believe that to be the subtext, "Ha ha, let's pull one over on the plebs and suggest that they're our equals", but even if he truly believes that language to be a conceit it would be absurd for him to simultaneously pretend that no prior generation "fell for it".

Further, the concept of true equality is not dominant in our culture. When you hear demagoguery about "liberal elites", the neglect of "flyover country", whether the President is a "full-blooded American", and the like, that's about building a sense of superiority in the target audience. Perhaps Brooks means that we should attempt to be more objective when assessing ourselves, but there's no shortage of judgment in our society when it comes to assessing others.

Brooks complains that the slogan, "question authority" is used indiscriminately - questioning not only bad authority - perhaps the authority that led us into war in Vietnam - but also good authority - perhaps the authority that led us into war in Iraq? As with sharing the identity of his superiors, examples would strengthen his argument - or reveal its incoherence.

Brooks complains that Americans perceive "elites" as self-interested. He does not define that term, and his separate reference to "public servants" makes it clear that he's not simply talking about elected officials. In what sphere other than politics would he have us believe that the "elites" are looking out for the rest of us? Should we look to the historic leaders of the tobacco, energy and financial industries? The entertainment industry? Are we being too hard on media elites, such as Rupert Murdoch and Conrad Black? Egad. You don't have to assume that they're hiding something to recognize that they're people, and that they very often put their incomes and stock options ahead of the interest of their own companies, let alone the general public. I'll concede - Rupert Murdoch is "immeasurably superior" to me in terms of his ability to identify and exploit economic opportunities, but beyond that he's a terribly flawed human being. Should I close my eyes to that truth?

And what of politicians? When Mitch McConnell declared that "the single most important thing we [the Republican elite] want to achieve" is to make President Obama a one-term President, should I take him at his word? Or not? Because if I take him at his word, how can I avoid viewing him as a flawed human being, looking out for position and power even if it harms the country? And if I think of him as lying, how is it not his fault that people assume that he means what he says instead of assuming that he has glorious, positive motives and intentions that he hides from us?

Nonetheless, Brooks states, "I don’t know if America has a leadership problem...." Seriously? He can be a card-carrying member of a party that is led by McConnell, and that flirted with the idea of President Gingrich and President Santorum, and still wonder?

You can argue that McConnell makes it easy - that he's the low-hanging fruit - but really, if I'm not supposed to look at McConnell who's left to deify? John Boehner? Am I supposed to deify Mitt Romney, who technically has not yet even won his party's nomination, based upon his past ten years of self-aggrandizement and political campaigning? Just assume, perhaps because he's rich and has the right pedigree?

Daniel Larison refutes Brooks' notion that the Tea Party and OWS movements are leaderless, and responds,

What bothers Brooks about these movements is not that they reject all authority, but that they have weighed the claims to authority made by the current political class and found them badly wanting. These people probably haven’t concluded that they are “better than everyone else around them.” They are reasonably sure that their leaders are worse than they should be. If they are more cynical now than before, it could have something to do with the complete lack of accountability for the people most responsible for the calamities of the last ten years.

Not just ten years, though. The Watergate scandal broke in 1974. And any comment on increased cynicism toward government should acknowledge that the Republican Party has made a deliberate effort over recent decades to attack the motives, competency, and utility of government.

Brooks argues that our nation needs more "good followers", those who "recognize just authority, admire it, be grateful for it and emulate it". As stated, that's not unreasonable. If you are governed by a "just authority", you can no doubt find many admirable aspects, worthy of gratitude and emulation. The problem is that Brooks implies that the "just authority" we should be grateful for is that of Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and Mitt Romney. And through it all, while Brooks has no problem condescending to the masses for their failure to defer to those "others who are immeasurably superior to ourselves", one senses that Brooks has no trouble placing himself near - and perhaps even at - the apex of "others who are immeasurably superior to" you.

