Money! Bombs! Jesus! Distilled.
As discussed here and here, the Republican Party consists of three wings.
First, there's the Money! wing, whose guiding principal is: "Money. More." Then the Bombs! wing, whose guiding principal is, "Grrrr! Rrrowf! Rrrowf!." And finally the Jesus! wing which believes God made gays on the seventh day at a wild post-creation party. (During which God did several things even He can't remember. And woe unto he who remindeth Him.)
We are down to three Republican candidates, and each is not only a representative of one wing of the party, but the mathematically precise representative of that wing. Each of the three is the perfect embodiment, the distilled essence, of his wing of the GOP. Quite frankly, it's eerie.
Mitt (the flip) Romney isn't just a water-carrier for the Money! wing, he's a nine-figure guy himself. Rich? Oh, yeah. And his main claim to fame? That he's rich. Major accomplishment? Richness. Campaign platform? "Hey, I'm rich. Let a rich guy run things."
But Mitt goes beyond mere richness, to embody the spirit of every money-lover who ever said, "I will say whatever it takes, do whatever it takes to get what I want." In other words, he's not just rich, he's utterly ruthless and, as far as anyone can tell, devoid of moral center.
Now that, my friends, is the zero-impurities, 200 proof, essence of the Money! wing.
As for Bombs! Republicans, no fiction writer would dare to invent a character so perfectly suited for the role as John McCain. The man doesn't just support Bombs! He actually dropped them.
He's a naval aviator. A solid gold, honest-to-God hero. A man among men. The concepts of honor, duty, country aren't something he puts on, the way Mitt Romney dresses up in his pro-life camouflage, these are things that go all the way down to John McCain's DNA. You look at a John McCain chromosome under the electron microscope and you know what you see? John Wayne in a cowboy hat.
McCain was trashing Don Rumsfeld when no one (well, except me) was trashing him. McCain was surging when Bush was still staying the course. And when it comes to fitting the role to emotional perfection, what could be better than McCain's cranky, teeth-gritting, I'd-punch-you-in-the-face-if-my-arms-hadn't-been-broken-during-my-five-years-of-torture-you-punk, take no bull, never back down personality? McCain is Bombs!
Finally, what overly-literal casting director would have sent Mike Huckabee to be the candidate of the Jesus! wing? The Governor-Pastor doesn't just believe in God, and the major highlights of the Bible. He believes the craziest stuff in the Bible. He believes the stuff that makes six year-old Sunday school kids go, "Nah."
He believes Mary was a virgin, Lazarus was dead, and the Jews couldn't find their way out of Gaza for forty years. He believes a fish swallowed Jonah and Joshua fit' the battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho, and the walls came a tumblin' down. The man believes that a nice Tyrannosaurus couple climbed onto Noah's ark, took a cruise, and then disembarked carrying their souvenir photographs and a handbag they picked up in Cancun.
And could he be any more perfect, with his quick wit and his ready smile and his goofy plans? He's the perfect door-to-door, Bible-salesman huckster, right down to his ya-gotta-be-kidding-me name.
Most election years you get a candidate who represents Money! and one for Bombs! and one for Jesus! And in the end, the GOP weights their selection, with Money! naturally carrying the most weight, while Jesus! gets lip service and one chance to embarrass the country before all of western civilization. But this year there is no compromise. No synthesis. No candidate who represents anything other than his own wing.
The only uniting factor this year is that Bombs! and Jesus! really, really despise Money!
Bombs! and Jesus! united in a burning hatred of Money! Wow. I don't know who wrote this script, but I have to say, as a Democrat, I'm liking it.
First, there's the Money! wing, whose guiding principal is: "Money. More." Then the Bombs! wing, whose guiding principal is, "Grrrr! Rrrowf! Rrrowf!." And finally the Jesus! wing which believes God made gays on the seventh day at a wild post-creation party. (During which God did several things even He can't remember. And woe unto he who remindeth Him.)
We are down to three Republican candidates, and each is not only a representative of one wing of the party, but the mathematically precise representative of that wing. Each of the three is the perfect embodiment, the distilled essence, of his wing of the GOP. Quite frankly, it's eerie.
Mitt (the flip) Romney isn't just a water-carrier for the Money! wing, he's a nine-figure guy himself. Rich? Oh, yeah. And his main claim to fame? That he's rich. Major accomplishment? Richness. Campaign platform? "Hey, I'm rich. Let a rich guy run things."
But Mitt goes beyond mere richness, to embody the spirit of every money-lover who ever said, "I will say whatever it takes, do whatever it takes to get what I want." In other words, he's not just rich, he's utterly ruthless and, as far as anyone can tell, devoid of moral center.
Now that, my friends, is the zero-impurities, 200 proof, essence of the Money! wing.
