As the windbag chorus of conservative war hawks circled the Eiffel Tower with misguided visions of cultural superiority after the Nov. 13 attack on innocents in the Paris city center, those of us who still drape our tear ducts with compassion were rattled at best (sobbing at worst), were allowing ourselves a minute before jumping into a Les Miserables with which many of us are only familiar in a good-guy/bad-guy binary sense. This column was anxiously awaiting some serious clarification from the foreign policy pockets making up this year’s My Three Democrats for their second official debate on CBS. Humor, we thought; maybe that will help.
This is how it goes. You starch your sarcasm collar up high and point your judgment nose low, and then everything falls into a saltwater pool of international proportions. While we had planned on digesting the Nov. 14 debate on CBS between the Democratic triumvirate bench in the typical bathroom manner with which we digest small bits of food, today has fallen beneath the pall of Friday night’s coordinated attacks on Paris and on Beirut. There’s still talk that this plays into theRussian plane crash and any other act of terror that might be bothering the temples on either side of your eyes. In response, CBS told the New York Times that it is realigning its question path to match the timbre of the times (the Bernie Sanders campaign apparently threw a tantrum at the last minute content redirection, according to report; in response, Clinton likely put on her best foreign-policy acumen dress). The O’Malley situation seems less relevant by the minute, but he’s eye candy, so there’s that.
Once again, when weighed against the tilt-a-whirl of Republican rhetorical acrimony and potshots, the triumvirate of sane people at the table came through on the issues, even if Sanders immediately dodged the Paris/ISIS question by running face first into his windowless van increasingly covered with bumper sticker sloganeering before morphing into your enjoyable but sometimes mouthy uncle. After Hillary righted to messaging to the question at hand, calling ISIS and its terrorists a “barbaric, ruthless, jihadist terrorist group” – (note that the Paris government promised a “ruthless” response, and indeed followed up with airstrikes on Nov. 15; yikes) – Sanders attempted to throw the hot potato at Hillary’s voting record. That resulted in Clinton having to drag back that well-documented yarn that she voted for the Iraq invasion under Bush in hopes that it would somehow deter said invasion, because no Bush has ever lied. Hey Jeb!
Maryland manmeat Martin O’Malley did his best to describe himself as “new” about 328 times. Then he kind of just nuzzled up to Sanders implying that he was equally progressive on issues like income inequality and college tuition. Have you seen him shirtless? Oof.
The whole thing descended into a semantics argument about the term “boots on the ground,” because “our people are not boots,”O’Malley said. But they’re wearing them, right?
Things got heated on a couple of occasions – Hillary played cheerleader for Black Lives Matter, Bernie burned a joint on marijuana legalization, O’Malley tried to pretend that Maryland was sort of like a nation, though he neglected to mention the gaps in that tiny state’s taxation that have resulted in continuing poverty. Bernie wants to rewrite Obamacare, Hillary wants to improve it, Martin is still “new,” thank you.
But probably the most jarring moment of the evening belonged to Sanders. His call for a “revolution” had all of the bad optics of screaming fire in a theater or preaching peace in front of a “Mission Accomplished” sign in light of still stinging events. People who were looking for comfort from their potential new leaders found quite a bit of it. But let’s save the virtually aimless anger for the GOP, please. Maybe have a sit-down and think before throwing millions into an inferno. Has anyone seen our humor?
CHURCH OF THE POISON MIND
In this post-fairness and equality age (well, partially), it’s nice to see that some of the more mainstream characters littering the political playing field are accepting LGBT laws that have been unequivocally passed by the Supreme Court. Oh, wait! No, they aren’t. On Nov. 16, the New York Times finally laid into what is fast becoming the Republican Hate Convention in the Name of Jesus (aka the New Brotherhood of I’m Scared of the Gays). By all measures, the party’s once reasonable message of fiscal conservatism has been blotted out by a strong network of blowhards preaching in favor of a big gay genocide. Specifically, pastor Kevin Swanson, who earlier this month in Iowa called for the extermination of gays in the U.S. The choir he was preaching to? Presidential hopefuls like Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, and most unashamedly, Ted Cruz. Ain’tno log cabin that doesn’t burn easily, people. Watch yourselves.
SUNSHINE, SUNSET
In case you were living under a rock that was shaped like a stone meant to be rolled away in ancient times, loincloths, then you probably know that Orlando hosted thousands of Republican truthers last weekend for the Republican Party of Florida’s Sunshine Summit. The tone, at least as reported in the Tampa Bay Times, was one of fissures and canyons growing within the ridiculously large roster of conservative presidential hopefuls and their loyal ilk. When a former head of the state GOP says, “I don’t think the Republican Party as a brand and our long-term structure for the future can be successful, given what I’m watching,” and says it to the media, you know things are falling apart. “There’s going to be a Trump Wall!” Donald Trump reportedly said, outlining his enlightened immigration platform. Oh, dear.
KILL ‘EM ALL
Not to be too depressing on the death and taxes bit or too heavy on what should just be a policy battle (not a gunfight), but it remains and shall remain disturbing to witness the reactions of the National Rifle Association and its members in the face of national and international tragedies. Politico reports that just one day after the terror in Paris, Florida’s NRA nice people emailed its lunatic fringe and asked it – or ordered it – to take action on a bill filed by Florida nice guy Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala. The bill, though, likely to pass (because guns, right?) seeks to wash the bloodied hands clean of those joyously partaking in the Stand Your Ground doctrine passed in 2005. The Florida Supreme Court has put the onus of proving that you’ve been threatened on the defendant (or shooter). “Not fair!” former NRA bulldog president Marion Hammer. “Make no mistake – a committee member who votes against this bill will be voting against you and your constitutional right of self-defense,” Hammer seethes. She seems nice.
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