The Republican Party.
The stuck on stupid party. The stupid is as stupid does party. The fell-out-of-the-Stupid-Tree-and-hit-every-branch-on-the-way-down party.
The party of such metaphysical stupidity that it continues to allow media outlets trying to make news and make a buck to host Republican presidential candidate debates and pick their own ratings-sensitive/headline-hunting moderators.
I mean, how stupid do you have to be to burn your fingers on a hot stove some two dozen times and STILL think the next time will be different?
Yes, I’m talking about the GOP prez debate hosted Wednesday night in Colorado by the left-wing hit squad over at CNBC. And I’m going to have to consult my thesaurus to come up with enough appropriate words to describe that debacle…
Outrageous. Disgraceful. Shameful. Shocking, even for liberal media. Offensive. Contemptible. Despicable. Rude. Boorish. Disrespectful. Foul. Unseemly. Tactless. Tasteless. Inappropriate. Unfitting.
And just plain wrong.
The questions from the three largely unknown and unheralded “journalists” couldn’t have been more biased if Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Barack Obama themselves had been asking them.
Right out of the gate, the first interrogator asked the ten candidates to tell the American public and the world why they were weak. Which was only slightly better than asking, “Please tell us when you stopped kicking puppies.”
And it went downhill from there – including asinine questions and references to comic books, fantasy football, vitamin supplements, bookkeeping and more.
In fact, the line of the night probably came from Ted Cruz, who finally had enough and laid out the jackass moderators with this bunker-buster…
“The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media. This is not a cage match. And, you look at the questions — “Donald Trump, are you a comic-book villain?” “Ben Carson, can you do math?” “John Kasich, will you insult two people over here?” “Marco Rubio, why don’t you resign?” “Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen?” How about talking about the substantive issues the people care about?
Ka-boom!
And Chris Christie summed all of it up nicely with this…
“Even in New Jersey what you’re doing is called rude.”
Ouch.
But I really don’t blame the left-wing media assassins. I blame the GOP’s leaders.
It’s like the fable about the scorpion and the frog. The frog was worried that if he carried the scorpion on his back across the river that the scorpion would sting him halfway across and they both would die. The scorpion promised he wouldn’t. And the frog bought it.
Halfway across the river, sure enough, the scorpion stung the frog. The frog, just before croaking (so to speak), asked why. “It’s in my nature,” deadpanned the scorpion.
Indeed, the true outrage here is the inherent stupidity of the Republican National Committee (RNC) in 2015 to have not learned its lessons from the last GOP presidential debate debacles and continue to sacrifice its potential nominees on the blood altar of left-wing media.
Don’t the RNC leaders remember how CNN set up Newt Gingrich in the South Carolina debate in 2012 with that outrageous question about his first marriage?
“I am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that,” Gingrich lashed back at moderator John King.
Later King went after Mitt Romney with a frontal assault on the release of Romney’s tax returns in response to an outright lie Harry Reid told on the floor of the United States Senate claiming Romney hadn’t paid his taxes for ten years.
Earlier this year, when a reporter suggested Reid’s despicable, groundless accusation resembled McCarthyism, Reid replied, “They can call it whatever they want. Romney didn’t win did he?”
Reid loaded the political bullet. He pointed the gun. John King pulled the trigger. And Republican leaders stood by helplessly watching.
How can the RNC continue to be so stupid?
Fortunately, the candidates themselves may finally be ready to take matters into their own hands.
Indeed, after the CNBC debate debacle Ben Carson’s campaign indicated they’d had enough. From a Washington Examiner story Thursday morning…
In an interview shortly after the debate, Barry Bennett, manager of the Ben Carson campaign, called the session here in Colorado “unfair to everyone” and said the current debate structure should not remain in place.
“I think the families need to get together here, because these debates as structured by the RNC are not helping the party,” Bennett said. “There’s not enough time to talk about your plans, there’s no presentation. It’s just a slugfest. All we do is change moderators. And the trendline is horrific. So I think there needs to be wholesale change here.”
Bennett said he will call Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski Thursday to propose a unified call for change. “Corey and I talk regularly, so I will talk to him,” Bennett said. “I will call Frank Sadler (Carly Fiorina’s campaign manager), I will call those guys and say listen, we can choose our own network and our own format. We don’t need to be led around like prize steers.”
“I think at this point, if five or six of us get together, who generate the largest portion of the audience, we can force change,” Bennett said.
DO IT!
Here’s how this intolerable situation should be fixed:
The RNC should pick the venues. The RNC should pick the dates. The RNC should pick the moderators. And the RNC should pick the issue themes of the debates.
The media, for their part, should be free to televise the debates, or not. If the media opts not to participate, someone with an iPhone could be plucked out of the audience and live-stream it on the Internet. Just download Periscope.
Either way, the media would still be free to pontificate and spew their liberal bias before and after the debates – but not during!
So let it be written; so let it be done.
With that out of the way, here are my observations on the state of the race following Wednesday night’s travesty…
Trump and Carson further solidified their status as #1 and #2. Wheel them in either order and you have one heckuva a GOP ticket next November – though I’m hard-pressed to envision Trump agreeing to the role of second banana.
Bush is toast. Stick a fork in him.
Rubio looks like he’ll emerge as the de facto GOP establishment pick once Jeb and his donors wake up and smell the coffee.
Cruz and Fiorina are still long shots but have earned the right to stay in the game.
Christie, Paul, Huckabee, and Kasich should be voted off the island and the next debate should be narrowed down to the other 6.
And it should be moderated by Rush Limbaugh, Judge Andrew Napolitano, and Mark Levin.
And the following December debate in Las Vegas should be moderated by Grover Norquist, Richard Viguerie, and… me!
So let it be written; so let it be done.
