Fringe discourse: Bring on the Armpit Committee!

We are bulling ahead in of our crusade to  create a '"House UnAmerican Armpit Committee" - HUAC for our older readers. It will be an overdue inquiry into the lunacy whose unpleasant odor is affecting everything we hold dear to civilized behavior.  In recent days alone there have been numerous occasions to subpoena the most toxic voices among us with the plaintive question once raised by  Atty. Joseph Welch, to Sen. Joe McCarthy:  "Have you no sense of decency?"


Could we not begin by summoning Rep. Allen West, Florida Republican, to explain his math that there are 80 communists in Congress?

And Rep. Michele Bachmann, Minnesota  Republican who was reprimanded by Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, for accusing Huma Abedin, a deputy chief of staff in the State Department, of being a secret operative of the Muslim Brotherhood sneakily influencing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. It was a towering moment for McCain, and could demand that Bachmann  appear before HUAC to inquire about her declining mental state  these days.

And Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who assembled a few "investigators"  to review President Obama's birth certificate and now declares with forensic neglect that it is a "forgery".  Arpaio must  be asked by HUAC when did his nuttiness began emitting such foul odors that he is now the leader in the toxic armpit  birther gang.

Romney campaign soldier John Sununu accused the President  of being unlearned in the art of being an American.  (He later Etch-A-Sketched his comment but HUAC could ask him to say why  he is such a boorish dumbbell.)

The Committee could summon Rush Limbaugh, but it would be a still greater diversion if we waited until the circus comes to town.

Finally, the circus leaves town!

THE TRAVELING CIRCUS has moved on from Iowa with the loss of only one of its performers (Pawlenty), leaving behind a big task for the pooper-scoopers. The headlines and talk shows today hail Michele Bachmann as the "Straw Queen", her euphoric moment of conquest of a wobbly cast of low-wire male candidates.

Where-to from here now that the Tea Partiers and social conservatives have had their say (and their way) with what was once called the Republican Party? Who can say ? The elephants are tiring quickly from overwork and the clowns are anything but funny. The only news that came out of the fury was the report that Bachmann left the debate stage during each commercial break to redo her makeup. Oh, and Maureen Dowd insists she saw Mitt Romney's hair move.

As the dismal circus continues well into next year, shouldn't we be asking more pertinent questions for the remaining candidates who seem wedded to each other in rhetoric and vision to the extent that, as it has been said many times, there's not a dime's worth of difference:

*Do you believe that corporations are people?

*Do you believe that Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional?

*How much time do you spend each day praying that President Obama resigns?

*Have you ever considered secession for your state?

*Do you believe that water and air can purify themselves without environmental regulations?

*Have you ever voted for, or supported, the raising of the debt ceiling?

*Has your spouse ever described gays as "barbarians"?

*As a a gay marriage opponent, do you know the difference between a napkin and a paper towel? A wet blanket and an empty suit?

*Would it offend you to be called, in Clarence Darrow's term for William Jennings Bryan, "the idol of all morondom."?

*Can you tell the audience what the capital of Des Moines is?

*Are you now, or have you ever been, clinically insane?

Each candidate much answer all of the above questions directly without crib notes.

On with the show!

Michele's continued state of confusion

WITH ANOTHER PRESIDENTIAL election season upon us, it has become more apparent that Rep. Michele Bachmann, the pride of Minnesota's Republican team, can be factually challenged from time to time. But there is no greater evidence of her weakness in geography beyond the borders of her congressional district than her dense understanding of history. So let's roll the tape on her campaign appearance in New Hampshire as she told the folks:

"What I love about New Hampshire and what we have in common is our extreme love for liberty. You're the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord."

Help soon arrived. Sensing a disaster for a Republican sister, Sarah Palin twittered Michele to advise her that it was not New Hampshire but Montana.

All of which was a reminder of an old saying that the trouble with political jokes is that they get elected.

Outrage: It's all the rage in America today

OUTRAGE HAS become a defining moment in the nation's psyche, not only from the Tea Partyers, but also from a lot of other people who cannot sit still on a hot summer evening and get a therapeutic laugh from Seinfeld. ( You might already see the extent of my TV diversions.). So where to begin to make my case?

Thanks to the fact that we have an African-American president, slavery is making it back in the hot discussion of America's values. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, full of rage, lashed Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert for morphing LeBron James into a "runaway slave" - which was kind of shocking inasmuch as runaway slaves never left town as a zillionaire with expectations of starring on a NBA championship team. Gilbert, of course, had lit the fuse with a clinically isolated example of searing outrage aimed at Mr. James - who lived through the experience without a single hint of anger about his new digs.

It reached a point in that exchange of outrage that some others took umbrage that Zydrunas Ilgouskas, the Cavaliers Eiffel Tower center (and equally immobile) did not produce the same outrage from the fans when he joined his itinerant teammate in Miami. Once again, the connective tissue was outrage, which never seems to tire sports fans.

And wouldn't you know that Rep. Michele Bachmann, the loony Republican from Minnesota, again expressed her outrage that President Obama was, in her words, channeling us into a "nation of slaves." Some Republicans are outraged daily by Michael Steele, the party's national chairman. The latest outburst was produced by Steele's accusation that Afghanistan was first conceived by Obama. My only conclusion is that the GOP hawks do not want to be denied the honor of calling it their war.

The NAACP slammed the Tea Partyers with a resolution charging them with racism - a charge that was heatedly denied by the TP upper classmen who have yet to explain why there are so many racist placards at some of their outings.

Glenn Beck, who markets outrage between commercials, is doubtless at sixes and sevens now that surveys have shown that he has lost half of his audience. Rep. Joe Barton, the Texas Republican, was outraged by the Administration's demand that BP set up a fund to pay off people stricken by the oil spill. He meekly apologized to BP, calling Obama's effort a $20 billion "shakedown."

It looks like NASA's prediction that 2010 will be the hottest on record will be realized - not all of it by global warming.