And When You Lose Control, You'll Reap The Harvest You Have Sown

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You know, you can say what you like about Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Sen. Jim Webb and that dude from Maryland whose name escapes me right now, but at least for the moment they’re campaigning like grownups. In contrast, look at some of the wacky antics of the Republicans:

John McCain calls Donald Trump’s supporters “crazies.” Trump shoots back that McCain’s really not a war hero because “he got captured. I like people who didn’t get captured.” Lindsey Graham responds by telling Trump to stop being a “jackass.” Trump turns on Graham and calls him an “idiot” and a “lightweight.”

Rick Perry calls “Trumpism” a “mix of demagoguery and nonsense,” whereupon Trump says Rick Perry’s “only wearing glasses to try and look smart.” Ted Cruz calls Mitch McConnell a “liar,” whereupon McConnell tells Cruz his mama’s so ugly they’ve got to tie a pork chop around her neck to get the dog to play with her.

OK, I made that last bit up. But it does seem as if the party that at least tried to market itself as serious adult leadership for America during the Reagan years is acting these days like a bunch of poorly socialized 13-year-olds sniping at each other on Twitter.

The coarsening of dialogue between the Republican candidates has been described by some pundits as “the Trump effect.” Some candidates see Trump’s poll numbers increase with every bullying sneer and insult and think, “Hey, I need to get me some of that.”

But The Donald is merely reaping the harvest that’s been sown over the past 20 years by talk radio and the Internet, where the competition for ears and eyeballs has become so intense that wingnut politicians seem to be straining their brains trying to find something to say more horrible and outrageous than the last thing.

It’s what the Internet calls “trolling”: trying to shock and enrage in order to get attention, even if it’s of the negative kind. It’s an environment in which supposed “pundits” like Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin get air time and book contracts because “they make liberals angry.” It’s a climate of drama and hysteria, in which every political defeat simply must be portrayed as the exact same thing as the Holocaust. Or slavery. Or both.

Witness, for example, Mike Huckabee’s ridiculous claim that the multilateral Iran nuclear deal is, and I quote, “marching Israel to the door of the oven,” a line which even the Anti-Defamation League called “completely out of line and unacceptable” and the Israeli ambassador said was “inappropriate.” But hey, it got headlines — and, Huckabee is no doubt praying, the same bump in the polls that Trump gets whenever he comes out with something that makes people look at each other and go, “Did he really say that?”

For years, the Republican Party has turned a blind eye to, and occasionally even embraced, the crudest attacks on its opponents, from Congressman Dan Burton referring to then-President Bill Clinton as a “scumbag” on the floor of the House to Rush Limbaugh calling Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” and demanding that he be allowed to watch her have sex if the health insurance for which she worked and paid was required to cover birth control.

All this time, of course, these same Republicans would fall onto their fainting couches and clutch at their pearls in distress at the mildest harsh language directed at them. It’s more than a little ironic that many of the same people who cry like little girls over “name-calling” now embrace Trump, the candidate who’s made it his campaign strategy.

The rhetorical monster the GOP has nurtured is now fully grown and, as monsters do, it’s escaped the lab and is attacking its creators. Add to this the fecklessness of the so-called party leadership as exemplified in the utterly ineffectual Orange John Boehner and the equally helpless Mitch McConnell, and you have the perfect recipe for the current disarray in the GOP.

So who will benefit the most from the chaos? Obviously, whoever ends up with the Democratic nomination. Right now, that still looks like Hillary Clinton. On the Republican side, however, you’ve got two candidates — former Ohio governor Jon Kasich and John Ellis Bush, aka JEB! — trying to position themselves as the grownups in the race.

Will either emerge to give Mrs. Clinton a serious run, or will they be eaten by the GOP rage monster, leaving the nomination to one of the “crazies” who’ll alienate the general electorate and hand the presidency to the Dem nominee?

Stay tuned. But my money’s on the monster.

Whatever It Is, Blame Obama

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

The recent spate of stories coming out of the NFL regarding domestic violence, child abuse and other nastiness on the home front has led to a great deal of soul-searching and debate across this country.

What is the cause of all of this? Does our culture’s adoration of professional athletes lead them to believe they can get away with anything? Is it a symptom of some deeper societal problem?

To the right wing, however, the answer is clear, as it always is when the question “Who or what should we be angry at for this?” is raised. That answer is: President Barack Obama.

