Crooks and Nannies

The Republicans have a unique solution to the overcrowding at the debates:  For the next Republican debate, most of them are too yellow to show.  You see, once again, there will be YouTube questions, and these people think they can end terrorism and perhaps more importantly, scare away those nasty immigrants, but what they can't stand is one of those YouTube questioners might ask them a nasty question, and they're too sensitivo.  They might cry.  So they're going to hide.

Rush Limbaugh and Rudy Giuliani are trying to kill the YouTube/CNN debate.  Rush, of course, is against the debate because he believes that YouTube is a tool of the devil…er, the liberals.  Rush believes this because YouTube is the most popular single information and entertainment forum in the United States right now, and anything more popular than him is likely to cost Limbaugh money…I mean, is evil.  Giuliani is against the debate because he’s against all debate.  So far, only Ron Paul and John McCain have signed on for the debate.  So far, most of the Republican field would rather stay on Rush’s good side than, you know, try to get elected President.

I think it’s pretty well-established that Ron Paul will stand in front of any microphone, anywhere.  Can other Republicans convince Rep. Paul from forgoing close to an hour of airtime?  I don't think so.  And John McCain is demonstrably unafraid of things even scarier than answering questions.  So those two are unlikely to drop out of the debate.  If the 7 other Republicans refuse to attend the debate, which is co-sponsored by the Republican party of Florida , whose primary will be the week before Ultra-Super-Duper-Grand-Colossal-Tuesday, then I am sure that Rep. Paul and Senator McCain will miss them, but bear up manfully despite their absence.

UPDATE:  It's been pointed out to me that Giuliani has every reason to fear a NY firefighter (or, even worse, a firefighter's widow) asking why his brother firefighters (or her husband) weren't retrieved and given proper burial.  And why they didn't have proper communication equipment, so they knew to get out of the buildings in the first place.  Since those deaths and those unburied bodies rest squarely on the former Hizzoner's shoulders, he has every reason to fear such a televised moment.  Giuliani isn't likely to let the facts damage the rationale of his candidacy.

After Fred Thompson announced that he was probably going to run for President, the thinking was that he’d declare on the Fourth of July.  It would allow him to raise funds for the entire second quarter without reporting how much he’d picked up, and the symbolism of declaring on Independence Day would’ve helped give him a nice bounce in the polls, and he would’ve dominated the news cycle.  It made a lot of sense, and his supporters believed it, because they don’t believe what most people who know Fred Thompson say about him.

That he’s lazy.

Even his die-hard supporters seem to be on board with that one now.  There’s a lot of evidence to support it.  For one thing, he said in May he was going to run, and his campaign now says he’s poised to make an announcement...sometime in September.  Presidents face crises.  Almost by definition, the most important things Presidents have to do are make decisions on the fly about something that just came up.  It took President Bush about four days to realize something was wrong in New Orleans.  Thompson makes that look like quick thinking.  Fred Thompson needs four months to decide if he wants to be President, and he's already said he does.  Hamlet was more decisive.

And the Fredheads, an incredibly tolerant bunch, are starting to lose their cool.  On the main Fredhead website, they seem pretty upset he’s taking them for granted, saying, “This support should be nurtured, not pushed aside and asked to stand-by forever...The time has come.  Enough with the ambiguities.  Enough with those around you being more decisive than you are.”

I couldn’t put it better myself.  Maybe he’s wishy-washy, maybe he’s just the laziest man to ever think of running for President.  And maybe, just maybe, this was his elaborate way to quit Law & Order.

Barack Obama is the Harry Potter candidate.  No, his parents weren’t killed by an evil magician, and he doesn’t have a scar shaped like a lightning-bolt (as far as I know...if I’m wrong, someone get back to me), but he is the only candidate trying to cash in on the Harry Potter enthusiasm, having revealed he has read all six of the earlier books aloud to his daughter, and went with her to the latest movie.  He might as well try to cash in now, because when he reads book 7 to his daughter, given the expanding length of these novels, his voice may be sore for weeks, and it could put a considerable dent in his campaign time.  (Hey, I like the books, too.  They’re just getting long.)

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee has suggested that Michael Moore’s weight is part of why our health care system isn’t working.  That Mr. Moore’s diet is the reason why we have the most expensive health care system among First World countries, and one of the lowest life expectancies.  All that because Mr. Moore eats too many cheeseburgers?  Wow.

If Michael Moore taking better care of himself can stop health care costs from rising by double digit percentage points every year, then I hope Mr. Moore will eat a salad.  It does, however, seem possible that the formerly grotesquely obese ex-governor of Arkansas is, you know, exaggerating.

Charles Barkley was probably my favorite basketball player, as much for his honesty and his humor and his good nature off the court as for the will and desire that enabled him to perform beyond the limits of his physical abilities.  He's endorsed Barack Obama for President, and the video of it can be seen here.  This is a surprising endorsement, coming from a person whose previous expression of political views was that he was a Republican, because he was rich, and he was all for anyone who would cut his taxes.  Now whether Sir Charles, the Round Mound of Rebound, can round up votes for Senator Obama is an open question.

...Okay, probably not.  But no one ever doubted that Barkley gives good television, and he might be able to give the Senator some new sound bites.

There are those who say that John and Elizabeth Edwards are diminishing themselves by taking on the vicious, utterly unfounded attacks of the irresponsible Ann Coulter.  Perhaps they're right; perhaps the Edwardses are fighting the last war.  But in 2004, I thought John Kerry was right to not dignify the Swift Boat attackers vicious and utterly unsubstantiated lies with a response, until it became all too clear he had made a mistake.

One of the few relatively substantive attacks Ann Coulter made is that lawyers like Edwards cost doctors their careers.  To some extent, that's true; however, the American Medical Association simply won't police itself.  Incompetent lawyers are at least sometimes disbarred.  However, even though the stakes are so much higher with doctors than lawyers, the AMA simply will not end the careers of doctors who routinely cost lives.  Civil suits are ultimately the only effective procedure to take scalpels and prescription pads out of the hands of deadly incompetents.  To be sure, some doctors who lose their careers to lawsuits don't deserve to; nonetheless, civil suits ultimately save lives.

But most of Coulter's attacks on the former Senator have been ad hominem:  Calling for John Edwards to be murdered by terrorists, and claiming that Edwards somehow celebrates the death of his eldest son; you just can't justify people saying things like that..  Coulter is willing to go out and say things that any decent human being would be overwhelmed by shame to so much as think.  Ann Coulter has always profited from a little bit of attention; the question is, can she stand a more prolonged look?  And will it hurt John Edwards that he is willing to stand up for himself and his honor?

These are unsettled questions at the moment.  I think Edwards is doing the right thing; it may yet prove to be a political error, however.  And I suspect, soon enough, Ms. Coulter will scuttle back into the shadows.

Rats cannot abide the light.