Gingrich Takes On Goldman Sachs.... Badly

You know, for a guy who is supposed to be smart....¹

Goldman Sachs is a company that has taken billions from the American taxpayer and they had a handpicked candidate in 2008 named Barack Obama. They have a handpicked candidate this year, named Mitt Romney.

This should give you considerable pause... about Goldman Sachs. Because last time I checked, Mitt Romney ran for the Republican nomination back in 2008. Why Does Gingrich imagine that Goldman Sachs would have been repulsed by Romney four years ago, but be eager to have him replace the candidate they hand-selected a mere four years ago?

Like any multi-billion dollar corporation, Goldman Sachs is going to use its money both to help advance political candidates that will support its agenda and to try to put that candidate in golden handcuffs - "You don't want to turn the financial industry against you, because then you won't get the benefit of our wealth in the next election." But they aren't pulling candidates out of obscurity. They're picking the candidates from both sides that they believe are likely to win and are trying to influence the policies of those candidates. If they were capable of "hand picking" a candidate, the present Republican campaign would already be over. Heck, if anybody had that type of control, could Gingrich really believe it would be he and Santorum who would remain the biggest obstacles to Romney's nomination?

To the extent that Gingrich is correct, that Goldman Sachs and the financial industry want Romney and reject Gingrich, given Gingrich's own history of selling out to anybody who will pay him money, the most likely explanation for this outburst is that he's jealous. Gingrich standing up to somebody with a checkbook? Has it ever happened?
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1. In fairness, he's lying. But we remain in an odd era in which it's more polite to treat a candidate as being sincere but stupid, as opposed to pointing out that he's a liar.

The Romney-Gingrich Electability Conundrum

Perhaps the thinking behind present polls goes something like this:

If Mitt Romney is the most electable, and Newt Gingrich is unelectable, Mitt Romney should easily beat Newt Gingrich.

But Newt Gingrich just beat Mitt Romney in South Carolina, and may do so again in Florida.

So maybe it's Mitt Romney who's not electable, or less electable than Newt Gingrich? And maybe Newt's not so unelectable after all?

I recognize that the general election is a different ballgame, but it's difficult for me to see how a candidate who barely squeaks past Newt Gingrich will be inspiring either a great deal of confidence in or the robust support of the Republican base. But perhaps that is Romney's problem to begin with.

Newt Gingrich and Open Marriage

The uncharitable translation: "Did I ask for an open marriage? No way! That would mean she would get to sleep around as well."

Santorum Skips the Light Fandango

Just to be clear, when Santorum compares Newt Gingrich to the President with a comment like, "We need contrasts, not just a paler shade of what we have", it's not because the President is a bla...ah person.

Romney's Inevitability

For those of us who have seen Romney as inevitable, pretty much from the time the candidate pool was established, answering the question, "How did it happen", has been easy: The rest of the candidate pool was not very good. Most of the candidates had serious flaws, baggage, or credibility problems that made it seem pretty obvious that they would fail. The fact that many within the party want an alternative to Romney has been obvious, also from the outset. But there are two problems: First, the various people who did not enter the race who have been ballyhooed as possible saviors of the party are also seriously flawed, and second, the number of litmus tests imposed on Republican candidates make it very difficult for a candidate to enter the race without seeming as empty-headed or two-faced as the candidates who are already running. Romney is in a unique position in that to the extent that he fails to meet litmus tests he is nonetheless a known quantity - he failed those tests four years ago.

Daniel Larison suggests,

Conservatives did not rally behind any one candidate to oppose Romney months ago because I think many of them expected Romney to falter or implode long before this, so they thought they had the luxury of time to choose from among the alternatives. Romney didn’t implode, and conservatives frittered away valuable time on various long-shot and incompetent candidates.

I think, more accurately, Jeb Bush chose not to run because he would still be dragged down by his brother's disastrous record, and he is young enough to wait four or eight years to try for the nomination, Rick Perry revealed himself to be a woefully incompetent candidate, and the rest of the names that get tossed out don't reflect candidates any better qualified or more appealing than the better half of those who were already running,¹ and some are just plain unelectable.