Fox News-harpy Andrea Tantaros, for example, leapt right to the attack after the now-infamous tape surfaced showing Ray Rice punching his then-fiancee’s lights out.

“I wanna know, where is the president on this one?” fumed Tantaros from inside the cloud of peevishness that enshrouds her at all times. “My question is, and not to bring it back to politics, but this is a White House that seems to bring up a ‘war on women’ every other week.”

Yeah, Andrea. We certainly wouldn’t want to bring it back to politics.

Meanwhile, washed-up actor Kevin Sorbo (of “Hercules” and “Andromeda” fame) tried to kick-start his new career as a right-wing wacko celeb (a la Ted Nugent, Adam Baldwin and Kirk Cameron) by going on Fox and parroting the same line.

“There’s no accountability in the White House with Benghazi, the IRS and all that kind of stuff,” he explained. “How do we expect to have accountability with something like a professional football team?”

The National Review’s Jim Geraghty went even further. He blamed not only the NFL’s failure to act promptly on the Rice scandal, but a laundry list of other bad things, on “The Obama Era of American Leadership.”

Those bad things ranged from GM’s recall of 2.6 million cars with defective ignition switches, to the chemical spill in West Virginia that poisoned the drinking water of 300,000 people, to NBC’s decision to hire Chelsea Clinton for “$600,000 a year for three years.” (I’m still scratching my head over why he’s so cheesed off about that last one.)

As I’ve pointed out before in this column, the right has even found ways to blame Barack Obama for the failed response to Hurricane Katrina (which occurred three years before Obama’s first election win); the recession that began the year before he took office; and high oil prices before the 2008 election.

Back in March of this year, former National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice (who used to seem like a pretty smart lady) blamed Obama for “dictators like Bashar al-Assad in Syria (who came to power in 2000) and Vladimir Putin in Russia (who first became president of that country in 1999).”

It’s a time-honored technique. Make your gripes about “leadership” or “tone-setting” broad enough, and you can blame the president for just about everything:

“I’m sorry, ma’am, we know you came in for a tonsillectomy, but we, um, amputated your left leg. We blame Obama’s lack of leadership. Gee, thanks, Obama!”

“Yeah, Your Honor, I beat up an elderly African-American storekeeper and robbed his cash register. If Obama hadn’t inflamed racial tensions by commenting on the Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown cases, I wouldn’t have been so angry. Gee, thanks, Obama!”

“Yeah, I showed up three hours late for work, I smell like a distillery, and there’s an unconscious stripper in the back seat of my car in the parking lot. I’ve just been really depressed lately over Obama’s lack of accountability. Oh, I’m fired? Gee, thanks, Obama!”

And so on.

Sadly, it’s not just the right-wingers who blame Obama for everything. Far too many on the left are prone to what blogger Oliver Willis has dubbed “Green Lantern Liberalism”: the idea that, like the nearly omnipotent comic book character, the president could create all the things they want — single-payer health care, banking reform, minimum wage increases — through the sheer force of his will if he just wanted it enough.

Thankfully, the president isn’t omnipotent. He can’t travel through time. He’s not responsible for domestic violence, chemical spills, the fact that Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin are brutal thugs, or the fact that the Middle East is the same tangled mess it’s been for more than 2,000 years.

He’s not responsible for Republican obstructionism or the weak-kneed Democrats who fear it. That’s just the hand he was dealt, and he’s playing it pretty well, despite the silliness of the far right and their lapdog news network.

Wingnut Media Fails Once Again

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

By now, we’ve all heard of the egregiously racist things spouted by L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling to his trophy girlfriend in a recorded phone conversation that was recently released to every media outlet, with the possible exception of the “Sesame Street News Flash.”

Immediately, right-wing media leapt into action, their crack investigative teams digging hard for the answer to the most important question of all: How do we turn this into an attack on the Democrats?

“Racist Clippers Owner Donald Sterling Is a Democrat,” blared a blog post on the National Review website. “Report: Clippers Owner Caught In Racist Rant Is a Democratic Donor,” said Fox Nation. Right-wing icon Matt Drudge and his Drudge Report told us that “NBA Sterling is a Democrat,” while Tucker Carlson’s vanity project The Daily Caller claimed “Race Hate Spewing Clippers Owner Is Democratic Donor.”

All of this, it seems, was based on the fact that, as The Daily Caller put it, “Between 1990 and 1992 Donald Sterling made a $2,000 donation to former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley, a $1,000 donation to current Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, as well as a $1,000 donation to the recalled former governor of California, Gray Davis.”

