Instability 2012: Republican Hopefuls Hopeless

   

There've been a slough of examples of mini-madness this week, none of which require the kind of in-depth, penetrating reportage that say, Anthony Weiner's wiener demanded. However, the sheer volume of mental mismanagement this week from nearly everyone in the GOP field gives pause. The crazy, it seems, is spreading.

                           

     Michelle Bachmann: Always a bell-ringer on the insanity scale, Bachmann's most recent bouts with surreality involve not just her, but her husband as well! Michelle and Marcus Bachmann co-own a Christian counseling clinic (which I always thought was just a church, but whatever) and the according to a former patient interviewed by ABC News, the clinic practices reparative therapy; a kind of "therapy" that attempts to cure, or "re-orient", homosexuality through prayer. However, when asked about the practices at her and her husband's clinic, Bachmann declined to comment. In addition, it was recently revealed that Bachmann worked as a tax collector and attorney, something her tax-allergic Tea Party balked at. No problem, says Bachmann, God told me to do it! Ah, says the Tea Party...here's your tinfoil hat back.

     Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum: In addition to the Bachmanns' faith-healing experiment, her GOP hind-runner Rick Santorum recently signed the "Marriage Vow" pledge, a piece of social-conservative-social-engineering from the conservative Iowa-based group Family Leaders. The pledge asks politicians to support an amendment to the constitution that would define the term 'marriage', as well as making same-sex marriage, same-sex military accommodations, and certain provisions of Islamic Law illegal. The Marriage Vow Pledge's introduction even contained a passage touting African-American slave families for having two-parents and being more centered than today's black family unit...further evidence that social conservatism is really just a desire for the return to the antebellum south. Where black families had two parents, were owned by white people, and racism was not only socially-acceptable, but institutionalized.

     Tim Pawlenty: Oh, T-Paw. Former governor of Minnesota and gesticulating identity-crisis Tim Pawlenty is facing some harsh criticism. After running on his fiscal conservative credentials as governor in Minnesota, he seems to be at a loss as to why his state has been in a shutdown for two weeks. It's also the second time Minnesota has shut-down this decade, having closed down for a shorter duration in 2006 under Pawlenty's watch. How did he end that shutdown? Among other things, by dropping a hefty tax on cigarettes (one of the measures present Governor Dayton wanted but state Republicans won't allow). However, this hurts T-Paw's anti-tax record with conservatives, which has him backpedaling. Ah, the Dance of the Dunces.  He also pulled off the gloves recently on Meet the Press, as reported by Mother Jones, and finally began attacking Michelle Bachmann's service record in Minnesota. Her reply? She worked hard to fight the cap-and-trade program and if elected will end it....too bad the cap-and-trade program doesn't actually exist yet, Michelle.

     Mitt Romney: Not much to report here this week, other than the fact that, to date he is the only one to publicly reject the Family Leaders' Marriage Vow Pledge. We've come to expect the most moderation from Romney in a field of immodest immoderates, but most astounding about this is that it is actually in keeping with his comments back when he was governor of Massachusetts, something that hasn't happened since he entered the race for the nomination. Mitt "The Shapeshifter" Romney seems to have come full circle!

     Herman Cain: This one is my personal favorite this week. Former CEO of Godfather's Pizza Herman Cain flexes his expertise in castle defense by promoting a radical new plan to secure our borders from illegal immigrants; it's part Great Wall of China, part electric fence, part castle moat, and part James Bond 'alligator pool'. Cain commented in Iowa last week that he had recently been to China, and thought of the Great Wall of China, "we could do that." "Now," Cain elaborated, "my fence might be part Great Wall and part electrical technology...It will be a twenty foot wall, barbed wire, electrified on the top, and on this side of the fence, I'll have that moat that President Obama talked about. And I would put those alligators in that moat!" This according to ThinkProgress. "Yeah, and then we're going to put friggin' lasers on their heads!"

     Ron Paul: Libertarian-turned-Republican Senator Ron Paul grandly announced that it will be "The Presidency in 2012 or nothing!" Yeah, Ron...that's kind of how it works.