No One Says "Stuffed Shirt" Better Than Martin ...

Mitt Romney's Fatal Flaws

Chris Matthews is a rip, sometimes. He irritated the usually unflappable Major Garrett by saying Romney looked like "an android waving to a bunch of androids." Then he asked Major Garrett: "Is this REAL?!"

"Of course it's REAL," said Garrett, irritably. "THEY'RE REAL PEOPLE; THEY'RE NOT ANDROIDS!"

(I think Chris is a fan of my graphics — see two posts down ...)

Here are The Terrible Mittenator's most fatal flaws laid bare on Super Tuesday:

1. The colored Ohio map with the counties going to Romney (red) and Santorum (green) immediately revealed Romney's first fatal flaw. Psycho Ricky rolled up rural small-town Ohio like a green tsunami; Romney won the urban areas around the cities and some satellite suburbs.

Mitt Romney won Ohio like a Democrat wins Ohio, taking the cities and traditional Ohio Democratic stronghold of Cuyahoga County. No way he wins Ohio this way in November.

2. Romney massively underperformed in the South, which is the Republican electoral stronghold. If the Republicans are forced to fight a rearguard action to defend their onetime red states such as Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida, all won by President Obama in 2008, they.will.be.cooked. There is still Christian fundamentalist resistance in the South to voting for a Mormon.

Sometimes bigotry can be a double-edged sword; and, yeah, you reap what you sow.

Michael's Revenge, Part Deux: PSYCHO RICKY (Charlie) Shadow Boxing THE MITTENATOR to a TKO

Once again, Mittens The Terrible Mittenator FAILed to 'seal the deal', 'ice the game', 'bake the cake', or 'cook the goose', much to the Cheshire Cat Pundit's chagrin. If only Psycho Ricky had a competent campaign manager like a Steve Schmidt, he could have terminated the Mittenator's campaign by Super Tuesday. No shit, Sherlock. (Can the 'Ragin' Cajun' take a leave of absence to help out Psycho Ricky?) But for all his missteps, Psycho Ricky is stayin' alive while the Mittenator churlishly drunk drives his swerving SuperPac Steamroller to the nomination. This is only ROUND 10 of a 24-ROUND Marathon bout ending in Tampa. If the Mittenator fails to win on POINTS, i.e., 1144 Delegates, before Tampa, all bets are off. The Elder Party Bosses may have to declare this match a 'no-contest', in which case the Delegates are free to wander after Mittens fails to go over on the first ballot. OH, MY.

Consider this: Who will the Kingmaker be? Not Ron Paul, with his naive cult following of misguided Paulie Youth. Romney's de facto lapdog won't have enough Delegates to place Mr. 1% over the top. But ... a combined Newtron Bomb/Psycho Ricky Delegate total could add up to the 1144 needed to nominate on the second or third or ... 45th ballot. Surely with Junior 'El Loco Libertino' seventy-something partner added to the mix. Newt the horse-trader will be in his element at a brokered convention. Can anyone say, "Newtron Bomb/Psycho Ricky 2012"? As for Paulie's 'strategic alliance' with Mittens — a prominent speaking role for Randy Paul versus Chairman of the Fed or Treasury Secretary: Weighing, weighing ... OH, M-MY!

CHARLIE CHAPLIN might as well be portraying the Republican presidential nominating contest in this hilarious shadow boxing skit, in which he slips the hard-hitting MITTENATOR's knockout punch by bobbing and weaving and hiding behind the toast of the Beltway Media 'elites' and the Democratic Party, 'referee' MICHAEL STEELE:

MITTENATOR WAR OF THE MACHINES SCORES

Fake Progressive Channel Watch: Michael Does It Again! Chris Sings Cumbaya ...

MICHAEL STEELE, Republican LIAR does it AGAIN, with more GOP false equivalence bullshit: "We've seen the same thing (Limbaugh's attack on Sandra Fluke) from the left during the Bush years."

THAT IS A BALD-FACED LIE. Give us chapter and verse, Michael, else STFU already. Remember, we're talking about (a) a private citizen; furthermore, (b) nothing "during the Bush years" compares to the grotesque SERIAL RACISM directed at President Obama to this day.

CHRIS: "We're all in this together." Chris must have been distracted by thoughts of "making love" as he noted whimsically to Joan Walsh.

