The most puerile presidential race in American history
by digby
For Salon this morning, I wrote about the demise of the old trope about the undisciplined young hippies vs the Real Americans at the hands of this latest crop of obnoxious brats running for the GOP nomination:
Reagan was the original Republican “grown-up,” the Big Daddy figure who symbolized everything the Republican party wanted to stand for: masculinity, maturity, dominance. This simplistic archetype has characterised the media’s celebration of GOP leadership since that time. When Bill Clinton, the first baby boomer to become president, first took office, there was a brief sense of excitement about the young commander-in-chief, but it immediately deteriorated into the usual anti-hippie diatribes among the media for the administration’s alleged lack of “discipline” and unruly approach to governance, what with the blue jeans in the Oval Office and the like. This early Miss Manners-esque critique morphed shortly thereafter into the willingness among political reporters to pass along any and all bits of gossip and innuendo, even including dark insinuations of drug running and “murder.” After all, everybody knows hippies have no morals.
You know, remember when Bill Clinton held one of his first Cabinet meetings out of Camp David for an encounter session for his new Cabinet secretaries? Yes. You are not going to — now the experienced grown-ups are here. Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld are not going to share their inner child with their fellow Cabinet members, and I think it’s about time. It’s so reassuring to have grown-ups back in charge.
“He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
“I don’t care if he drops out. Stay in the race, just stop being a jackass…The world is falling apart. We’re becoming Greece. The Ayatollah’s on the verge of having a nuclear weapon, and you’re slandering anybody and everybody to stay in the news. You know, run for president, but don’t be the world’s biggest jackass.”
“I watched this idiot Lindsey Graham on television today and he calls me a jackass! I’m trying to be nice, I’m working hard to be nice. He’s total lightweight. I said to myself, it’s amazing, he doesn’t seem like a very bright guy. He doesn’t seem as bright as Rick Perry. I think Rick Perry is probably smarter than Lindsey Graham.”
“Trumpism is a toxic mix of demagoguery and nonsense”
“Perry should be forced to take an IQ test before being allowed to enter the GOP debate.”
I suggest we give them all a bottle and put them to bed.