Let's Not Be Hasty. Lieberman Is Still Available.

David Weigel, "Romney-Santorum 2012, Obviously". March 8

FIRST, I would like to apologize if anyone was offended by the fact that I've taken David Weigel to be a journalist all these years. I'm an old man, and ironic hipster comedy is sometimes lost on me. Especially unintentional hipster comedy.

So…I guess it's time for the typing class to display its terminal boredom with the Republican race, look around, find no real issues worth covering, check the calendar, and bring on the Veep speculation.

Weigel enlarges on ("Small is the New Large") this Tim Noah piece, which suggested that Romney is so boring, and the Republican party so dysfunctional, that a Veepstakes piece might actually liven things up. Weigel the Journalist might have been expected to miss the point, or pretend to miss it; Weigel the comedian goes for the killer riff:

1) Would Santorum alienate swing voters? We'd see about that. There's the specter of Sarah Palin hovering over any VP choice. But Palin's main problem was that she undercut John McCain's "experience" argument by having eighteen months of statewide elected office behind here, and by responding to pressure with aggressive ignorance. The media is already vetting Santorum, for the most part.

Yeah, well, Republican voters have been vetting Santorum, too, and even with the demise of every other religious fanatic candidate he can't beat the hated Romney. People may not vote for Vice-Presidents, but if you guys didn't learn last time that pandering to the 30% is a desperate and boneheaded move, go on and find out again.

True, it's hard to argue with "we'd see"; it's also hard to remain firmly seated as this inexplicably becomes a discussion of Sarah Palin. "The specter of Sarah Palin" haunts Romney's choice of Veep? Hell, Sarah Palin haunts the whole goddam party, not that she didn't simply take over as Poltergeist in Chief, and seamlessly, from the shade of George W. Bush. Palin's the only reason an avalanche victim like Santorum, with no legislative record beyond his crippling Ovary fetish, was even in the race in the first place. The whole Republican primary has been one big "Find the Sarah Palin Replacement" reality show.

On the other hand, if we'd like to discuss Santorum's negatives, the better to "dispense" with them, they are clear, legion, and the sort of thing Republican "moderates" don't like to discuss with non-family members. Santorum would add a lot to the ticket, provided you think you can repeal the 19th amendment in the next seven months.

Whatever people said about Palin in '08--this includes Republicans, but only when they didn't realize the mic was live--it revolved around her obvious unpreparedness and the McCain campaign's astonishing gaffe. She was, at that time, a fluke and a punchline. This time voters--non-Republican voters--are going to look at a Santorum candidacy as a first-fitting for the mantle of the Republican party. I guess we'd see.

Say it again: until you guys are honest about this shit--beginning with yourselves--you've got no hope of governing, if you even care about that. You might win elections the way somebody wins a coin toss, but while Free Cash from Billionaire Lunatics may continue to appeal, as an electoral strategy it pretty much reached its full potential with that daisful of Palin impersonators you needed Mitt Romney to (barely) defeat. The question isn't Who Will Mitt Choose? The question is What Choice Does He Have?