The desperate hours continue to mount for GOP

It hasn't been a good couple of weeks for Mitt Romney's  Comeback to Bush Team.  Aside from the poll numbers, there have been a lot of conservatives screaming at Mitt, churlishly  accusing him of running an incoherent  unbusinesslike campaign.  He might even have to call an ambulance to send a campaign lacking mental health insurance  to an emergency room.

The Republicans, for example, have found no way to shed the image of being Akinistas since the Missouri congressman   damn well stayed in his senate race despite pleas from apopleptic party members.  Heavens, it wasn't that long ago that Reince Priebus, the always befuddled GOP national chairman, adamantly rejected any thought of a party endorsement  of Todd Akin , telling a reporter:  "No,  no , no." But on second thought, Riebus now says that since the party couldn't persuade Akin to withdraw, it will endorse him as the gateway to a Republican takeover of the Senate.

And talk about panic!  With voters ignoring the GOP's labeling of Obama as a socialist-communist-unAmerican-alien-cheater, Romney surrogate John Sununu  told Sean Hannity that the president was "absolutely lazy and detached." (Lazy?  In this context, I'll let you decode that one.)  Sununu said it was Obama's fault that Chris Stevens, American ambassador to Llbya,  was killed because Barack didn't attend  CIA briefings.  On the other hand, Sununu credited an alert George W. Bush with taking a keen interest in the briefings to protect America's security.  As he did in the lead-up to 9/ll, right?

UPDATE:  Almost forgot. Mike Huckabee told his Fox News audience that President Obama should be impeached for "lying" about the Libyan attack.  So I ask you:  Is that any way for a former Baptist preacher to show Christian love and forgiveness to a fellow-man - even by a dead-ender like Huckabee?

Hooray.   The real NFL officials are back.  Now can we start the season all over again?

Note to Newt: Your coming-out party's over

One of the happier thoughts in the early celebratory moments at the end of the Republican presidential primaries was that we had  seen the last of Crazy Guggenheim,  i.e. Newt Gingrich.  He had repeatedly promised to put a permanent base on the moon - but, alas, not until his second term, airily  reveled in describing Barack Obama as the biggest food-stamp president in history and insisted  that all school janitors be fired and replaced by students to teach  them good work habits.

He tried to lure us with a devilish smile and imperious self-confidence. But when he was  mercilessly rejected by his own party in primary after primary, it was logical to assume that this pathetic figure had finally witnessed his  last hurrah. But wait...

The other night he was shown standing aside Todd Akin, the notorious Missouri congressman, to offer his worthless endorsement.  He was later  reported to have voluntarily  drawn up an unofficial playbook to show Mitt Romney how to win his debate with Obama!   Poor fellow is everywhere.    He's a man with the drive of  street vendor who shows up in the worst weather in hopes of one more sale.

He also promised to arrive in Tampa with enough delegates.  It didn't happen.

 Face it, Newt.  It's over. You don't even have the door prize of elder statesmanship.

NOTE:  Plunderbund has posted my column on voter suppressing Republican liars 

Santorum to Todd Akin: Go for it!

If quasi-priest Rick Santorum has any plans for self-sainthood, he's going about it in an odd way. Now that Rep. Todd Akin, the Missouri  Republican who made the term "legitimate rape" "a household term (as in House of Representatives) has decided to stay in the Senate race, Santorum apparently has no misgivings about vigorously  endorsing him.  Akin is trying to unseat Democratic U.S.Sen. Claire McCaskill, whom the  GOP right-wing would prefer to be back in the kitchen.   Santorum puts it this way:  If the Republicans hope to take back the Senate, they'll have to throw out McCaskill and any oddball Republican successor will do.     Machiavelli is alive and well in some political precincts.

The stricken NFL: Playing out of bounds

 After seeing the melee in the end zone that awarded a victory to the Seattle Seahawks  over  the Green Bay Packers , it's fair to wonder whether the NFL should now be demoted to the  category of trash sports.  To add to the confusion, both teams were forced to return to the field for a meaningless extra point after the clock expired. If you're still unconvinced, the decisive play  is now being described as the worst officials' decision in NFL history.