But there's more to the analysis than people being used to Mitt Romney, or pundits waxing romantic about how presidential he looks. If you examine his record it's fair to say that the man has no core beliefs, that he's willing to bend and compromise on anything in order to gain power, that he stands for nothing but himself. But that would be completely wrong. There is one issue for which Romney has been 100% consistent, as far as I can tell, from the day his daddy bought him his first copy of the Wall Street Journal: He's 100%, unequivocally on the side of Wall Street and the financial industry. Josh Marshall finds it weird that "Romney surrogate and former New Hampshire Governor John Sununu" has "suggested that the investor community might punish Newt-backer Sheldon Adelson for funding Newt’s anti-Bain Capital movie".

Does he think that people don't remember when you attack them and pay for the attacks in a primary, especially when one ever the parties receiving that attack is a party he likes to go to to finance his expansions?

The "King of Bain" movie may be an attack on 1980's style corporate raiders and leveraged buyouts, and it's certainly an attack on Mitt Romney, but it's only arguably an attack on Wall Street by proxy - when you go after their boy you go after them.²

I believe that concern about Romney comes from two directions:

First, from Republicans who believe that he cannot be trusted to hold to the party line on anything, given that he has a history of political compromise. Quite notably, the compromise that led to his health insurance program being implemented in Massachusetts reveals not only his support for a plan almost identical to the Affordable Care Act, it reflects how he will orchestrate a compromise bill that cedes a lot to his political opponents in order to position himself for his next anticipated election.³ That is, once in office Romney's concern will be to be reelected, and probably also to try to rank as a great President, and he knows full well that the gridlock and partisanship of the past few years will do nothing but tarnish his presidency.

Second, there appears to be a genuine concern that Romney will prove to be a wooden, uncharismatic candidate whose past waffling, and present advocacy for wealth and power, will lead to his self-destruction on the campaign trail. The Bain stuff is coming out now, some say too early. But he seems intent on maintaining his tax returns as a campaign issue - not wanting to disclose how much he earns as an "unemployed" person, the comparatively tiny amount he pays in taxes on his millions in passive income, or confirm that he exploits overseas tax shelters to further reduce his tax obligations.

Romney is subject to attacks on his personal integrity - and he doesn't do much to help himself on that front with his own dubious commitment to facts and truthfulness - and to political attacks from the right ("He's a phony, he will compromise with Democrats") and the left ("Why should we worry about President Romney? Sure, he'll fight tooth and nail to prevent reasonable regulation of the financial industry or steps to hold them accountable, and will bail them out in a heartbeat, but on pretty much every other issue he has at one time or another staked out positions to the left of President Obama.")

Concerns that Romney is not sufficiently in line with the religious right? As long as no third party candidate runs to draw off the most ardent of religious conservative voters, it will be Republican politics as usual: Say what it takes to get the religious right to come out and vote Republican, toss them a few bones once in office, talk a good game, but deliver little of substance. To a degree it's better to keep the religious right unhappy, because if their issues were actually addressed they might lose the fire in their collective belly and stop performing as such a reliable Republican voting bloc. But no danger of that - the Republican Party is personified by Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum - public piety, perhaps in Santorum's case actually believed, but advancing an agenda that benefits wealth and power, and helps them obtain and maintain wealth and power once they leave office. it's called lip service - they should be used to it by now.
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1. Common suggestions are Chris Christie, Mitch Daniels, Bobby Jindal, Haley Barbour, Paul Ryan, Mike Pence, and John Thune.

2. (Added) Since I wrote this, it has been observed that Romney appears to have prepared to respond to attacks on his record by Democrats with childish, misleading name-calling - and he has not changed his tactics, so his hacks and proxies are now accusing other Republicans of being socialists or "sounding like" Occupy Wall Street.