Got that? A multibillionaire makes donations of his pocket change to three Democrats 22 years ago, and suddenly he’s a “Democratic donor,” for purposes of right-wing smear campaigns.

I suppose they were desperate for something to latch onto after the debacle in which rising star Cliven Bundy turned out to be not only a freeloading welfare rancher and domestic terrorist, but a racist nutball as well — but only after he was embraced by the likes of Sean Hannity and Rand Paul.

Now, of course, they’re backpedaling on their support for Bundy faster than Wile E. Coyote when he realizes he’s gone over the edge of the cliff, while the wingnut media scramble desperately to find someone to take the heat off. I guess Donald Sterling looked like the perfect target.

Problem with the Sterling-as-Democrat charge is that, according to California’s voter registration rolls, it turns out that the creepy old dude’s a registered Republican and has been since 1998. Oops. Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to make an issue of Sterling’s party affiliation — huh, guys?

Once again, members of the right-wing media have fallen flat on their faces in their desperate attempt to support one of the most absurd Republican tropes: “We’re not racist. Democrats are the real racists, because of Robert Byrd. So there.”

Apparently, the party whose supporters wave signs showing President Obama as an African witch doctor with a bone through his nose, a party that courts the support of a washed-up rock star who calls that president a “subhuman mongrel,” a party that has no problem with its most prominent talk show host referring to the first lady as “uppity” and playing songs about “Barack the Magic Negro,” a party that embraced a candidate who told Iowa primary voters, “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money” (even though there are more white than black welfare recipients) — apparently it’s very important to that party to distract from the pervasive racism in its own current ranks by convincing the American people that it’s the Democrats who are the real racists because Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, Southern Democrats opposed the Civil Rights Act 50 years ago (although most Northern Democrats supported it), and Sen. Robert Byrd was in the KKK before most of us were born.

Forgive me if I don’t find this argument convincing, especially after the years since 1964 — those years that brought us the GOP’s race-baiting “Southern Strategy,” giving us gems like Bush the Elder’s Willie Horton ad (AHHH! SCARY BLACK MAN!) and Jesse Helms’ infamous “White Hands” spot (“You needed that job, but the government said it had to go to a minority”).

I’m not saying that all Republicans are racists or that there are no racists in the Democratic Party. Clearly neither of those is true. I’m saying that an awful lot more racists seem to find a welcoming home in the GOP, and that the first step to solving your problem is to admit that you have one. It’s a simple truth the Raging Republican Right doesn’t seem to have learned.

Donald Sterling is now banned from the NBA for life. It’s a pity that the GOP doesn’t have the same backbone to deal with its virulent racist wing.

'Help' Romney Didn't Need

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I really wasn’t going to do another column about Mitt Romney this week. Really. I promise. But I can’t help it. On Wednesday, they served up a pitch that’s so slow and easy, I just have to take a whack at it.

It all started when Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul responded to an ad that was created by one of those SuperPACs that are so thick on the ground this year. The ad, titled “Understands,” features a former steelworker named Joe Soptic.

The plant where Soptic worked was shut down by Romney’s company, Bain Capital. Soptic lost his health insurance. His wife was diagnosed with cancer and died because, the ad implies, she couldn’t afford to go to the doctor until she got too sick to ignore her symptoms, and by then it was too late. Mrs. Soptic died 22 days after being diagnosed.

“I do not think Mitt Romney realizes what he’s done to anyone,” Soptic concludes. “And furthermore, I do not think Mitt Romney is concerned.” Basically, Soptic says, Mitt Romney and his company are responsible for his wife’s death, and the MittBot doesn’t care. Wow. That’s gonna leave a mark.

Now, as it turns out, Soptic’s wife didn’t get sick till several years after Soptic lost his job, and she had health insurance from her own job for part of that time. The aforementioned Ms. Saul pointed that out. But then she stepped in it, big time. “If people had been in Massachusetts, under Governor Romney’s health care plan,” she told Fox News, “they would have had health care.”

This was most likely true, and to any normal candidate, it would have been a major selling point. But Romney is not a normal candidate. He’s a guy who’s trying very hard to distance himself from his biggest achievement as governor: the health plan that was the model for the national health plan he now vows to repeal, because if he didn’t promise that, he wouldn’t get the nomination.

