Now, you probably know that I would not ever actually watch the GOP Presidential debates. I am not a sadomasochist looking to seriously torture my own brain, especially the logic and ethical centers of my brain. But you cannot help but get some highlights (or more properly, low-lights) from the news. And the most telling thing that struck me about the bits and pieces of the clown-alley massacre that is called a Republican debate, is that the comedy team of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are re-incarnated and running for president. Compare these two images.
I mean, you see it, don’t you? Rand Paul is Stan Laurel. He has the same eyes. The same rubbery mouth and chin. Chris Christie is Oliver Hardy. Notice the double chin. The porcine eyes and pig-like smugness. They have the same political facial tics and brain spasms.
Rand Paul is a Libertarian at heart. That means he has no earthly idea how things work. He would just dismantle government if he had his druthers, and he firmly believes that government should keep its hands off everything. No foreign policy. No protections from the predatory practices of free-market businesses. “Leave it alone and it’ll come home,” is his philosophy. And when he gets in trouble for his mistakes, he scratches the top of his head with one hand while he holds his hat in the other and cries.
Chris Christie is a political bully. His bluster and bombast attacks lazy folks like public school teachers. How dare they think they can unionize in his State and demand better wages for the hard job they are doing trying to live up to the high testing standards that he has imposed? He is angry practically all the time. When his revenge policies get called out by the news media, he blames others for the problem and throws a tantrum.
But, wait a minute. I have seen that pattern in other places too. The bully and the idiot! That could be Abbott and Costello too! Well, of course, Paul and Christie look more like Stan and Ollie. But the debate had more than its share of “Who’s on First?” routines in it. Maybe Bud and Lou are reincarnated too in Ted Cruz and Rick Perry. Ted is bully enough to filibuster and shut down the government when he doesn’t get everything he wants. And Rick Perry cannot remember three things at the same time. And they are both from Texas. That definitely smacks of comedy duo.
In the singular argument that made the news reports between Rand Paul and Chris Christie, they had a spat over government surveillance that had to be a comedy routine. Rand Laurel cried that he didn’t want government wiretaps to snoop into the business of everyday Americans, though somehow he still wants to collect private data from “terrorists”. How does he do that, precisely? Passing a law to make all terrorists wear a bell around their neck so we know who to spy on?
And Ollie Christie came back at him that he could not be considered a patriot if he didn’t allow government spying on everybody to root out the bad apples. Rand Laurel rebounded with an insult that pointed out that Ollie Christie committed the unforgivable Republican error of hugging Obama during the Hurricane Sandy debacle. And Ollie Christie tossed a last word back at him with the bombastic equivalent of, “This is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into!”
I have to think about this all very carefully. I may have been too hasty in my judgments. Perhaps the GOP Clown College debates are something I would get numerous yuks and giggles out of. I may have to consider actually watching the next mess.
