If you skipped last night’s WHannabe debate, good for you. I did too. I read all I want to know about it in a half-hour, and I’ll make it even shorter for you. You’re welcome. (More)

“Jeb Bush showed real leadership”

I didn’t watch last night’s WHannabe debate. I was brushing my ear tufts. But even conservative Leon Wolf called it “an interminable night,” so I don’t feel bad about missing it. And neither should you, even if you don’t have ear tufts.

The Professor of Astrology Janitor had MSNBC on when I trundled into the mail room, and they were rerunning a segment with Steve Kornacki talking to undecided Republican voters. The Professor of Astrology Janitor was busy buffing so I switched the channel to cricket, but while I was tapping the remote one of those undecided voters declared: “Jeb Bush showed real leadership.”

Okay, that was an undecided Republican voter. But that sentence clanks around the ear canal, rather like: “The goop between my toes makes a delicious salad dressing.”

So I had to know….

“Donald, you’re not going to be able to insult your way to the presidency”

Apparently Bush’s “real leadership” came during an exchange with Donald Trump:

While on the campaign trail, Trump, the current frontrunner, has repeatedly attacked Bush, taunting him as “low energy.” Bush fired back on stage at the Venetian casino describing Trump as an unserious “chaos candidate.”

“Donald, you’re not going to be able to insult your way to the presidency. That’s not going to happen,” Bush said, provoking loud cheers from the audience.

I’m not sure how it’s “real leadership” to repeat what lots of other Republicans and most sane humans have already said. Maybe the “real leadership” was simply insulting Trump. Republican voters seem to like that, which is why Trump sits atop the WHannabe polls. I agree Trump can’t insult his way to the presidency, but he might well insult his way to the GOP nomination.

Other than that, ABC News has 7 Moments That Mattered and Politico outbid them with The 13 Biggest Moments of the GOP Debate. If this were a bridge game, Politico would have to make a grand slam. Most of their 13 Moments didn’t seem that big to me, so they’d lose a bunch of points in bridge. I never learned how to calculate bridge scores, but then again I never learned how to calculate the Duckworth-Lewis Method for adjusting cricket scores either. That’s why the Flying Spaghetti Monster invented spreadsheets. But I digress.

The New York TimesAlan Rappeport has a pundit sampler, in case you care. I read the sampler but I didn’t follow the links.

“Get off your butt and go serve your country”

I did read that Mike Huckabee had a Grumpy Old Man Moment at the kiddie table:

“All over America, I hear young people say, ‘Would you tell me what you’re gonna do? Will you give me free college? Will you make sure that I can have medical marijuana?’” Huckabee argued. “You know what I think we ought to tell young people? ‘We aren’t gonna give you anything. We’re gonna give you the opportunity to get off your butt and go serve your country and secure your freedom, because if you don’t, nobody else is.”

Huckabee skipped Vietnam because he had “flat feet,” but WHannabes like to beat war drums without having answered the call themselves.

“Islam is not just a religion”

And also at the kiddie table, Rick Santorum flunked First Amendment 101:

“I know this is going to come as a shock to a lot of people, and I mean that sincerely, Islam is not just a religion it is also a political and governing structure,” Santorum said during the Tuesday debate. “The fact of the matter is Islam is a religion, but it is also Sharia law. It is also a civil government. It is also a form of government so the idea that that is protected under the First Amendment is wrong and in fact, that political structure is what is the big problem.”

Y’know what other religions claim authority over government? Judaism, at least in Israel. Also, Catholicism. Yes, some Catholics really do their religion should supersede government. Plus whatever religion Kim Davis believes. In fact the religious right have an organization whose sole purpose is to demand special exemptions from civic laws. And Santorum supports that agenda.

Santorum wants his religion imposed by law and he thinks the First Amendment protects that … but only for his religion.

Now ask me why I didn’t bother to watch the WHannabe debates….


Photo Credit: NBC Today


Good day and good nuts