Things have got so grotesque at the Republican presidential asylum that their malignancy is now being noticed, with well-advised fear and trembling, by even the asylum's customarily calm keepers. I submit, for example, the Washington Post's Nurse Ratched, Jennifer Rubin, who's coming as unglued as Charles Cheswick.
Or perhaps she's more Pogo-like, for Ms. Rubin has indeed met what to her should be a familiar enemy: the inexorable insanity of radicalism, most recently (and only most recently) on public display at the Values Voter Summit. To call this squalid event of ignorance and bigotry a political embarrassment would be to sugarcoat it; it was as raw, as natural, as exemplary of diseased spirits and corrupt souls as incremental crazy can get.
Rubin does her diagnostic best to sequester the "many conservative leaders" (she names three) of intellectual vigor and virtue from the Summit's Republican pols, who "demonstrated a shameful lack of moral leadership." One of the former was -- brace yourself -- Gary Bauer, yes that Gary Bauer, that prototypical GOP podperson of dubious morality gone wild. Says (realizes) Mr. Bauer now: "Picking a candidate for public office is not the same thing ... as selecting a pastor or rabbi. Politics is about picking someone who shares your views on public policy."
Another of Rubin's virtuous voices was -- and this clown is even worse than Bauer -- the insufferable king of smugness, Bill Bennett, who boldly chastised one of the Summit's favored zealots: "You did Rick Perry no good sir, in what you had to say."
Notice the 18th-century affectation, "sir." What next, Bill, dueling at thirty paces?
Don't despair, Ms. Rubin; and the same goes for you boys, Messrs. Bauer and Bennett. Rejoice -- yes, rejoice instead in these extraordinarily striking demonstrations of the radical right having finally gone completely nuts. And if you're fortunate in your journey of self-reexamination, perhaps you'll even rediscover conservatism.
Lions? In Africa?
Posted by: Brenda | October 10, 2011 at 06:26 PM
"To call this squalid event of ignorance and bigotry a political embarrassment would be to sugarcoat it; it was as raw, as natural, as exemplary of diseased spirits and corrupt souls as incremental crazy can get."
Fabulous turn of phrase and a disturbing look at Ms Rubin and her ilk.
P
Posted by: Patrick | October 10, 2011 at 09:03 PM
Your rich choice of words, not only a great turn of a phrase, but leaves me feeling less alone in my shock and horror at what has become the republican party. Thank you.
Posted by: Gregg Riley | October 10, 2011 at 10:24 PM
Somehow, some conservatives are shocked, shocked I tell you, by the anti-Mormon talk at the VVS, but have found acceptable the bigotry of anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and anti-gay rhetoric spewed from the stage for decades.
Posted by: Gus | October 11, 2011 at 05:12 AM