Porcelain Magnolias…
Posted on: October 30, 2015
To paraphrase at length from one of my favorite movies, “I don’t know whether to scratch my watch or wind my butt.” Courtesy of the third Republican debate, “If they are trying to drive me crazy, it’s too late.” I’m not sure, but “They might all be crazy as well as in a bad mood for the last 40 years.” Our imagination on Wednesday didn’t hold a candle to the reality of that night’s two-hour Screff Fest.
Granted, the moderators did suck, but that suckitude didn’t emanate from their questions. When the moderators allowed themselves to be overrun and overruled on who, when, and how long someone could speak, they lost control and it should disqualify them from gainful post-debate employment as substitute teachers.
Now it looks like all the campaigns are going to get together on Sunday for a Coachella Whine and Pine Festival. Their beef – those mean moderators asked us unfair questions that were just too hard.
Here’s the truth – when you straight up lie about something and are called on it, yeah, that’s hard to answer. When the math underlying your economic and tax policy doesn’t add up, yeah, it’s hard to explain an alternate version of reality. When you go avalanching the 1% with more money than they have time to sack away, while simultaneously increasing taxes on the middle class, yeah, the justification for something like that is rough around the edges.
When you won’t answer: Why should you be put in charge of the nation’s economy since your profligate spending resembles a drunken teenage boy on Spring Break at a liquor/brothel/all-you-can-eat mini-mart and video rental store? Those characteristics don’t necessarily inspire trust. Marco Rubio’s financial problems didn’t come from being a hardworking, student loan paying, ethnic Cuban Boy Scout. His financial problems started when he was making $300,000 a year as an attorney, tooling around in a $50,000 leased Audi, and owning parts or all of three houses. It’s not undocumented when you pay for your driveway with a Republican credit card and get caught. It’s not unfounded when you have a long and sorted history of being a virtual cabana-boy for a billionaire who still employs your wife, get paid almost a million dollars for a memoir no one read, and buy a speedboat because it is a “dream you’ve always had”.
And the big question before that necrophiliac funeral director, Ted Cruz, went on his ranting rap about the media? The question was, “Why are you opposing the bipartisan budget deal?” That was the question — that was it and he cut loose with his soliloquy. Hardly unfair, just embarrassing to admit you are just lubing-up the teapot hordes.
There’s a theory that the Republican Party has become such a ridiculous parody of itself, the questions just seem unfair because there are no good answers. What’s more — there are no sane answers for their craziness. That is what happens when you gallivant so far to the right you hit your head on rocks in the Van Allen Belt.
The big idea is to cut out input from the RNC and Prince Priebus, who could screw up a one car funeral. The goal of this Twilight-esque coven is to give birth an other-worldly, entirely new debate format. So far the idea floated by funeral director Cruz is to have Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Hugh Hewitt moderate the remaining debates. The ultimate in schizoid isolationist behavior — pulling away from reality and submersing oneself in the fact-free world of talk radio. Please, please, please, let that happen.
All I can say is that I hope Hillary anesthetizes these fish before she takes target practice in their barrel.
My final paraphrase for these fragile, delicate, porcelain magnolias is this, “These Republican candidates are evil and they must be destroyed, but they are taking care of that faster than anyone else ever could.”
Have a great Friday and take the conversation in any direction you might like.
12 Responses to "Porcelain Magnolias…"
October 30, 2015 at 2:21 pm
And to be fair, NBC, in an effort to gin up a horse race in the Democratic Primary between Hillary and Bernie, conducted a rigged survey on none other than Survey Monkey. To have a business with the word “Monkey” in it as your business partner is embarrassing.
In any event, conducting a Monkey “monkeyed” survey online, with a biased cohort skewed to Bernie’s natural and primary support group, Hillary bested Bernie 50-30%. While that won’t slow Bernie down in his quest to become the new Ralph Nader, it shows just how difficult his quest is going to be.
October 30, 2015 at 2:56 pm
@2: Oh good God! Survey Monkey!!! 