UM, CHRIS ... NO, we are NOT in this together. Your task, when you host a partisan spinmeister like Steele is to advocate for the TRUTH. Nothing more nor less. You cannot passively allow Michael to start spouting Frank Luntz talking point LIES. This is most shameful because it happens time and time again, on important segments which rightly condemn Republicans. In such instances, Michael Steele is incapable of honesty and integrity; he is, above all, a partisan Republican. As such, he has by necessity acquired a capacity for the facile LIE. Steele has ruined yet another consequential segment with a partisan LIE. It happened with the President's T.R. speech; and now again, when asked to comment on Rush Limbaugh's savaging of Sandra Fluke.

Absolutely no excuses, Chris. Shame on you.

OPEN THE FLOODGATES! LIMBAUGH'S ADVERTISERS STAMPEDE, 29 And Counting ...

LAST ONE OUT, turn off the lights ... A.B. Stoddard, defending Limbaugh?! She's a strange one.

The Inimitable Alex Wagner Wipes Grin Off 'Cheshire Cat' Halperin's Dick Face

Forewarned and forearmed against the cunning and devious Romney media stooge, Mark Halperin, the inimitable Alex Wagner, plucky hostess with the mostess moxie of NOW, shut Halperin down after he tried to disparage her with a "joke" that was anything but. Clearly smarting from her descriptor of him as the 'Cheshire Cat' of political pundits, Halperin took issue with something Alex had said in the earlier segment about Rick Santorum spokesman J. Hogan Gidley:

CHESHIRE CAT PUNDIT: "You got jay Hogan Gidley’s title wrong; I think you called him ..."

ALEX WAGNER: "I called him 'Senior Strategist' because that’s how he billed himself, my friend" (Here Alex carries the words with a touch of sarcasm ... And Halperin suddenly awakens to the realization, "I'm not on Moron Joe anymore!?" ... Here I employ Halperin's finely tuned psychic skills, acquired while reading his book, to get into candidates' heads divining their innermost thoughts ...)

CHESHIRE CAT PUNDIT: "He is Alex Wagner’s sidekick! At least that’s how he thinks of himself anyway ..." (See what I mean? Odds are this will get into Halperin's sequel, portraying Hogan as a home-schooled religious fanatic with a crush on Alex.) Let's face it, the affable Hogan is a little weird; his clothes look like off-the-rack hand-me-downs from the local five & ten, and he clearly hasn't paid a visit to the barber shop in a while ... (Don't those campaign hotels have salons?) And he concludes every interview with "God bless you."

ALEX WAGNER: "Ha-ha ..." (Uneasy laugh, as in WTF is this creepy Repug talking about?!)

Bottom line, the Cheshire Cat Pundit — who doesn't deserve to sit in the company of the great journalist Dan Rather — was dissing Alex with some really off-color, like, weird "joke" about her fake connection to Hogan. This 'dick' is seriously inviting another suspension, ya think?

Then the Cheshire Cat Pundit launched into his Romney 'inevitability' riff, the propaganda narrative that it's all wrapped for Mitt and the sooner his recalcitrant NOW colleagues realize it — the better to  nominate Romney — the sooner he can get back to defining himself with a big assist from the Cheshire Cat Pundit, his (paid, I wonder?) liaison to the Beltway Media: "As of now, the Party's got to figure out how to win with Mitt Romney because that's all they got and he's the most likely nominee." How's that for 'objective' analysis from MSNBC's 'Senior Political Strategist Analyst' ... Actually the same phony title Hogan has with the Santorum campaign. See what I mean, why this 'dick' went after Alex.

MITTENS GREETS HIS SUBJECTS FROM THE 'MITTMOBILE.'

Ryan Lizza, a hard-nosed honest reporter pushed back against the Cheshire Cat Pundit's preemptive spin, as did Alex herself. Not a single election day vote has been cast and the Cheshire Cat Pundit was arrogantly attempting to set the narrative for Super Tuesday: under just about any circumstances, i.e., he wins Ohio, it's all wrapped up for Romney. But he beat a tactical retreat before the next segment: having to opine on Rush Limbaugh's misogyny and, more importantly, why Romney has been mum on the whole topic.

The Limbaugh Effect: His Non-Apology, And Now There Are Twelve, And Counting

AOL and now Bonobos, Sears, and Allstate Insurance have become the latest companies to pull their advertising from Rush Limbaugh's show.

