The Harder They Fall

What a Hoot: As Keith Olbermann reported Wednesday night, perpetually-insane Minnesota comediatrix Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Daft) brought the funny the other day when she took to the House floor to condemn Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Dems for the ‘Hoot-Smalley Act’ of the Great Depression era. While you can never be sure when dealing with a dingbat like Bachmann, who apparently stole her blank eyeballs from a crazy doll in “Bride of Chucky“, she probably meant the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act‘ that was sponsored by two Republicans, and signed into law by Republican President Herbert Hoover in 1930. In reality, FDR campaigned against the act in 1932, and a Dem majority in Congress effectively repealed Smoot-Hawley in 1934 with the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, but in Michele’s loopy-dumb, wish-I-had-a-brain, far-right universe facts are a liberal, commie plot invented by the Devil to trip up those patriotically lying in the name of Jesus. If you’re a sane Republican (okay, that would be confined to ex-McCain manager Steve Schmidt and Sen. Olympia Snowe) you know that Bachmann’s Sixth District is already in the ‘D’ column in 2010 (she nearly lost to an unknown children’s book character named Elwyn Tinklenberg in ’08), and that you must find a legal means to (a) shut this woman up before she further damages what’s left of your party and (b) prevent her from running for president or vice president in 2012. (The vision of a ‘Palin-Bachmann 2012’ ticket privately induces dyspeptic nightmares of an LBJ/Goldwater electoral slaughter among GOP bigwigs.) Of course, it may be too late the GOP brand is so tainted that if you jettisoned all of the dotty Dittoheads, nattering neocons, tone-deaf teabaggers, putrid Palinites, raging racists, Savage Nation neo-Nazis, fatuous Freepers, flaming fully-automatic gun nuts and kinky religious kooks, you could assemble what’s left of the party in a Washington hotel ballroom with space to spare for a trained elephant act. (For more on this, read the last two items in this article.)

He’s Good Enough, He’s Smart Enough and Doggone It, the People Liked Him! Speaking of Minnesota, the drab electoral Death March of Numb Norm Coleman, the Republican Sore Loser, received a little spark of life thanks to the wily minds in Al Franken’s

campaign. Knowing that Coleman would not concede defeat, even after he got his recount in the state appeals court that put Franken further ahead with a 312-vote lead, Franken’s lawyers outflanked Norm’s wrecking crew by filing papers with the Minnesota Supreme Court asking for an expedited decision to be made in five days. Coleman’s legal beagles, par for the course, want it extended for ten days, because that’s just how petty they are. Even most Republicans know Norm’s lost this thing and his legal affairs are in the hands of the same sort of pissy-nasty parasites who masterminded the equally futile Paula Jones civil-suit farce in an attempt to get Bill Clinton. Well, perhaps the out-of-work, disgraced Coleman needs the money from the big-bucks funders of the neocon Weltanschung, just as Jones did, so he’s allowing himself to be manipulated by Bushite Ben Ginsberg and the other rightie extremists so far out in the ozone they’re willing to pursue a losing case all the way to the US Supreme Court just to deny MN voters the right to have two senators representing their interests. But there is another dimension to this: (1) Washington Republicans are fearful of Franken on a national stage he’s funny, smart, sincere, and he won’t hesitate to use his wit and sharp tongue to puncture their self-righteous balloons; (2) Al deeply insulted Rush Limbaugh, the de facto head of the GOP, going so far as to call him a ‘big, fat idiot’ in a book title. He also wouldn’t take crap from Bill O’Reilly in public. Such honesty and courage must be punished after all, he might rally the Dems to slay the GOP dragon once and for all! Watch for this to stumble on through the summer, unless Harry Reid seats Franken over Republican objections. Once in the Senate, Coleman’s attack dogs would finally be toothless as I doubt the moneybags backing this folly would keep wasting loot on a lost cause.

Currently Flying Over at the Cuckoo’s Nest: Since I can’t stomach watching Roger Ailes’ cable TV mess I haven’t confirmed this, but reports say Fox News was the only major US news media outlet that did not carry Obama’s press conference last night. We Report, You Decide, unless, of course, we refuse to report on it at all. (But you can bet selected Obama quotes will be plucked out of context and twisted by Fox hosts as they bang the doom drum for ratings.) Since Fox has carried previous Obama speeches and press conferences, this can only mean the terrified twits at Fox are so scared of Obama that they are censoring him yes, I suppose it would be pretty hard to make the case that he’s some kind of crazed left-wing fascist dictator out to steal your guns and freedom when he appears so affable and calm and speaks so rationally. But won’t even some Fox News viewers, who may occasionally stray to another channel, spot Fox’s stunning bias here? Ailes is so contemptuous of what remains of his viewership he probably thinks they won’t. The audience for the paranoid-right malarkey spewed by Fox News and it’s handmaidens in the rest of the anti-Obama organ grinder is dwindling or dying off the average age of a Fox News viewer is over 60; right-wing media across the board is tumbling in the ratings; Fox’s parent News Corporation, owned by Rupert Murdoch, is posting record losses; and Rupe’s flagship US fishwrapper (until he bought The Wall Street Journal), the money-losing New York Post, has lost 1 out of 5 readers, the highest decline by far among all major newspapers. You Heard It Here First: Even billionaire Murdoch can’t continue to hemorrhage money like this watch for him to dump Fox News and the NY Post within the next 18 months and concentrate on building the WSJ and acquiring the New York Times. Oh, and Ailes himself has one foot on a banana peel over at FN watch for him to be swept out in any major housecleaning this year.

Finally, The Incredible Shrinking GOP: Three separate polls in a week show the number of people willing to admit they’re Republicans at about 20 percent, down from 25 percent. Watch for more crossovers to the Dems Sen. Olympia Snowe is a good possibility, along with some Republican Congress-creatures to be named later. The writing’s on the wall: Get a new game or good-bye GOP. I don’t think they can do it it’s not in their political DNA.

Contact the author at editor@ltsaloon.org.

Copyright 2009 R.S. Janes. LTSaloon.org.