3. The insurance reform he achieved as governor was supposed to be a cornerstone of his campaign for the presidency as the man who could bring a conservative, free market reform to the nation's health insurance market. The frenzied, reactionary opposition to the Affordable Care Act turned his success into something of a liability, but one to which voters have become accustomed - perhaps it was voter opposition to a Massachusetts/ACA-style reform that has proved to be overstated.

Not Just Politically Tone Deaf....

Um....



Although I'm sure everybody in "Newt Hampshire" is impressed, that hurt my ears.

But hey - If they cover Newt's solo, as modified by me, I'll still listen to their next video.

Election Year Christmas Carols

For the President,

I don't want a lot for Christmas,
In this weak economy,
It would be too much to ask you,
For a quick recovery,

This is all I want to say:
To make my election day,
Ron Paul would be a hoot,
But all I want for Christmas is... Newt.

For the Republican candidates,

Here we come a-caucusing,
Across our land so free,
Come and hear our pand'ring
And demagoguery.

Graft and pork, come to you,
And big farm subsidies, too,
And God bless you, and send you
To vote for me next year,
And God send you to vote for me next year.

Newt's solo,

Oh little town of Bethlehem,
Your people are a fiction,
And even if you're Christian,
You should get an eviction.

I claim to be an expert,
But some say I'm a hack,
My Ph.D. in history,
I sold to Freddie Mac.

I'll Bet You $10,000....

That Romney's "bet" line during the debate was carefully scripted and calculated, intended to catch the attention of the media and to shut down a "zombie lie" that had been repeatedly used against him. I will (rhetorically) bet you $10,000 that Romney and his team weighed what dollar amount to use... they didn't want anything too small because it might sound silly or suggest Romney thought he might lose, but they didn't want anything too big because it might sound like something a child might say while also magnifying Romney's wealth. Heck, if we increase by orders of magnitude, you would probably have to make it, "I'll bet you $100,000,000", before you reached the point where Romney's long-term budget would be affected by the loss, $1 billion before it would actually be more than he could cover.

It's no surprise that Rick Perry is trying to build a comeback on the bet,

Perry on Fox News Sunday called the bet "a little out of touch with the normal Iowa citizen." The Perry campaign also produced a web video focusing on Romney's position on the health insurance mandate and the debate moment. While ominous music plays and images of Romney flicker, words on the screen read, "One bet you can count on... the truth isn't for sale."

What's missing from that? Any concession that Romney was right and Perry was wrong. Amazing, Romney tried to kill a lie and it's his tactic that gets all the attention. The truth? Who cares, right? (At the same time, Romney has suggested that a mandate would be a good approach for many, perhaps most, states, so Perry's mistake was in focusing on an imagined contradiction between versions of the book as opposed to focusing on Romney's past statements about mandates. Although, given Perry's new tack of "I'll win this by bashing gays," perhaps the real problem is that he doesn't understand that a "mandate" doesn't involve being compelled to date men.)

Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman -- who is trying to gain momentum in New Hampshire, where Romney currently leads -- went so far as to create an entire website slamming Romney for the debate moment: 10kbet.com.

Yes, featuring headlines like "Romney's $10,000 bet highlights personal wealth". Thanks, Jon, for letting us know that rich people shouldn't run for President and... that you'll be dropping out of the race? Seriously. Perhaps you should be taking notes from Newt Gingrich, yet another out-of-touch rich man, that you shouldn't be saying and doing things that suggest that you, also, are out of touch. I'll grant, Gingrich has a number of money-related issues that Huntsman has avoided, but I doubt that Huntsman really wants the eyes of the nation focused on his wealth and lifestyle.

Romney's comments over the years have confirmed that, as a phenomenally rich man, he is out-of-touch with the financial situation of an average person. Which, in terms of national politicians positioned to gain a presidential nomination, is par for the course. The shock these days is when somebody whose net worth is probably only in the seven digits manages to prevail. If "Romney's rich and out of touch" is a real story, worthy of potentially taking down his bid for the nomination, why only now? To me, it seems like the media is following, and thereby magnifying, the buzz rather than covering the story.