What Rush Limbaugh did by smearing and dehumanizing a private citizen on his syndicated radio show to a reported audience of 20 million, has no counterpart in mainstream media. (For the millionth time: Beltway Media/Idiot Punditocracy — both sides DO NOT do it.) He didn't just put his foot in his mouth and say something vile and "inappropriate" (as the inappropriate John Boehner commented reluctantly) one time — no, Limbaugh dragged a young 30-year-old law student's name through the mud with the most despicable ad hominems, he called her a "slut" and a "prostitute," for three consecutive days. Her 'crime'? Testifying before a Congressional panel on women's need for contraception for medical conditions other than preventing pregnancy, such as treating ovarian cysts, recounting the tragic circumstance of a friend who could not afford the out-of-pocket expense of contraceptive pills to pay for it.

That's the first and most important point. Rush Limbaugh savaged a young woman with malice aforethought. To his surprise, she was far more poised defending herself than the big fat bully expected. Limbaugh has, I think, serious psychological issues with women. Here's an individual who has been married four times, has no children, and displays a pronounced hostility to women with recurring misogynistic attacks from his radio perch. It's devolved beyond mere "entertainment" to full-bore hate speech. Women are the most common targets of his bilious venom.

Following the outrage to Limbaugh's words from women taking the lead, because they have an intimate biological knowledge of their medical needs that men, doctors and patients, do not possess on a physical and psychological level, twelve advertisers (and counting) have pulled their advertising from Limbaugh's show. I do not favor silencing Limbaugh, as despicable and piggish as he is. It isn't necessary. Conservatives who are always preaching of their deity, an unfettered market and the "invisible hand" of "market forces," should not be whining about the boycott Rush efforts sprouting like wildfire in social media. Let the market decide; let Clear Channel (which is owned in part by Bain Capital, perhaps explaining Romney's failure to condemn Limbaugh's conduct) decide whether keeping him on, with his fat contract, is advantageous to their bottom line. At the very least a suspension is in order.

Fox made a similar decision with regard to Glenn Beck. Although the show that replaced his is in many ways just as objectionable, an important precedent was reinforced: there are no sacred cows in this business. Once Beck's advertising dried up and his ratings paralleled his descent into madness, paranoia and extremism, he was gone. He's still around, ripping suckers off their retirement money, but now he runs a subscription service so we don't get assaulted with the blowback from his garbage as much as when he wielded a big Fox megaphone. Sure, he piggybacked off Rush to smear a private citizen, but now, those so inclined have to dig to find his excrement. Glenn Beck is become a niche market for consumers and analysts of wingnut droppings. Ours is to keep exposing their ugliness until critical mass and oblivion is achieved. Beck is finished as a public hate-monger. Rush is next; he's wobbling. He'll probably survive this, but in a much diminished capacity. His hateship is crippled and listing. The public, once enlightened, will reject the hate speech and spare us all the vitriol.

Let the market speak for itself: Carbonite, which advertises on both liberal talk radio, such as the Ed Show and Stephanie Miller, and the Limbaugh show, dropped its advertising after Limbaugh released his non-apology. Said Carbonite's CEO, David Friend:

“No one with daughters the age of Sandra Fluke, and I have two, could possibly abide the insult and abuse heaped upon this courageous and well-intentioned young lady. Mr. Limbaugh, with his highly personal attacks on Miss Fluke, overstepped any reasonable bounds of decency. Even though Mr. Limbaugh has now issued an apology, we have nonetheless decided to withdraw our advertising from his show. We hope that our action, along with the other advertisers who have already withdrawn their ads, will ultimately contribute to a more civilized public discourse.”

Mr. Friend went on to say in his company's blog, "As an advertiser, we do not have control over a show’s editorial content or what they say on air. Carbonite does not endorse the opinions of the shows or their hosts... However, the outcry over Limbaugh is the worst we’ve ever seen. I have scheduled a face-to-face meeting next week with Limbaugh during which I will impress upon him that his comments were offensive to many of our customers and employees alike... Please know your voice has been heard and that we are taking this matter very seriously." ProFlowers, the latest company to pull its advertising from Limbaugh's show (before AOL and the others today), said his attacks "went beyond political discourse to a personal attack and do not reflect our values as a company." The other companies in addition to Carbonite and ProFlowers, AOL and the latest cited above, to have pulled their ads from Limbaugh's show are: mortgage lender Quicken Loans, mattress retailers Sleep Train and Sleep Number, software maker Citrix Systems Inc. and online legal document services company LegalZoom. They deserve our support and our business as good corporate citizens.

