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What a wonderfully wacky campaign season we’re having – and we haven’t even gotten to the final couple of weeks, when the goofy and kooky really rise to the surface.
The Tea Party, of course, is the big news, defeating mere right-wingers in several Republican primaries to nominate a gaggle of quacks who’re such far, far, far-right extremists that they won’t even ride in a car that has a left-turn signal. For goofy, check the TP/GOP senate candidate in Delaware, who says she has “dabbled into witchcraft,” or their Nevada senate contender who wants to privatize Social Security and eliminate jobless benefits because they “really have spoiled our citizenry.”
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Meanwhile, the Tea Party itself, fueled by the legitimate fury of thousands of outsiders, has unwittingly fallen under the political leadership of consummate corporate insiders and longtime GOP operatives. Few grassroots tea bag enthusiasts realize, for example, that the chief funder of their raging anti-establishment rallies is the über-establishmentarian, David Koch. The 19th richest man in America, he’s using the Tea Party crowd to advance his laissez-faire agenda of creating a corporate kleptocracy that’ll stomp on people like them. Koch is 2010’s Wizard of Oz – only Ozzier.
But the fartherest-out political wackiness is coming from – who else? – The Newt! Trying to become the TP/GOP’s 2012 presidential choice, Newt Gingrich has loosened all the nuts and bolts from his sanity, freeing his inner-lunatic to go wild in smearing Barack Obama. Appealing to the “birther” bunch, Newt is asserting that the President exhibits “Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior,” and that Obama’s long-dead African father is actually guiding his policies, ruling America from The Beyond.
I didn’t think the GOP could get any goofier, but Newt’s gone scary goofy.
“Who’s The Con Man?” The New York Times, September 15, 2010.
“Christine O’Donnell: ‘I Dabbled into Witchcraft’ but ‘I Never Joined a Coven,'” www.crooksandliars.com, September 17, 2010.
“G.O.P. Insider Fuels Tea Party and Suspicion,” www.nytimes.com, September 18, 2010.