Maybe they could have the Bern do his poem for real! 😥
October 30, 2015 at 3:54 pm
The A.P. has a piece about the Repub hubbub over the debates and that they are gonna take their toy away from NBC. And apparently yes the candidates are also ticked off over “silly” questions. Those questions would be ones like:
Jeb Bush was asked to explain why his campaign was doing so poorly in the polls, Carly Fiorina was asked why Americans should hire her when she had been fired by Hewlett-Packard and Marco Rubio was asked if he should “slow down, get a few things done first” before running for president.
And sadly NBC will probably kowtow to the RNC and the candidates because
Debates have unexpectedly become big business for the television networks. The three GOP debates — on Fox News Channel, CNN and CNBC — all set viewership records for those networks. The CNBC debate on Wednesday was seen by 14 million people, more than Game 2 of the World Series between the New York Mets and Kansas City Royals.
Granted, asking Yeb! about his poll numbers might not be an entirely appropriate question for a debate supposedly about econ issues, but asking Carly Fiorina why she should be placed in charge of the largest economy in the world in light of H.P.’s dismal performance on her watch *is* a valid question.
October 30, 2015 at 4:03 pm
Instead of those porcelain magnolias perhaps what they needed were some porcelain fountains.
October 30, 2015 at 4:45 pm
@4, if the moderators had been wanting to bust someone, they would not have let Rubio off with completely ignoring the question about his financial history. He was making a 97% percentile salary at $300K and lost a house to foreclosure. And this isn’t ancient history with Rubio.
How on earth can someone who can’t balance a household budget on $300K a year be turned loose with the world’s economy? But then his new sugar daddy Sheldon Adelson doesn’t have to worry about such things.
October 30, 2015 at 5:10 pm
From The New Yorker:
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/yes-marco-rubios-finances-are-a-big-deal
But Rubio must know that the issue of his finances isn’t going away. The Miami Herald has reported that Rubio “amended his financial disclosure forms … after The Miami Herald asked why they lacked a $135,000 home equity loan he obtained from a bank controlled by his political supporters.” The Tampa Bay Times has reported that Rubio “double-billed the Republican Party of Florida and state taxpayers for eight flights while he was House Speaker.” (He said that was a mistake, and that he would repay the party.) The Times also reported that “Rubio billed the party for more than $100,000 during the two years he served as the state’s House speaker,” and that “charges included repairs to the family minivan, grocery bills, plane tickets for his wife, and purchases from retailers ranging from a wine store near his home to Apple’s online store.” (Rubio said that the expenses were all related to party business.)
Most all of these would be felonies, but then they don’t have the sexiness of an email server.
October 30, 2015 at 5:16 pm
@6 & 7: Good points on Rubio and his finances. I recall reading something about the credit card mess when he was still in the state house in Tallahassee. $300k/yr is not chump change anywhere.
October 30, 2015 at 5:23 pm
@8, imagine if it was a Dem having used a state credit card at a liquor store or to download music — Fox would have a three part docudrama on constant rotation interrupted only by updates on the Benghazi Committee.
October 31, 2015 at 3:51 am
Great post and comments, as usual! It sounds like the candidates were even nastier than I heard. I wish nbc would tell them to shove it, but they won’t. I hope they go on Colbert’s show. Isn’t there some law that if a tv show has one candidate, they have to give all of them an opportunity to appear? I hope the late nite guys give them the publicity they deserve.
Oh, I read something really funny in a comments section today (you guys probably already knew this):
If you remove the vowels from Reince Priebus, heres what you get: RNC PR BS! 🙂
Comments are closed.
The Widdershins 
October 30, 2015 at 2:13 pm
In an attempt to save his precooked bacon, Prince Priebus announced that the RNC was suspending a February debate with NBC. The Prince sees the woodshed in his not too distant future.
His letter lisped: The network didn’t keep its promises to monitor the candidates’ speaking time and let them provide an opening statement. He also accused the debate moderators of asking unfair questions.
In other words, you didn’t do a good enough job in stopping our crazy candidates from talking and you should have asked questions like, “Don’t you think Hillary rides a broom and didn’t Bernie blow Khrushchev at a wild Red Square orgy back in the 1950s?”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/rnc-nbc-debate_5633a6d6e4b06317991230b0