Gingrich vs. Romney, the Campaign Song Edition

If the race for the Republican presidential nomination truly is down to "Mitt v. Newt", it seems that I should update my campaign song suggestions. Back in 2007 I suggested that Mitt Romney should choose "Everything To Everyone", by Everclear, and earlier this year I suggested "Stuck With You", by Huey Lewis and the News. (I will admit that Romney's long-awaited introduction of himself reminds me of the first line of "Sympathy for the Devil", but not so much the rest of the song.) For Newt, I suggested "Boy For Sale", by Lionel Bart. Those suggestions still seem fitting, but if it truly is a two person race perhaps I should update my suggestions to reflect that reality.

• Newt Gingrich: "Two Princes", by the aptly named Spin Doctors. It's not just that Newt will be emphasizing his humble roots, or using endorsements of Romney to suggest that he's some type of outsider. It's also that I can picture him campaigning, not so much by shaking hands and kissing babies, but by showing up at your door, announcing himself as the presumptive nominee, and asking if you've bought him flowers.

• Mitt Romney: "Everything You Want" by Vertical Horizon.

  I am everything you want, I am everything you need,
  I am everything inside of you that you wish you could be,
  I say all the right things at exactly the right time,
  But I mean nothing to you and I don't know why....

Whatever role Romney took back in his days as a corporate raider, if the past five years are any indication it seems reasonable to infer that he was not the guy you could count on to close a deal.

Inside-Out Over Newt Gingrich

Even though they reportedly detest Gingrich, Republican Party "insiders" are afraid to attach their names to their criticism.

For them, the natural inclination is to assume the best about big-name Republicans, and to treat any negative stories about them as the usual garbage from the liberal media. That will change once they start hearing national conservative leaders calling Newt a “farcical character” and questioning his conservative bone fides, as Club For Growth’s Chris Chocola and others did in the Washington Post article on Newt’s policy positions this morning.

A handful of personal attacks during a primary campaign is, in my opinion, not very significant. How many people in the nation (outside of the 1%) know who Chris Chocola is? How difficult would it be for Gingrich to turn the Club For Growth's preference for Romney against Romney?

Yes, if it snowballs and we reach a point where the right-wing media and Republican establishment lets loose on Gingrich, they'll almost certainly knock him out of the race. I suspect that would have happened, but for the fact that many of them aren't enamored with Romney. (I suppose it's possible that they are slow to react because they're in a state of shock that a significant percentage of Republicans take Newt Gingrich seriously as a candidate, but that would mean they somehow missed all of the surges that came before Gingrich's.)

It's all about winning. The decision about whether to take Gingrich out of the race, to let him compete for a while, or to back him over Romney will not be driven by a substantive analysis of either candidate - it will be driven by the polls.

George Will [Hearts] Huntsman

George Will offers a tepid endorsement of his wife's employer,

Rick Perry (disclosure: my wife, Mari Will, advises him) has been disappointing in debates. They test nothing pertinent to presidential duties but have become absurdly important. Perry’s political assets remain his Texas record and Southwestern zest for disliking Washington and Wall Street simultaneously and equally.

As a commenter noted in response to a reaction by Daniel McCarthy,

In his framing of the situation, that is, it’s as if Bush Jr. and his tenure never existed. It truly is as if we are back in December of 1979, debating who to best take on Jimmy Carter.

Will embraces Huntsman as "the most conservative" candidate in the race, which translates unsurprisingly into "The candidate I believe agrees with me on the issues most important to me."