The companies that continue advertising with Limbaugh should expect to suffer the business consequences of their choice. In these times of social media, boycotts aren't necessary. Millions of potential customers armed with this information will simply take their business elsewhere to companies that do not subsidize misogynistic hate speech.

The second point pertains to the utter imbecility and chauvinism of Rush Limbaugh. It is a demonstrable fact that people who listen to hate radio and Fox are the most misinformed segment of the American electorate. Significantly, partly as a consequence of Limbaugh's vicious attack on Sandra Fluke, the support among all women and moderate "independent" women for the Democratic Party over the Republican Party for control of Congress has flipped: last summer, this demographic supported the Republican Party by 46% to 39%; today, the Democratic Party is favored over the Republicans by 48% to 37%. The simple fact is that Limbaugh's antediluvian, ignorant attitudes concerning women's issues, which had been resolved, it was thought, more than 30 years ago, represent widely held views within the overwhelmingly white, older male Republican Party. When Limbaugh talks, Republicans listen. Literally. That is, they dare not talk back. They're skeert of Rush; just ask George Will.

Like this crop of unethical Republicans presuming to legislate morality and to practice medicine without a license, Limbaugh absurdly believes birth control pills should be popped like Viagra, each time a woman has sex. Likewise, this conservative talking point that the "taxpayers" are bankrolling a government mandate is completely erroneous. Contraception is already part of a wide variety of medical services covered by insurance, including Viagra and vasectomies for men. Contraceptive services are deemed a cost-saver by the insurance companies because the alternative would be a rise in costlier medical care and procedures for unwanted pregnancies and abortions.

Finally, there is no equivalent on the left to the hate speech of the extremist right. There is no "far left" or "hard left" as some insatiably ignorant members of the Beltway Media insist on framing ideological issues, attempting to differentiate their corporate media elite selves from the rest of us. It sounds ludicrous, coming from Newt Gingrich and the GOP 'baser' crazies, but they are correct, in this sense. The difference is not between a mythical "far left" and the increasingly right wing, increasingly extremist Republican Party. The ideological divide of this nation is between a wide progressive consensus on the true center left; a conservative to center-right oligarchy composed of corporate, media and governing elites; and an extremist proto- and neo-fascist dangerous insurgency of disaffected conservatives, be they evangelicals or the so-called Tea Party, and the far right, which has taken control of the Republican Party. Libertarian conservatives like Dylan Ratigan, who say "a pox on both houses," are missing the point, I think, deliberately.

They're not free agents or lovers of "liberty." They are simply a faction of the Republican Party which is in revolt and which has contributed to the state of our politics today. They are essentially anti-government, anti- (big 'D')emocrat and hope to see this President fail so they can bring about their confused, irrational version of government and politics. Given their extreme bias against government and government-driven solutions, they lack a fundamental understanding of how it works — incrementalism is a good and positive thing, as long as we're moving forward. And by arresting the progress this President has made, within two years, before he had time to consolidate his government, and then whining about the government works they helped to gum up is beyond contemptible, closer to treason. But that's just me. Those who said 'let's give the Teabaggers a shot' may not be traitors only insofar as they're so damned stupid.

This racist, anti-woman, pro-Rush Limbaugh/GOP misogyny is what the anti-government fervor against a black man in the White House, who has proposed generational post-partisan politics, has wrought. So to the imbeciles who insist there's no difference between the parties, and who must consistently lie to make this point or push a libertarian (which is another word for stupid and ignorant) agenda, with its racist core and anti-woman policies, watch this:

This was for Dylan Ratigan, Chuck Todd, Jonathan Capehart, and yes, even Chris Matthews, because of his stubborn adherence to this false equivalence Beltway worldview. There are more, but these gentlemen are repeat offenders in wrong analysis of the true ideological divide that exists in our politics, shorn of the controlling, elitist, corporatist penumbra that is their Beltway world. They perpetuate this myth about our political divide, that somehow our parties are equally to blame for not finding common ground, when the truth is the blame lies squarely on the Republicans.

Consider these charts on the range of liberal-conservative deviation of the parties in the House from 1879 to 2011; i.e., Jonathan's and Chris's 'far' or 'hard' left and 'far' right; frankly, liberals and progressives are fed up with the Beltway's fake narrative, that insists the parties are being dominated "by their extremes." That, quite simply, is a "big lie."