So saying “Governor Romney’s health care plan might have saved this woman’s life” was actually exactly the wrong thing to say. If you needed any more proof that American politics in 2012 is completely insane, you need look no further than that.

I suppose one can’t blame Ms. Saul too much. After all, when you work for a guy who changes his stances on issues more times that most people change positions in their sleep, it must keep getting harder and harder to keep everything straight.

That didn’t stop the right wing from going completely haywire over the statement. Even more than usual, I mean. Rush Limbaugh said that “Andrea Saul’s appearance on Fox was a potential gold mine for Obama supporters.” Ann Coulter demanded that Saul be fired if Romney ever wanted any more contributions from conservatives.

Erick Erickson of CNN and the flagship right wing blog RedState called it “a mind-numbingly bit of spin [sic] that may mark the day the Romney campaign died.” Erickson noted that the right wing had never really trusted or warmed to Romney, and this wasn’t helping: “Consider the scab picked, the wound opened, and the distrust trickling out again.”

Euuuwww. Nice image there, Erick.

The assertion that this “may mark the day the Romney campaign died” is probably as overwrought as the original ad. But Team Romney does seem to be experiencing the Death of a Thousand Cuts, almost all of them self-inflicted. They’re creating an impression that’s worse for them than the perception that they’re flip-floppers or that they don’t tell the truth — they look inept.

People may be willing to overlook a little flip-flopping or even a little mendacity as something that politicians on both sides do. But when one of the overriding themes of your campaign is that your guy is this cool, experienced, uber-competent CEO who can manage us out of the crisis, ineptitude may be the only unforgivable sin.

When your message is “You’re in a hole and our guy can get you out of it,” it doesn’t help if you act like you don’t know which end of the shovel is which.

This is especially true when you’re going up against the guy that ended the Iraq War, got real health care reform done when no one thought he could, gave the orders that killed Osama bin Laden, saved the auto industry, and presided over 29 months of job growth despite an obstructive House determined to keep things bad for political gain.

AND he can sing on-key.

THANKS, RICK AND RUSH!

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This week, I'd like to reach across the aisle, as it were, and offer my thanks to a couple of Republicans.I know this might seem shocking, and it does break with the position of many of my fellow liberals, but I'd like to extend the hand of thanks to Rick Santorum and Rush Limbaugh.

Sen. Santorum, as a supporter of this president and someone who'd like to see him win a second term, I'd like to offer my warmest gratitude to you for your complete inability to stay on message.

Oh, I know that, with employment rising and other good economic news, the Republican platform of "everything sucks and it's all Obama's fault" becomes somewhat problematic. It's going to be hard to keep those moderates and independents on your side when you have to keep dismissing, mocking and trying to change the subject when there's any piece of good news. The Debbie Downer character from "Saturday Night Live" may be amusing, but I wouldn't pick her for my communications director.



 Nevertheless, economic gloom and doom is the message the Republican Party has chosen to embrace, and that's the one the candidates are expected to broadcast.

But you, Sen. Santorum - when it comes to any issue involving sex in general and contraception in particular, you're like my dog when he sees a squirrel on our morning walk. He knows he's not supposed to take off running full-tilt after it, but he just can't help himself.



Likewise, whenever the subject of contraception comes up, you may know, somewhere back in the recesses of your mind, that the issue is an electoral minefield, given that polls show three-quarters of American women have used the pill, only 8 percent of them think that birth control is morally wrong, and 89 percent of Catholic women - your own fellow religionists - not only have no problem with birth control, but favor expanding access to it for people who can't afford it. But you can't help but chase that squirrel, can you?

You can't keep from blurting out things like how contraception is "a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be," and that states should have the power to ban it, even for married couples.

Which brings us to Rush Limbaugh. Thank you, Mr. Limbaugh, for your recent comments regarding Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke.

When Republican House members refused to let any women testify at a hearing involving a rule that private insurance plans had to include contraception, the Democrats held their own hearing. Ms. Fluke was a witness.
She talked about the financial hardship some women suffered because the student health plan at her private university did not provide coverage for contraception and related how a friend who took the pill to control her agonizingly painful polycystic ovarian syndrome was denied coverage and suffered as a result.

So you, Mr. Limbaugh, then went off on a bizarre diatribe over three days about how Ms. Fluke was a "slut" and a "prostitute" who "wanted taxpayers to pay her to have sex," even though, again, this was a discussion of regulation of a privately funded insurance plan at a private university and had nothing to do with taxpayer funding.

