They’re having another Republican debate tonight on CNBC. I watched it for about ten minutes. It was useless. There isn’t an honest bone in any of those clowns’ bodies. They’ve all basically agreed to pretend to believe a bunch of complete bullshit, which they can all more or less spew forth on demand. The only one with the true capacity to surprise is Ron Paul. And he’s the only one who ever veers off the beaten path. The only thing that could possibly be interesting about any of these debates is when someone screws up their lines and accidentally says something true. Rick Perry tried that a couple of times and he never recovered. Voters are not learning anything by watching these debates. They’re just being misinformed and presented with an alternate reality that is quite different from anything normal people experience in their lives. Unless you are immersed in right-wing talk radio and Fox News, most of what they’re saying doesn’t even have a passing relationship to your understanding of the world. Their statistics are fabricated. The problems they identify don’t even exist. Their solutions are not plausible on any level you might want to consider. It’s really a lot more like pro wrestling than actual politics. Except it’s actually less entertaining than actual politics, which proves they’re doing it wrong. Even Herman Cain, who was providing some consistent comedic value for a while, is no longer funny now that he’s trying to explain how many women he’s never harassed. I know it’s hard to write about a presidential campaign if you don’t watch the debates, but I just can’t do it. My capacity to imbibe The Stupid has been maxed out.
But, hey, if you want to document the atrocities, be my guest.
Both Romney and Gingrich have, on separate occasions, made the point that some of the questions they are asking are impossible to answer in 30 seconds. That’s really the only moderately realistic thing that anyone has said.
Good Hair is such a waste of space.
My favorite debate moment, by far: Rick Perry saying he would “immediately cut three departments – Commerce, Education, and…uhh…uhhh, what was the third one? Uhh…umm… (Ron Paul suggests: the EPA) …Yeah, the EPA!”
5 minutes later: Rick Perry: “The one I was looking for earlier was ‘Energy'”
No, I am not making this up.
he’s the dumb one who forgets his lines and sometimes says something true.
I know, but you really need to see the video of this one. It was priceless – especially when Ron Paul tried to help him out. “Not 3 – cut 5!” and then “The EPA!”
Comedy gold.
Awkward.
Watch Rick Perry’s Campaign End Before Your Eyes
Ooh, that was painful.
I wish someone would have helpfully suggested “Defense?” just to see him say “Yeah, Defense! Wait…shit!”
It was more like 20 minutes later that he remembered “Dept of Energy” as the third dept.
What a fool. Big Time FAIL.
He’s still got like 12 mil in the bank so he can stay in the game… but his game is over. He should just quit and give the money to charity. Really.
That may be – my sense of time gets distorted when I watch these things. On the one hand, it seems like it lasts for 12 hours, on the other, there’s really only 2 minutes or so of brain activity required.
Well I in fact did learn something new from Gingrich. I hadn’t heard the talking point regarding higher education and tuition. So of course I knew he was lying and had to look it up just in case it comes up in regular conversation later on.
Anyway, according to their own website — which is bound to exaggerate — the work program provides an estimated $4,060 annually, working 15 hours per week. That’s barely more than a minimum wage job. It’s probably less than a work-study program from the Federal Government.
What Gingrich also didn’t tell you is that this college has a 10% acceptance rate, and the rest of your tuition is covered by the “College of the Ozarks Cost of Education Scholarship”. Now I don’t know where Gingrich plans on getting $5,090 to $13,540 annually per student…but if I had that much in grant money and/or donations, I’d have only $25,000 in debt rather than $50,000.
See Here
It’s also a shit college
That is kind of weird, to have such a low satisfaction level along with a low acceptance rate. Why are so many students applying there? Because their parents make them?
Not sure. It doesn’t look terribly difficult to get in. 43% of the GPA’s were higher than 3.75, but for most colleges worth going to that’s pretty standard. I think my college was 50% had a 3.8 and higher with only an average 1250 SAT.
I assume it’s because their parents are making them, plus it has the allure of “FREE COLLEGE!!!” That’s the only reason I had any desire to go to the Air Force/Naval Academies.
Very good points, Booman.
While watching the debate tonight, I felt like I had moved into an alternative reality where the BIG Gub’mint caused all of our problems and the “Job Creators” were forced to do really stupid things because of Big Bad Regulations made up by The “Democrat Party.”
Whew… What planet are these people on?
Another thing. I was a bit alarmed that they didn’t seem to care one bit about the 7th largest economy in the world (Italy) potentially failing any time now (in addition to Greece.)
They had no concept of how interconnected all of our economies are. These people just have no clue whatsoever. But Free Markets! Free Markets! Free Markets! The Invisible Hand will solve all of our problems!
My head hurts.