Here's the truth in graphical format. The bottom dark blue line represents liberal Democrats. As you can see, it has remained fairly constant for some 130 years. The lighter blue line represents moderate Democrats. Historically, moderate Democrats are slightly more liberal than in the period between the 40s through the early 70s; but in the main, moderate Democrats have been constant and centrist, with a slight uptick lately tilting conservative. Compare this fairly constant historical ideological posture of House Democrats to the Republicans. See the two red lines? The so-called "moderate" Republicans today have surpassed their "conservative" plateau of yesteryear, and the onetime "conservatives" are literally off the charts, well into right wing extremism, also known in the real world as fascism. So which party, again, is dominated by its "extremes," hmm ... Chris and Jonathan?

I suppose Republican Christine Todd Whitman could be portrayed as a “moderate” in this REPUBLICAN-CREATED toxic political climate. But as George W. Bush's EPA Administrator Whitman threw the 9/11 first responders — ravaged by the EPA’s toxic air coverup — under the bus, to avoid liability. In this context, she will forever be viewed as an anti-environmentalist “conservative” when the stakes for people’s lives couldn’t have been higher. And CONSERVATIVE Democrat Blanche Lincoln, an anti-environmentalist Big Oil lapdog who voted against unions and compensation for BP oil spill victims, was similarly feted and bemoaned by Chris, as a false symbol of the “extremes” taking over both parties when she lost re-election after defeating a true moderate Democrat, who by most accounts had a better chance to keep the seat Democratic. This revisionism of Chris’s only underscores that it isn’t the Party that has strayed left from its ideological constancy and moorings; Chris has.

You’re become more conservative, pal. (Hell, Chris, you're friends with Kathleen Parker and Pat Buchanan, you watch, then use Bill O'Reilly's anti-liberal propaganda, and you call Limbaugh "Rushbo." Is this a liberal? Heh, I don't think so. More like skirting the edges of the red zone, just outside the 20-yard line.) And Blanche Lincoln had become so conservative that she jumped the most conservative Democratic Party shark and got herself unelected. Harry Truman put it well:

"I've seen it happen time after time. When the Democratic candidate allows himself to be put on the defensive and starts apologizing for the New Deal and the fair Deal, and says he really doesn't believe in them, he is sure to lose. The people don't want a phony Democrat. If it's a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time; that is, they will take a Republican before they will a phony Democrat, and I don't want any phony Democratic candidates in this campaign."

I totally commiserate with Rachel on the curative appeal of spitballing the next Idiot Pundit who utters some lamentation that "both parties have gotten sooo extreme." Spitballing will "not make the Beltway stop saying this STUPID thing, but it will make you feel better; I do it myself in my office, trust me ... This is not a 'pox on both their houses' story; this is not, 'Oh mirror image, both parties are so extreme' story ... !" Rachel said. As the Lizard King likes to tell anyone echoing those false equivalence sentiments, 'I could not agree with you more.' So, without further ado, Dylan, Jonathan, Chuckles, and Chris:

Tribute To The Monkees

RACHEL had to have Peter Tork of the 60s band Monkees for the interview tonight, following the sad news of Davy Jones's sudden death of a heart attack. Which got me in a nostalgic mood ...

The Monkees were a hybrid, accidental, band created around the hugely popular TV series of the same name. It just so happened the guys had musical talent too, lots of it, and they outgrew their top-down imposed limitations to become a live concert band. This is one of Davy's last concert performances, at the Beacon Theater in NY last year. The raw camera video recording works amazingly well; it's one of the best versions of Daydream Believer I've ever seen or heard. Here's Davy Jones, Micki Dolenz and Peter Tork doing their thing ...  For fellow Monkees fan, Rachel:

This one applies to news of the day, set gender aside:

And here's a brilliant segment in which Mike Nesmith switches places with the late, great Frank Zappa. Absolutely HILARIOUS! A true GEM:

Chris At His Best: Which Is Outstanding

And why we keep watching, and won't bail on Chris, despite the occasional disagreements. Another thing. This young lady, Sandra Fluke, has been subjected to vile, despicable attacks by Limbaugh and his sycophant wingnuts. Chris was a perfect gentleman toward her. That's what separates the decent people from Rush Limbaugh and his ilk. Chris is much too nice, but the sooner he realizes the Republican Party in its current incarnation is indeed 'evil', though not in the Biblical sense, the clearer the politics of right wing extremism, which has no equivalent on the left, will become to Mr. Matthews.

Fake Progressive Channel Watch: Susan Page ... Again?!