Further, Ms. Fluke hadn't even talked about her sex life. Nevertheless, in one of the creepiest jokes ever heard on the American airwaves, you demanded that Fluke should videotape herself having sex and post it on the Internet so you, a 61-year-old man, could watch it.

Now, a lot of people have given you grief for that. As of this writing, 45 sponsors have pulled out of your show after a storm of Internet protests. There have been calls to take you off the taxpayer-funded Armed Forces Radio.

But I say, please continue. Keep disrespecting women with whom you disagree in the crudest possible fashion, while positioning yourself as the voice of American conservatism.

And Sen. Santorum, please stay in the race as the "conservative alternative," while uncontrollably spouting off a radical position on birth control that's sure to alienate the vast majority of female voters.

Because pretty much all of the women of voting age that I've talked to recently are as angry and energized as I've ever seen them over these issues. And they're not energized for your party.A recent AP poll showed the president's approval ratings up 10 percent among women since December, beating Romney 54 percent to 41 percent in this key demographic.

Thank you, fellows. And enjoy the second Obama term.

They're Not Even Trying to Hide the Racism Any More

Rush Limbaugh Calls The First Lady ‘Uppity’ (VIDEO) | Addicting Info:

I’ll tell you something else. We don’t like paying millions of dollars for Mrs. Obama’s vacations. The NASCAR crowd doesn’t quite understand why when the husband and the wife are going to the same place, the first lady has to take her own Boeing 757 with family and kids and hangers-on four hours earlier than her husband, who will be on his 747. NASCAR people understand that’s a little bit of a waste. They understand it’s a little bit of uppity-ism.

There's no way he can spin this. Oh, he'll try, but 'uppity' is a racially charged word, and Limbaugh  knows it.

Rush Limbaugh's ratings are falling sharply. Hardly any Republican pol feels compelled to kiss his butt any more. He's trying desperately to get attention, and it's only going to get worse. 


This is mostly useful as a way of outing those idiots who claim "we're not racists, Democrats are the real racists, because Robert Byrd was in the KKK before any of us were born." Watch closely: anyone trying to defend Limbaugh and/or his use of the word 'uppity' is ipso facto racist. And I don't care if it offends them to be called what they are. 

Please, Brer Rush, Don't Throw Us In That Briar Patch

Limbaugh: I'll Leave US If Health Care Reform Passes (VIDEO)

Responding to a caller who asked him where he would go for health care if Congress enacts reform, Limbaugh replied,

I don't know. I'll just tell you this, if this passes and it's five years from now and all that stuff gets implemented -- I am leaving the country. I'll go to Costa Rica.

First: Costa Rica has a socialized, single payer health care system.

Second: It's ranked higher than ours.

Third: Remember when Alec Baldwin was called a traitor for saying he'd leave the country if Bush was re-elected?

hat tip: Balloon Juice

Can't Help Themselves, It's a New Religion

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Two men, dressed in expensive suits, stood before a massive iron door.

"We're in a lot of trouble, aren't we?" the first man said.

"Just relax," the second one said as he knocked on the door. "We'll be fine."

"I don't know, Michael," the first man said. "He can get pretty cranky. You really won't like what happens when he gets cranky."

A shutter opened at eye level in the great iron door, and a face peered out. "Who knocks?" a voice demanded.

"RNC Chairman Steele," the man who knocked said. "And Governor Sanford of South Carolina."

There was a pause. "Hoo-boy," the voice said. "You guys are in a lot of trouble."

The door slowly swung wide. The two men stepped forward.

They were in a long, high-ceilinged hall with columns running down either side. The hall was dimly lit by torches set into the columns. At the far end of the hall, a shadowy figure sat on a darkened throne.

"Mega-dittos, O Great and Powerful Rush," the two men said in unison.

Flames shot up from behind a throne, thunder rolled, and a booming voice filled the great hall. "WHO COMES BEFORE ME?"

"Michael Steele, O Rush," Steele said. "And this is ..."

"Nobody, really," Sanford said. "Nobody at all." Then he threw himself on the floor. "Please, Mr. Limbaugh!" he begged. "Please don't hurt us!"

"SO," the voice said, "MR. STEELE. I HEARD YOU'VE BEEN SAYING THAT I'M JUST AN ENTERTAINER. THAT I'M...WHAT WAS IT YOU SAID?"

"I ... I don't think I remember."

"COME ON, MIKEY," the voice sneered. "SURELY YOU REMEMBER?"