Jon Huntsman inexplicably chose to debut as the Republican for people who rather dislike Republicans, but his program is the most conservative. He endorses Paul Ryan’s budget and entitlement reforms. (Gingrich denounced Ryan’s Medicare reform as “right-wing social engineering.”) Huntsman would privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (Gingrich’s benefactor). Huntsman would end double taxation on investment by eliminating taxes on capital gains and dividends. (Romney would eliminate them only for people earning less than $200,000, who currently pay just 9.3 percent of them.) Huntsman’s thorough opposition to corporate welfare includes farm subsidies. (Romney has justified them as national security measures — food security, somehow threatened. Gingrich says opponents of ethanol subsidies are “big-city” people hostile to farmers.) Huntsman considers No Child Left Behind, the semi-nationalization of primary and secondary education, “an unmitigated disaster.” (Romney and Gingrich support it. Gingrich has endorsed a national curriculum.) Between Ron Paul’s isolationism and the faintly variant bellicosities of the other six candidates stands Huntsman’s conservative foreign policy, skeptically nuanced about America’s need or ability to control many distant developments.

Jon Huntsman, billionaire's son, is a champion of eliminating taxes on unearned income, while George Will cheerleads? I'm shocked. (Will gets bent out of shape at the notion of heirs potentially paying taxes on their inheritances, even if only in the form of capital gains, but he has no apparent concern about the double-taxation of wages through income taxes and FICA.) And note that balancing the budget is irrelevant, unworthy of mention in a column endorsing massive tax cuts for the rich, although Will is happy to implicitly endorse massive cuts to both Social Security and Medicare - does he care about balancing the budget, or is it all about savaging people who have to work for a living in order to benefit the rich?

Unless you view military adventurism as a conservative value, it's difficult to see what's "conservative" about the Will/Huntsman approach to foreign policy.

It's not that Will is wrong on everything - he's correct about the poll-driven opportunism of Romney and Gingrich, and he's right about certain bad policies those candidates endorse. You don't win Iowa by promising to eliminate agricultural subsidies. But in his effort to flush the past few decades down the memory hole, Will wants to wash away his own sins - the sordid history of a Republican Party that, in taking an approach you would think Will would endorse. As Daniel McCarthy puts it,

George W. Bush was quite the free trader, aberrations on steel notwithstanding; he certainly cut taxes; and he wasn’t as much of a regulator as the present incumbent. All of that was nowhere near enough to guarantee the economy’s health and stave off the Great Recession.

No connecting of the dots required: You can draw a direct line from deregulation of the financial industry under Reagan to the S&L debacle, and of the larger financial industry deregulation under Clinton and Bush to the financial industry's collapse. And as McCarthy points out, today's economic woes do not echo those of the 80's and there's no reason to believe that a further embrace of free trade or supply side economics would contribute to an economic recovery.

Huntsman just might be the guy to bring huge new tax cuts to the privileged few, slash benefits for the working masses, run the deficit up to new heights (as would seem to be an inevitable consequence of his policies), and further erode the domestic manufacturing industry. But it's odd that Will sees those as reasons to rally behind him.

Is That a Frog In Your Throat...

Or is it a Newt?

If you're a Republican, as flavors of the month go, either way I suspect it will leave yet another bad taste in your mouth.

I don't see Newt winning the race because... well, to understate the problem, he doesn't exude charisma and he has a long history of taking stances that probably won't help him in an election - no matter how vigorously he objects that it's unfair to accurately quote his past statements. As flawed candidates go, he's much more of a danger to the party than Romney.

Not the Republican Way

Newt Gingrich wants you to know that it's not "the right forum to criticize a fellow Republican" when you can see his face.

To maintain proper decorum it should only be done behind his back, from a safe distance.

Was I Too Dismissive of Newt?

My thought on making Newt the anti-Romney, "that's not going to work". Paul Krugman, though, suggests that "there’s still another Anyone But Romney candidate in serious play" followed by a picture of... not Newt exactly, but you can't miss the reference.

Serious play? Or serious denial?

Newts and Hip Waders: Made for Each Other

This certainly would be advice worth seven guineas, or thereabouts , er, I mean $300,000 from Freddie Mac....