Have I mentioned yet today, as a sometime fan of Hardball, that Susan Page is IN THE TANK FOR MITT ROMNEY? It's like a parlor game with Matthews; she sits there patiently, before her opening, and zap! comes her biased comebacker. See, the problem I have is, she's posing as a journalist. And while none are truly "objective," the better ones are professional about it.

Are you really this dense, Chris? It's hard to believe. We're tired of hearing Susan's pro-Romney propaganda disguised as "journalism." For Pete's sake, man, give us a Haberman or a Fineman, or anyone from the NYT.  Even David Brooks is more objective than Susan, because he doesn't pretend to mask an opinion, and they're honest. And unlike a Krauthammer or a Will, Susan is ALWAYS finding the most ridiculous silver lining to make excuses for Romney — this time on his phantom appeal to women. Doesn't that tell you something, Chris, when you find it so absurd (yeah, right ... compared to Santorum) you had to laugh? Incidentally, your segment yesterday on CONSERVATIVES you insist on calling moderates was a total disgrace. As was your Beltwayspeak. That "lefty" lingo you smug Beltway jerks use to demean progressives is NOT appreciated.

Chris, you deserve a TON of credit for your progressive stance on women's issues, even though we had to light a fire under your you-know-what. But then you keep falling back on some really, really bad Beltway Media habits. Sadly, it keeps pulling you back. Frankly, you're at your best when you surprise us. But then it's back to the old habits. Jeez, Chris, you're so Beltway, you just can't seem to break free.

GOP LOGO REMINDER:

Pigman's Perversion Revealed

RUSH LIMBAUGH, leader of the Republican Party is not apologizing for his despicable smear of Georgetown student Sandra Fluke, a private citizen thrust into the contraception debate spotlight simply for testifying before a Democratic Congressional panel about the medical need women have for birth control pills. (Republican Chairman Issa had denied her appearance as a Democratic witness on his infamous all-male anti-contraception panel.)

Specifically, Fluke testified to the case of a friend who was prescribed the pill, not for avoiding unwanted pregnancy but for a medical need, to treat an ovarian cyst. The prescription was not covered by insurance on religious conflict grounds, and her friend, foregoing the costly treatment, tragically lost her ovaries. It's this essential part of women's health care, particularly for women who cannot afford the out-of-pocket costs, that is being attacked by Republican ideological intransigence.

Limbaugh called Fluke a "slut" and a "prostitute" then doubled down, saying "if we're going to pay for your contraceptives and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch." It seems the pervert Pigman can't wait:

Pervert wingnut guttersnipes are jumping on the Rush bandwagon. Craig Bannister (director of communications for conservative CNSNews.com and executive editor of its "The Right View, Right Now" blog) "calculates" that Ms Fluke is having sex 2.74 times per day, every day, and for three years straight, based on her sworn testimony last week before a Congressional panel. Glenn Beck piled on, defaming Ms Fluke with disgusting locker room sexual innuendo. Already, one Limbaugh advertiser has pulled its commercials following a relentless consumer campaign. We should continue pressuring more advertisers to follow suit. Ms Fluke, a classy young woman, is not one to be intimidated:

Our Kind of Civil War: Rebels v. Rebels

As Super Tuesday looms, Rick Santorum heads South where Newt Gingrich lies in wait, ready or not, to defend his Georgian turf. Mittens is persona non grata in the occupied Southern states. But he will be waging his favorite kind of campaign: blanket drone scorched earth attacks targeting Psycho Ricky and Newt Gingrich. "My favorite Civil War general, William Tecumseh Sherman, inspired our campaign's total warfare ... He did a lot of burning, ha-ha. But, let me say this — if nominated I promise to run ... ha-ha, and I will, if elected ... ha-ha — I will serve, I promise! Hahahaha ..."

REBELS v. REBELS

Feigning outrage, Newt Gingrich replied: "Governor Romney is the most dangerous Republican in history. He's a liar, a mudslinger. He's like Goldilocks. It has to be just so. Anything less and he'll start whining and go running off to his sugar daddies for another money fix." Opening yet another line of attack, Gingrich accused Romney of being a carpetbagger with Swiss bank accounts and tax shelters in the Cayman Islands, who as the "grotesquely hypocritical" governor of the People's State of Massachusetts provided women with contraceptive services, against the wishes of the Catholic Bishops. Taunting Mittens as "an avid hunter of small varmints" Gingrich asked sarcastically, "do you still believe taking away 2nd Amendment rights 'helps protect us'?"

