With a scant week remaining till Decision ’12, I’m poised to declare some winners and wieners. Political comedians and critics deserve le grand prix. The biggest losers include Donald Trump, Sarah Palin and men who make stunningly stupid claims about women’s plumbing.
Obsessive birther Donald Trump offered to donate $5 million to the charity of Obama’s choice in exchange for his passport application and college transcripts. Laugh-riot Stephen Colbert countered with an indecent proposal for Trump: “One million actual dollars if you let me dip my balls in your mouth.” Of course Colbert was kidding. He doesn’t have the balls to expose his testicles anywhere near such a rabid cannibal.
Barbara Walters’ response was more sober: Donald, you’re making a fool of yourself. You’re not hurting Obama, you’re hurting Donald ...” More to the point, Trump was hurting fellow Republican Mitt Romney. Most Americans don’t realize that Trump is a billionaire and that Romney’s net worth is a paltry, middle-class $250 million.
Thus Trump earned a page in the binder of asshats who were upstaging or throwing Romney off script — a blessing when Romney was contradicting himself, which was often enough for pundits to start questioning his true identity. I used to think of him as a transsexual Sybil, but she had fewer personalities. I now think of him as the robot from “Lost in Space” after someone wisecracked that debate audiences had to power-off all cell phones so as not to interfere with his circuitry. David Brooks dubbed him “Thurston Howell Romney.” Yet the millionaire of “Gilligan’s Island” seems more consistent, endearing and authentic.
Shortly before the Republican National Convention, Metaphysical Gynecologist Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., put his foot in his mouth and poked Romney in the eye by suggesting that women’s bodies can somehow shut down reproduction by trespassers.
And last week at a New Albany debate, Theological Gynecologist and U.S. Senate hopeful Richard Mourdock opined that zygotes formed via rape are God’s will.
Comic genius Tina Fey addressed this mess at the inaugural gala for the Center for Reproductive Rights in Manhattan: “If I have to listen to one more gray-faced man with a $2 haircut explain to me what rape is, I’m going to lose my mind!” Four years ago on “SNL,” Fey masterfully aped failed GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who recently resurfaced in the news for accusing the president of “shuckin’ and jivin’.”
I can see bigotry from my house!
But Palin can be forgiven. She doesn’t read newspapers, so she probably doesn’t know that racism is on the rise. And she’s understandably bitter after being denied a speaking role, like Dubya, at the RNC in Tampa. The GOP is running from its ruinous history as fast as Romney is running from the party’s rape brain-trust.
“How many times can they make deals with the hard right to get the support of the base … and then dance away from it when the lights go on?” asked MSNBC’s Chris Matthews.
After the spotlight shone on Romney pandering to the hard right at a private fundraiser earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan wrote a game-changing column, “Time for an Intervention,” in which she characterized Romney and his campaign in 50 shades of shrill: “small,” “tinny,” “shallow,” “pinched and narrow.”
Last Friday in Ames, Iowa, he “used the words ‘big’ or ‘biggest’ 13 times in a single speech, arguing that his is the campaign of big ideas and Mr. Obama’s vision is too small …” according to the Journal.
The GOP has come full circle, from strategist Karl Rove (see: evil genius), who attacks his opponents’ greatest strengths (see: swiftboating), to Team Romney, which projects its foremost weakness on Obama.
In another stellar column, Huffpost’s Bob Cesca slams a new ad that faults Obama for congressional gridlock. Its ironic title: “Republicans Filibuster Everything; Romney Blames Obama for Not Working With Congress.” Cesca quotes Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s infamous confession to the National Journal: “The single most important thing that we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”
I can see treason from my house!
Cesca argues Obama’s ouster was “the only goal of the last two Republican congresses” and reminds us that Rush Limbaugh was more hateful in saying, “I hope Obama fails.”
I hope he succeeds. I’m counting on a body of women and Toledo autoworkers to shut Romney down.