As for Bombs! Republicans, no fiction writer would dare to invent a character so perfectly suited for the role as John McCain. The man doesn't just support Bombs! He actually dropped them.
He's a naval aviator. A solid gold, honest-to-God hero. A man among men. The concepts of honor, duty, country aren't something he puts on, the way Mitt Romney dresses up in his pro-life camouflage, these are things that go all the way down to John McCain's DNA. You look at a John McCain chromosome under the electron microscope and you know what you see? John Wayne in a cowboy hat.
McCain was trashing Don Rumsfeld when no one (well, except me) was trashing him. McCain was surging when Bush was still staying the course. And when it comes to fitting the role to emotional perfection, what could be better than McCain's cranky, teeth-gritting, I'd-punch-you-in-the-face-if-my-arms-hadn't-been-broken-during-my-five-years-of-torture-you-punk, take no bull, never back down personality? McCain is Bombs!
Finally, what overly-literal casting director would have sent Mike Huckabee to be the candidate of the Jesus! wing? The Governor-Pastor doesn't just believe in God, and the major highlights of the Bible. He believes the craziest stuff in the Bible. He believes the stuff that makes six year-old Sunday school kids go, "Nah."
He believes Mary was a virgin, Lazarus was dead, and the Jews couldn't find their way out of Gaza for forty years. He believes a fish swallowed Jonah and Joshua fit' the battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho, and the walls came a tumblin' down. The man believes that a nice Tyrannosaurus couple climbed onto Noah's ark, took a cruise, and then disembarked carrying their souvenir photographs and a handbag they picked up in Cancun.
And could he be any more perfect, with his quick wit and his ready smile and his goofy plans? He's the perfect door-to-door, Bible-salesman huckster, right down to his ya-gotta-be-kidding-me name.
Most election years you get a candidate who represents Money! and one for Bombs! and one for Jesus! And in the end, the GOP weights their selection, with Money! naturally carrying the most weight, while Jesus! gets lip service and one chance to embarrass the country before all of western civilization. But this year there is no compromise. No synthesis. No candidate who represents anything other than his own wing.
The only uniting factor this year is that Bombs! and Jesus! really, really despise Money!
Bombs! and Jesus! united in a burning hatred of Money! Wow. I don't know who wrote this script, but I have to say, as a Democrat, I'm liking it.
This entry was posted by Michael Reynolds, on
Wednesday, February 06, 2008.
You can leave your response.
9:16 PM
as a Democrat, I'm liking it.
So it would appear.
12:14 AM
You forgot the moatdiggers again.
6:53 AM
TL:
I've decided the Moatdiggers are a sub-species, not a species. I've given this a surprising amount of thought (for me) since you mentioned it a while ago. Had the Moatdiggers found their Lou Dobbs, or had they seemed to be turning more convincingly against McCain -- a moat-bridger -- I might have taken them more seriously. Instead, they feel like a symptom to me, not a true, free-standing wing.
11:02 AM
GN says ...Moatdiggers as a sub species ... I agree, and will add that post convention we will see much more of the moatdiggers
12:59 PM
Romney is dropping out. What's the world coming to when Money! can't win the Republican nomination?
1:25 PM
Bombs! Republicans have always had a lot of sway, Randy. For instance, it was the idea of Bombs! Republicans to wrap the GOP elephant in the flag and then condemn anyone who didn't buy into aggressive Republican militarism or worship the grunts in uniform as unpatriotic.
Michael, I could buy into the idea that moatdiggers are a "subspecies", but I'm not sure which of the three GOP factions they are a subspecies of. Maybe "some kind of mule-like hybrid" would be more precise?
As for Romney, Money! Republicans will always try to extract value from even a bad situation; that's why they are the easiest ones for Democrats to deal with. That's also why Romney is, even as I write, on the phone with John McCain, pitching his superiority as McCain's running mate. Remember, they don't have to like each other (which is good, because they don't) in order to be a good ticket.
11:53 AM
michael reynolds:
I must admit I just looove the theory about the three wings of the Republican party.
However, I found your comments about McCain puzzling. McC loves bombs and - for once - a politician who loves `em has actual experience with `em. Good. If I remember right he got shot down in October `67 during Operation Rolling Thunder.
Ooops - wasn`t LBJ still president at that time ? Did a Democrat order Operation Rolling Thunder ?
So: Did the Democrats have a "bombs" wing back then ? Btw. which wing would did "Tricky Dick" have belonged to ?
12:13 PM
Fabius:
We absolutely had a Bombs! wing in the Democratic Party back in those long, long ago days. It was my party, after all, that escalated into Vietnam under both JFK and LBJ.
As for Nixon? (The first president I ever voted for) Nixon was pre-wing. Nixon was all dick.