Say Something Really Stupid...

Say something really stupid and get virtually non-stop television coverage for four, five, maybe even more days. We have heard virtually nothing else for days now except about Todd Akin’s incredibly stupid remark about rape and abortion. If it is true, as some say, that all or any publicity is good publicity, I reckon Akin must have received about a free billion dollars worth by now, and I fear it might continue forever. While Republicans are trying to flee from any association with Akins asinine remark, you may notice that they have accepted his basic position about abortion as one of the planks of their platform. Go figure.

Happily the media doesn’t go to such extreme lengths covering all the stupid things Republicans say. Judge Tom Head, a county judge in Lubbock, Texas, for example, has requested further funds for deputies and help to prepare for the war he believes will break out if President Obama is re-elected. Somewhere he acquired the belief that if Obama is re-elected, he will somehow bring in U. N. troops to take over our country and he wants to be prepared to stop them. He also added that he doesn’t want just ordinary officers but those with real experience.

Then there is the dependable Iowa Republican, Steve King, who now has uncovered a scheme of what he calls communist victimization. This scheme involves making students, minority students in particular, feel sorry for themselves. When they feel sorry for themselves they are likely to join in this communist plan and, I guess, work to undermine our country. He has it all worked out, it begins with Antonio Gramsci, who he claims to be the father of multiculturalism, and involves both Karl Marx and Saul Alinsky. He sees multiculturalism as the basic problem and claims to have encountered 59 different student groups at the University of Iowa that are involved in this. Wow, no wonder he wants to make English the official language of the country where it already is. I don’t know if this ties in with Head’s U.N. takeover conspiracy, but it might, you know the U.N., that hotbed of multiculturalism.

Frank Szabo, a candidate for Sheriff in some New Hampshire county, has announced that he would be ready to use deadly force to prevent abortions. It is not entirely clear if he means all abortions or just elective and late term abortions, but he is quite clear he would not hesitate to kill to prevent a perfectly legal procedure.

Where do you suppose the Republican party finds these people, do they scour the asylums? In any case, saying really stupid things can pay off big time, just consider Sarah Palin who has now made a very lucrative career of saying really stupid things. Some of the other Republican women haven’t been so successful, but it’s not from want of trying. Certainly Sharon Angle and the “I’m not a witch woman” have done their best, along with the “take a chicken to your doctor” woman who lost out to Angle. Of course there are also Ann Coulter and that terrible Malkin woman who make their living saying stupid things designed to offend. Before you accuse me of sexism and a war on women, I cannot let this go without those truly remarkable famous men who have all become fabulously wealthy by saying stupid things with a regularity mind boggling to anyone but those stupid enough to listen: Rush Limbaugh has to be the absolute king of stupid, well maybe Glenn Beck, but Bill O’Reilly and Hannity are not far behind and I know there are others that I do not know about because I don’t listen to enough right wing nonsense (actually I don’t listen to any of it but occasionally a bit shows up on a more “normal” station).

It seems these days you do not need any special talent to succeed in talk radio or television shows, just a loud mouth and the shameful ability to say truly stupid things, the more outrageous the better will make you rich and famous (and despised by anyone with the brain of a doughnut). Free speech is a wonderful thing, unfortunately sometimes too wonderful for words.

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.

John Stuart Mill