At the end of a bet-hedging yawner of an inaugural column in the New York Times, Bill Kristol dumps a ginormous, disingenuous whopper:
Some Democrats are licking their chops at the prospect of a Huckabee nomination. They shouldn’t be. For one thing, Michael Bloomberg would be tempted to run in the event of an Obama-Huckabee race — and he would most likely take votes primarily from Obama.
Uh, yeah. Maybe that would be plausible to someone who views the world through the neocon paradigm where wishing hard enough for things that defy basic logic makes them come true. But, the reality, like everything else this wingnut welfare queen proclaims, is the exact opposite.
Earlier today, while I was running around Philadelphia frantically searching for a new home, I received this Blackberry'd message from a dear friend of mine in Paris:
OK... But the first pioneers in Iowa were the fucking French right ? This is wy "des moines " wich stands for "from (or the) monks"!!!! OPUS DEI my friend !!! Anyway if I were an Amarican maybe I lwould cast my ballot for the black guys who seems much more clever than the ex-fat !! I can tell you my Friend !! As far are the rep candidates are concerned, the 9/11 guy seems already out of the race (just my opinion ...and a big mistake to snob the Iowa... What a pity !!!) the ex- heroe pilot is too old , the Mormon is just too Mormon (the rihgt to have several wifes in the US is no politically correct right ?). On the opposit side Hillary seems to have a big handicap : her husband who sometimes forgets to shut his big mouth.... Edwards ? Too much too soon : a USD 400 fee for a hairdresser anois American who usually vote for the Dems.... OBAMA !!!
This friend of mine is conservative by French standards, but could easily be a Democrat in the U.S. I'm not sure which media influences got him to this place, but I know he regularly consumes CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, and BBC in addition to the French press.
I briefly caught THE MAVERICK mindlessly yammering on the tube this morning and watching some reporter lap it up ...like it was pâté from Maxim de Paris. And the next thing I know I was thinking about this Dan Savage classic from the 2000 Iowa Caucus-a-Thon:
On day three, still
sick as a dog, I decided I had to get out of bed and do my job. I had
planned on following one of the loopy conservative Christian candidates
around -- Bauer or Keyes -- and writing something insightful and
humanizing about the candidate, his campaign and his supporters. Then,
from my deathbed, I caught Gary Bauer on MSNBC. "Our society will be
destroyed if we say it's OK for a man to marry a man or a woman to
marry a woman," Bauer said. Seeing Bauer go off about gay marriage
reminded me of something he said back in December when the Vermont
Supreme Court came out for same-sex marriage. "I think what the Vermont
Supreme Court did last week was in some ways worse than terrorism,"
Bauer told the Associated Press.
In my
Sudafed-induced delirium I decided that if it's terrorism Bauer wants,
then it's terrorism Bauer is going get -- and I'm just the man to
terrorize him. Naked, feverish and higher than a kite on codeine
aspirin, I called the Bauer campaign and volunteered. My plan? Get
close enough to Bauer to give him the flu, which, if I am successful,
will lay him flat just before the New Hampshire primary. I would go to
Bauer's campaign office and cough on everything -- phones and pens,
staplers and staffers. I even hatched a plan to infect the candidate
himself. I would keep the pen in my mouth until Bauer dropped by his
offices to rally the troops. And when he did, I would approach him and
ask for his autograph, handing him the pen from my flu-virus incubating
mouth.
[...]
The list I'd
been given was of voters who'd indicated that Gary was their second
choice. Of the 50 or so people I managed to get on the phone, most were
voting for Forbes, a few for Keyes and only one for Bush. Despite ample
opportunity, I'm not engaging in dirty tricks. I'm doing as told,
reading from my script. Andy gives me a list of caucus sites, so that I
can tell people where to go on Monday night. The list has both the
Republican and Democratic caucus sites in each precinct. I'm tempted to
send the Bauer supporters to Democratic caucuses in their
neighborhoods, delivering them to the living rooms of Bradley and Gore
supporters. I could cost Bauer a few hundred votes -- and every vote
counts, Andy tells me, every vote counts.
But I don't do
it. I can't. My work ethic won't allow it. The folks on the phone are
so pleasant, and Andy is so nice to me, that I don't have it in my
heart to do a bad job. What if one of the nice church ladies I get on
the phone -- and that's just what they sound like, Dana Carvey's
mid-'80s "SNL" Church Lady -- walks into a room of pot-smoking Bradley
supporters and dies of a heart attack? I couldn't sleep at night if
that happened, so I tell everyone the truth about their caucus
locations.
