Primarily Horrendo

I know how you feel, brother.
So, the Four Horsemen of the Crapocalypse had another debate last night, because "debates" where a bunch of dudes with essentially the same policies stand behind star-spangled podiums screaming nonsense at each other is very good for democracy or whatever. I didn't watch it, because who fucking cares. But my pal Richard Adams has a great play-by-play here, if you want to feel like you were there, in the company of a witty Englishman.

Otherwise, here's my Executive Summary: Taxes, disgrace, Freddie Mac, lobbying, K Street, taxes, Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II, Margaret Thatcher, hey remember the 80s?!, Terry Schiavo (whut), taxes, Jesus, amen.

Everyone was on the attack against frontrunner (again) Newt Gingrich, which really forced Gingrich into doing what he does best: Shamelessly lying with a contemptuous sneer that effectively reads to dildobrainz who don't pay attention to facts that he is being honest, because who would lie that brazenly? (Newt Gingrich, that's who!) It's that utter confidence in the uninformed voter and irresponsible media that makes Gingrich dangerous. He's Teflon, baby.

And he's now leading in Florida, site of the next primary.

Meanwhile, every establishment Republican who's been whining incessantly about the likelihood of Mitt Romney getting the nomination is now shitting their sensible trousers at the possibility of a Gingrich candidacy. Whooooooooooooops we never thought THAT would happen!

To that end, Russ Douthat, still inexplicably being given page-space by the New York Times, is Calling Mitch Daniels. Ha ha you can have him! Take my governor—please!

Not for nothing, but the reason that "various capable Republicans [have decided] to forgo a presidential run this year" is because there's no point to running against President Obama, unless you're a Rick Santorum who thinks blastocysts are more important than the national economy or a Ron Paul who thinks US foreign policy is a garbage disaster (it is!) and imagine you can single-handedly reverse sixty years of industrial-military momentum in creating a perpetual war machine.

If you're just some douche in a suit who only cares about social issues insofar as they can be used as wedge issues to elicit votes from bigots and rubes, and your primary concerns are corporate cockwanking, privatization, and decimating the social safety net via austerity policy, you could hardly do better than Barack Obama.

Sure, he's no Newt Gingrich—he's more Bob Dole; Republican retro!—but giving him eight years to move the Democrats' economic platform even further to the right only accelerates the corporatocratic coup Big Business has been engineering with Republicans' assistance for the last forty years. So, why would any self-respecting Mitch Daniels or Jeb Bush run in this election and risk losing for no good reason?

And that, my friends, is why the Republican field now currently consists of a Santorum, a Ron Paul, and two egomaniacal opportunists who will do and say anything to get elected, including telling the absurd lie that President Barack Obama is a radical socialist lefty—a deceit so incredibly, laughably mendacious that Mitch Daniels and Jeb Bush couldn't even choke it out of their throats with a straight face.

In other news, blah blah Mitt Romney's taxes, Rick Santorum is still a jackass, SuperPACs are such a great idea and Newt Gingrich's is about to get a $5 million donation from one person, and something something Ron Paul.

Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.