Then he admitted never having owned a firearm himself. Meanwhile, Mittens unleashed his not-so-secret weapon, Ron Paul, to slip through the doggie flap and attack Gingrich/Santorum: 39 times to zero. Yet Paul insisted disingenuously he's not Mittens' lapdog. Really?!

For his part, Psycho Ricky pledged to run a "positive" campaign smoking out Satan from our lives:

"The place where [Satan] was, in my mind, the most successful and first -- first successful was in academia. He understood pride of smart people. He attacked them at their weakest. They were in fact smarter than everybody else and could come up with something new and different -- pursue new truths, deny the existence of truth, play with it because they’re smart. And so academia a long time ago fell."

Psycho Ricky believes colleges are "indoctrination centers" of the left and President Obama "wants to remake you in his image. I want to create jobs so people can remake their children into their image, not his." That image, could it be, could it be ...

Michael Steele's Revenge: Unleashing The Crazies In The GOP Primaries

Is former RNC Chairman Michael Steele a double-agent? For all of his early GOP talking point bloviations at Hardball et al, leaving wreckage-strewn segments in the wake of his hyper-partisan droppings, Mr. Steele has become the best friend President Obama and the Democratic Party could possibly hope for in a Republican. If not for Steele, principal architect of the new primary rules for proportional delegate allocation in the Republican primary presidential elections, we wouldn't be feted with this grotesquely revealing bizarro clown show with a Republican circular firing squad to regale us week after week. After week.

Fellow political maven Chris Matthews must know this instinctively, on a molecular subatomic level, when he gratefully introduces Steele with faux formality as "Mister Chaaaairman." Lawrence thanked him profusely. Steele, for his part, is much too cagey and Machiavellian a politician not to realize his rules changes would tilt the balance of power in the GOP presidential process from the Establishment to its Tea Party evangelical base. Under the old winner-take-all rules the big-money Establishment candidate, Mitt Romney, could eke out an underwhelming 41% win in Michigan and rake up most of its delegates. But under the governing Michael Steele rules Romney and Rick Santorum, who had 38% of the vote, get to split the delegates. Can anyone say, humiliating Pyrrhic victory ... ? (It's a Mittens specialty.)

Now it's on to Ohio for Psycho Ricky and Mittens the "Spartan" sock puppet. Ricky could have won Michigan hadn't he grossed out Catholic voters by threatening to "vomit" on JFK's separation of church and state speech; flummoxed voters all calling the President a "snob" for encouraging young people to get a college education, at least one of Ricky's three degrees; and repulsed women voters by foisting on them his American Taliban vision of total control of their bodies. Who's left? More than enough crazies to pull Psycho Ricky within three points of handing Mittens a flaming bad hair day in Michigan, home state with right-sized trees and lots of cars. (Thanks to President Obama's "bailout" of Detroit. Can you say: "thank you Mr. President," wingnuts — Mittens?)

PSYCHO RICKY'S CAMPAIGN ANTHEM

Meanwhile, Chairman Steele laments his calls aren't being returned. The Republican Establishment, he admits ruefully, "they're not talking to me."  But then Steele waxed poetic, without a hint of irony or recrimination, about the pitchfork legions —99.9% white, mind you, which places Michael in the weird Republican contradiction category — he has so lovingly empowered. Feel the love of his poetry:

We Are The Base

 Lo, Romney Death Star's shooting rays

A Rick Santorum meteor haze

Establishment, red planets gaze

The Beltway orbits, Super Pacs 

Made by Chief Roberts in his haste

To lay our whole nation to waste

But all must pass the twinkling stars

God, gays, and guns, the stars and bars

Ron Paul's bromance, the Gingrich dance

A racists ball, college? No chance

For women must submit to men 

Slay contraception's evil plan

For men, Republicans know best

Which path to take, we'll nominate

Your bodies to control at last.

We are the base, you must obey

The state our church, repent and pray

We are the base, tear down this wall

The state and church are one and all

We are the base, you must obey

Dare not become our primary prey.

You are the base: twinkle-twinkle little wingnut stars. Michael Steele is your Avatar.

Chris Rips Latest Republican Attack On Women's Health

 Thumbs up, Chris. Tough questioning lifts the scab off the latest right wing attack to deny women essential contraception services under the guise of a broad religious and "moral" exception; namely, that if a male corporate CEO decides he wants to deny women employees birth control coverage, he can do so unilaterally by invoking a "moral" or "religious" objection.

 

And Here are the women's "health experts" consulted by Republicans:

Women's Health Experts Speak Out from Judd Nelson     

Memo To Chris Matthews: Um, Wake Up ...