"My advice as an historian when they walked in and said we are now making loans to people that have no credit history and have no record of paying back anything but that’s what the government wants us to do. I said at the time, this is a bubble. This is insane. This is impossible."

Fascinating stuff. If you ignore his public silence on the bubble, even in the face of very public attacks on people who were explicitly warning of a housing bubble, and ignore the zombie lie that the housing bubble was rooted in banks giving too many loans to poor people, you could almost believe that he actually is the smartest man in the GOP.

What did Newt do to warn the public of this absolute insanity?

Gingrich talked and wrote about what he saw as the benefits of the Freddie Mac business model.

Sheer genius!

Campaign Songs for the Republican Nominees

Four years ago, I proposed a variety of campaign songs for the Republican and Democratic nominees. Ron Paul and Mitt Romney haven't outgrown my suggestions of that time:

• Mitt Romney– Everything To Everyone, by Everclear. A song about a habitual appeaser for a man who will say anything to get elected, even if he said something completely different fifteen seconds earlier. The song is about how appeasement leads to failure, and I suspect that it will prove to be on the mark.

• Ron Paul – Fool On The Hill, by The Beatles. There may be more to him than meets the eye, but few seems to notice.

The current crop of Republicans is not an inspiring bunch, but it's not too late - perhaps a campaign song is just the thing to transform Newt Gingrich from, um, okay that's not going to work. Let's see... To transform John Huntsman¹ into a serious contender. Meanwhile, Romney and Paul could use updated music, right? So here goes.....

• Mitt Romney: Stuck With You, by Huey Lewis and the News. "We thought about someone else, but neither one took the bait; We thought about breaking up, but now we know it's much too late", doesn't that about say it all?

• Michelle Bachmann: Girlfriend, by Avril Lavigne. It's not entirely fair to her, but she had to have a pretty good idea of her job description when she entered the race: "Convince people to support you over Sarah Palin, then fade into the background." Really - has the right wing media paid her any real attention since Palin made it official that she would not be running?

• Ron Paul: You Won't See Me, by the Beatles. It keeps with the general Beatles theme and seems rather fitting, given how the media largely treats him as the invisible man.

• Jon Huntsman: Can't You See, by the Marshall Tucker Band. I suppose there are contexts in which being told, "Not if you're the last man on Earth" could mean, "Once she sees how flawed her other suitors are, and that I'm truly, objectively the smartest, most honest, most capable person in the bunch, she'll start to like me," but most of the time it actually means "Not if you're the last man on Earth".

• Herman Cain: Out Ta Get Me, by Guns 'N Roses. Because nothing says "I'm innocent" like a series of contradictory statements and conspiracy theories. He's going to go down fighting and won't give up until... every last copy of his book is sold!

• Newt Gingrich: Boy For Sale, by Lionel Bart. No, it's not an allusion to his appreciation for orphanages. I can't think of any genuine purpose for his campaign other than to remind us that he's the Ed McMahon of conservatism - if I were cynical I might say that if you give him "seven guineas... or thereabouts", before you know it he'll have half of the commentators on Fox complimenting his brilliance as an "idea man" for spewing your drivel on the air.

• Rick Perry: Rehab, by Amy Winehouse. A song that seems suitable due to his periodic incoherence, his odd effusiveness and... I forget.

• Rick Santorum: The Best Song In The World!!!!. You vote for this guy, you deserve to get rickroll'd. And the substance-free lyrics seem somehow fitting for a substance-free candidate in a substance-free race.

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1. You say John Huntsman can't be transformed into a serious candidate? Alright then, would you have preferred I say Bachmann? Cain? Santorum? Sure, some people take them seriously, and in the modern Republican Party you can simultaneously be a cartoon character and a frontrunner, but please.... Sure, not so long ago Bachmann was touted as a "top candidate", but as was Perry, but they're currently polling well below Gingrich, in what you might call "Ron Paul territory." "Stick a fork in 'em."