Attention Wal*Mart Shoppers

SHORTER George Eff Will: "One look at the current Republican Presidential sweepstakes shows that faithful conservatives have insufficiently burnished to field to reflect my image." Interesting:

Rick Perry (disclosure: my wife, Mari Will, advises him)

I guess this would have been full disclosure had you revealed it when you wrote that Perry puffer last summer, or all those times since when you disparaged the debates, or every time you, say, wrote a column. Really, shouldn't any mention of "the hapless Barack Obama" be followed by "(disclosure: this coming from a man who thinks Rick Fucking Perry should be President)" ?

Coming as it did at the beginning of the weekend when Herman Cain would become the first candidate in American history to skedaddle after death, Will's piece made me wonder just what it's like to be a self-styled "Conservative" "intellectual" while surveying the actual "accomplishments" of the actual dunderheads who've represented you since 1946.

It's probably easier for me, but, y'know, that's in no small part due to the fact that I have no reason to defend the stinking pile of egregiousness that is either major political party. No one on the campaign trail will ever represent my point of view, not unless Eugene Debs decides to reanimate. And even then he'll be dismissed, not blazoned across the sky like Cain. Or Perry. Or Bachmann. Or George W. Bush.

Good Lord, even assuming I thought the answer to All America's Problems was, well, The Good Lord, I wouldn't want Rick Santorum lubing the passage. Even if all I cared about was cutting my own taxes I wouldn't find Paul Ryan inspirational. It's true, if I did feel the major problems facing the country today was the government confiscation of guns, low-hanging power lines, and th' teevee remote controlling me, I'd be happily switching my allegiance from Herman to Newt today. But you see my point. I think.

Th' fuck? Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Barry Goldwater, Spiro Agnew, Roman Hruska? You had to disown George W. Bush, and puff Ronald Reagan more full of air than the collective biography of the Saints. And now you're stuck doing that for the likes of Michele Bachmann. Once you couldn't blame your murderous global authoritarianism on the Evil Soviets you decided to blame it on Americans who don't agree with you. You're the party of "teach the controversy" over evolutionary theory! In the fucking 21st century!

I don't understand how you even look at it, let alone how you demand someone more ideologically pure than Plastic Mitt and Tin Foil Newt. You've got 'em right there! A good half-dozen, and they're all too fucking cracked for your own party.

What's it take to get you to admit this? What's the possible attraction, besides the not-quite-crypto racism and the military budgets so large we have little choice but to dash around trying to reinstate the Days of Empire?

Oh. Guess I answered my own question.