Winston Churchill didn't write While England Slept. A young JFK did. Thought you'd like to know. I know you do, it's in your book, along with two preposterously benign references to J. Edgar.

Will Michigan Go CRAZY!? Today ...

The gutcheck says maybe ... It's a genuine tossup. Here's why:

1. The candidates — Any objective appraisal of the candidates must recognize Rick Santorum's growth as a credible presidential candidate. It's one of those intangibles, in which voters will look at a candidate and see a president for the first time. Rick Santorum, I believe, has crossed that Rubicon, passed the test. And that happened, in large part, with his appearance on the Sunday shows. Anyone who tuned in to the Sunday shows saw an impressive candidate. Santorum was poised, relaxed, answered every question without equivocation — and even though one disagreed with his every  point — he looked presidential.

Mitt Romney, by contrast, has regressed. Clearly. He has been running for president so long that his test with the voters is competence, confidence, and electability. He's failing on every count. He represents the unfortunate adage that "familiarity indeed breeds contempt." In sports terms, one could say Mitt Romney is off his game and mired in a slump at the worst possible time. He's pressing, trying too hard to get too many messages across. He's not connecting with voters; whiffing on the 'regular guy' scale (one that Santorum hit out of the park) and, most significantly, on the competence scale.

Today, in what smacked of desperation, Romney accused Santorum of being "a lightweight" on economics. A laughable charge, considering Mitt is being rightly hammered for having penned an Op-Ed in the New York Times, Let Detroit Go Bankrupt. Indeed, President Obama wasn't about to allow one million jobs and the crown jewel of U.S. manufacturing to go belly-up. Call it a bailout, a rescue plan, a restructuring; call it what you will. But the fact remains, decisive government intervention saved Detroit. And today the President was basking in the glow of a great American success story, as Detroit came roaring back and GM reclaimed its position as the world's no. 1 automaker, posting the highest profits in its history. President Obama brought down the UAW house with a barnburner of a speech, taking on both Romney and Santorum. Speaking of an economic "lightweight" Romney gave the same tired old "drop dead" Republican non-solution for the housing market woes. 'Nuff said.

2. Sparta ... what Sparta?! — No elaboration is necessary (asked and answered in this blog). Unlimited money does not a nimble, competent campaign make. Sometimes, it's just the opposite when there's a failure of leadership, negative internal dynamics, and too many "chieftains" with not enough foot soldiers. Suffice it to say, Romney's campaign comes off as clunky, confused, lacking message discipline or even an overarching message — sort of like a gargantuan headless chicken. Who's in charge? Meh ... Do they have a counter-narrative to the Beltway true refrain that Romney "can't close this deal"?! They should, if they're as competent as Alex Castellanos claimed.

3. The Wild Card — Mitt Romney is already whining about partisan Democratic mischief — "OPERATION HILARITY" as Michael Moore called it gleefully —that a plan is afoot by Democrats to cross party and ideological lines to vote for Rick Santorum with Rick's blessing. Well, you know what they say — and this is delicious — "what goes around, comes around," Mittens. What did you expect, Mr. 1%, after bashing the unions repeatedly, to the last, calling them "stooges" and telling the auto industry that sustains more than one million jobs to drop dead. What did you expect, asshole, after using unions as a verbal piñata, because it worked so well for your Koch brothers fellow neighborhood stooge, Scott Walker, that Democratic union households won't be energized to come out and throw a wrench in your dreams of doing to the country what you did at Bain Capital?! Think again, rich boy with the magic underwear. (Is that why you walk so funny? Srsly ...)

The only silver lining in this scenario, if there is one for Mitt Romney, is that some Democrats are so alarmed by Santorum that they actually went out and voted for the "lesser of many evils" Romney — "be careful what you wish for" ... "law of unintended consequences" ... Blahblahblah. That's typical wimpy Democratic, skeert, WRONG thinking. Sure, if he's the nominee Rick Santorum has an infinitesimal chance of being elected. Nothing in life is certain. But that would depend on highly unlikely outside factors, including an epic stumble by the Obama campaign. The more likely scenario with Santorum heading the GOP ticket is an electoral defeat for Republicans, up and down the ticket, of Goldwater proportions. There's too much upside here for Democrats to behave like hand-wringing wimps.

And if it comes down to late deciders who watched  the Sunday shows, they may put Rick Santorum over the top, regardless. Santorum by 1.