Charles Pierce: The Blatant Ignorance of Republican Presidential Candidates

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/31118-the-blatant-ignorance-of-republican-presidential-candidates

For example, even former Karl Rove life-coach Ron Fournier has noticed the severe lack of Abraham Lincolns in the current GOP presidential candidates. And noted climate-denialist and baseball drone George Effing Will has staked out the bold position that many of these candidates have gone so far around the bend that they've crossed some kind of termination barrier.

It is, therefore, especially disheartening that Cruz, who clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist and who is better equipped by education and experience to think clearly about courts, proposes curing what he considers this court's political behavior by turning the court into a third political branch.

The problem, of course, is that, for all his expensive education and lengthy experience, Ted Cruz is a nut. And the larger problem is that the institutions of the conservative movement that has cosseted George Effing Will for his entire adult life, and from which he derives his endlessly mysterious influence as a "thinker," were the places where Republicans first ate the monkeybrains containing the prion disease in the first place.

And nobody knows what in the fk to do about Donald Trump. In turn, this has confused Jonathan Chait, who by and large is a sensible fellow. (H/T to Driftglass, who caught this one first today.)

What is significant and genuinely disturbing, not to mention poisonous to the Republican Party's electoral interests, is the fact that conservative thought leaders feel compelled to defend Trump's nativist ramblings. And not just bottom-feeding outlets like the Daily Caller and Breitbart, either. National Review editor Rich Lowry writes in Politico that Trump "has a point."

[scarletwoman]

1. K&R for Charles Pierce! nt

[Marie Marie]

2. Charlie Pierce has a way with words - one of my favorites

[moondust]

3. Why bother to learn anything

when you can just inherit a fortune and buy whatever you want in life?

[murielm99]

4. I think the ignorance of the candidates

can be traced back to all the tea party crap. The repubbies did not expect the tea party to get so out of control. It became too powerful for them. Now it is eating them from the inside out, and digesting any chances they have for a sane nominee and a successful election.

I don't know about the tea party. Certainly it did not start out as a grassroots movement, even though they would like us to think so. Maybe it turned into one, in spite of their founders' intentions?

[malaise]

5. Charlie Pierce writes beautifully

Not only does he nail it, but he always leaves me smiling

[KG]

6. unfortunately, doesn't mean they cant get elected to office

[CBGLuthier]

7. Abraham Lincolns? They don't even have a Jerry Ford!

[scarletlib]

8. Ouch!