"I said," Steele muttered, his eyes downcast, "that you were incendiary."

"AND UGLY. YOU SAID I WAS UGLY."

"Oh, lord!" Sanford whimpered from the floor.

"AND SANFORD! YOU SAID ANYONE WHO WANTED OBAMA TO FAIL WAS AN IDIOT! WELL, I WANT HIM TO FAIL! DOES THAT MAKE ME AN IDIOT? DOES IT? HMMMMMMMMMM?"

Sanford didn't answer. He had fainted.

"We're really, really, really sorry, sir," Steele quavered. "I don't know what we were thinking."

"OBVIOUSLY NOT," the voice thundered. "REMEMBER, I ONLY DO WHAT THE DEMOCRAT PARTY DID WHEN BUSH WAS PRESIDENT."

"You do?"

"YES! THE LIBERAL TRAITORS IN THE DEMOCRAT PARTY SAID THEY WANTED THE PRESIDENT TO FAIL!"

"I'm glad you brought that up, sir," Steele said. "Because we've looked through all the tapes and archives, and we can't find anything with any Democratic Party leaders...."

'DEMOCRAT!" the voice said.

"Sir?"

"IT'S DEMOCRAT PARTY, NOT DEMOCRATIC! YOU MUST NEVER CALL THEM BY THEIR RIGHT NAME.."

"Ummmm...why not?"

"IT ANNOYS THEM. THAT WHICH ANNOYS LIBERALS IS GOOD POLICY, THOUGH THE UNBELIEVERS CALL IT CHILDISH. I HAVE SPOKEN."

"Yes, sir. Anyway, we couldn't find any Democrat leaders saying they wanted President Bush to fail. There was a lot of criticism of tax cuts, and later of the war, but ...

Thunder rolled. "YOU DARE TO QUESTION THE GREAT AND POWERFUL RUSH!?"

"Oh, no sire," Steele said quickly. "Not at all. In fact, Great One, we're relying on your superior brain and your most excellent and precise memory. So can you, who is the fount of all things Republican, tell us exactly which Democrat actually said they wanted Bush to fail? So we can take your wisdom back to your followers."

"DO NOT TROUBLE ME WITH DETAILS!" the voice bellowed. "I HAVE 25 MILLION LISTENERS!"

"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. ... Wait a minute. ... 25 million?"

"GIVE OR TAKE."

"But ... didn't 65 million people vote for Barack Obama?"

"MATH?" the voice rose in rage and the shadowy figure rose from the throne. "KNOW YOU NOT THAT NUMBERS THEMSELVES HAVE A LIBERAL BIAS, SO LONG AS THEY ARE NOT IN MY FAVOR!?"

"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir."

"YOU WISH MY MERCY?"

"Yes, O Rush," Steele said gratefully.

"THEN BRING OBAMA BEFORE ME!"

"What, sir?"

"BRING HIM TO ME! I WOULD DEBATE THE USURPER!"

Sanford was sitting up, blinking. "The president of the United States, debate a radio host? That's ... "

"YES?!?" the voice said ominously.

"Brilliant, sir!" Sanford said. "Absolutely brilliant!"

"BEGONE THEN, AND LET YOUR PUBLIC GROVELING COMMENCE!"

"Yes, Lord Rush," both men said, bowing and scraping as they backed out of the hall. The lights came up to reveal an obese, sweaty, balding man seated on a tin throne, next to a microphone, which he switched off. "Snerdley!" he called. "My medicine!"

A minion scurried up, bearing a colorful mixture of pills on a silver platter. "You really showed them who the boss is, sir!" he said obsequiously.

The fat man scooped up a handful of the pills and popped them in his mouth. "I did, didn't I?" he mused.

"They'll be back in the majority in no time with your brilliant leadership."

"Majority?" the fat man said absent-mindedly. "Yes, of course, their majority. Do you have the new ratings figures?"

"Yes, sir." The minion handed over a sheaf of papers, which the fat man perused.

"Excellent," he whispered.

Please Please Please Forgive Me, Lord Rush....

Groveling to the bloated, sweaty, bloviating drug addict who is the de facto leader of the GOP has never been easier, with the Republican Apology Machine.  Join the tattered remnants of the Republican Party as they strive to narrow their appeal even further! 

Remember, Rush claims 20 million listeners and 65 million people voted for Barack Obama, but math, as we know, has a well-known liberal bias.