The weed patch beckons for GOP first team

BACK IN THE 70s and 80s, when we spent a lot of time in Columbus covering the antics 0f Gov. James Rhodes, one Statehouse reporter came up with a defining term for Rhodes. The late Rick Zimmerman of the Plain Dealer, frustrated by the governor's absences during unpleasant moments like civil rights marches or protests about the state's shabby mental health system, would report that the governor could not be found. "He's in the weed patch," he said.

Zimmerman was not only a very good reporter, but also a cartoonist whose devilish drawings hung on reporters' office walls. In fact, when I left Columbus, he gave me a framed cartoon of tall weeds with a balloon above them enclosing the words "Good-bye, Abe" - James A. Rhodes."

It is preserved on the shelf above my desk.

Although Zimmerman has passed on, nothing demonstrates the weed patch mentality more than the guys who want to lead the country into another universe. It was clearly evident by the responses of the Republican candidates who want to dodge the consequences of criticizing Rush Limbaugh for carrying out a three-day assault on a young law student before finally apologizing.

As late as the past week end, candidate- of- interest #1 or #2 , Rick Santorum. asked to comment on Limbaugh's slander, bobbed - Honest! - "That's not my business." Oh? No one has stirred up the whole contraceptive issue more than Santorum during the campaign. Meanwhile, in a weaving reaction by Mitt Romney, he allowed as how "That was not the language I would have used." But we still await what language he would have used.

Some Rush dodgers shrugged that he was only dealing in entertainment, no real harm done. (Former GOP national chairman Michael Steele). Or, at worst, Rush's nuclear comments were...um..."inappropriate."

What makes all of this so inappropriate is the fearful shallowness of people who complain that President Obama is a patsy for our opponents around the world as the GOP crowd heads for the weed patch. I can only guess what my friend Rick Zimmerman would have illustrated about them.