Is there anyone - player, coach, fan - who hasn't complained about the dismal performance of the scabs who have replaced the striking officiating crews?  Some, as on Monday night, actually changed the outcome of games with questionable penalties, increasing reviews of on-field decisions. The contests have been tediously drawn out with conferences to discuss penalties, all adding to the endless commercial breaks that have extended 60 minutes of actual playing time to a three-hand-a-half hour slog.  Fans are  spending more time watching the officials' huddles than those of the players.

It turns out that some of the officials are rejects from the Lingerie Football League;  ya know, the one  that features female athletes  suited up like Xena the Warrior Princess on an alleged shrunken football field.  And the NFL season is still young.

It's not Bain, but it may have investment potential

Do you think that if Mitt Romney loses in November, he will have more time to pursue a flighty business investment that is already on his mind these days:  roll-down airplane windows.    Ever since his wife's plane was forced to land when smoke filled the cabin, Mitt has been wondering aloud why the passengers couldn't have sought fresh air by opening the plane's windows when the smoke was first detected.

As he explained his concern for Ann's safety to the Los Angeles Times, "You can't find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft." So when there's a fire in the plane, "There's no place to go, exactly."

Exactly.   The problem, of course, is that a burst of oxygen at a plane's cruising level would, among other  things,  feed a fire.  Still,  Mitt says he doesn't know why the windows don't open.  "It's a real problem. So it's very dangerous."

As one who prefers to be known more as an astute, can-do  businessman than as a potential leader of the free world, Mitt has doubtless given thought to a new growth industry of manufacturing convenient open-and-close  windows, which will be investigated further on his next trip to China.  Meantime, somebody should tell  him that for the time being he will have make do with those drop-down gizmos called oxygen masks.

Golly gee: The multimillion dollar bow tie traveler

As a college student I was told by my father that he wanted me to be, in the following  order, a car salesman, doctor or lawyer.  Being young and contrary - but not yet grumpy -  I figured that I  wanted something else for a day job.  What Dad foolishly never mentioned was that I should try to become the president of a megalopolis  otherwise known as Ohio State University. (He was a Notre Dame fan, anyway.)

I must confess that when I read that E.  Gordon Gee, the OSU president, could easily get by with the world's largest bow tie collection on his $8.6  million in salary and perks  in addition to the  $7.7 million that he's spent on travel in  his five years at OSU, I realized that some folks  have  checkbooks that never have to be balanced.

The OSU guardians of the fortress immediately offered to the Dayton Daily News investigative team that broke the story that, after all, the travel money was drawn from private donors and endowments to attract hundreds of millions of dollars in investments.  Or as a front-office spokesman  described it, "resource generation".  Do these guys ever speak  English?

There's still one question:  Can the Ohio public retirement system really afford to have Gee retire during these lean days?   The formula for his compensation would  be a lot more than $1 million.  Until the economy improves, he should be encouraged to hang around for a little longer to add to his famous bow tie collection and bow tie cookies.  It also would give us more time to find out what the "E" in his name stands for. Ego?

The widening fallout from Husted's "rising star"

We recently noticed in the Plain Dealer  a reference to Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted  as a "rising star".  If this sort of alias catches on, Husted may have created the next perilous level in his  reach  for the governor's title.  Or will it be an overreach?

As we all know by now,  Husted has been spending a lot of his time joining the fashionable Republican enterprise of shrinking  the state's voter base, defending himself in court suits and otherwise playing nice to the Tea Partiers around the state.  But does he really believe that the counteraction to policies that anger such a heated audience on the other side will disappear  if he ever tries to cash in on a higher office?

It's astonishing how any alleged "rising star"  can leave so many voters for dead by kneeling underneath   the right-wing flap of the GOP.  Shouldn't somebody remind this Tea Party supplicant that there are also are falling stars in the firmament?  Or maybe he will  have to find that out for himself.

NOTE: My column on the Sutton-Renacci race has been posted on Plunderbund.  

TeaParty signs of the times -and maybe later

Meet the Tea Party folks who rule Romney/Ryan and the Republican House of Representatives and who are determined to rule America.  

...and this one!  

There are battlegrounds, but never Mississippi

How many more decades must pass before Mississippi becomes a "battleground state"? 

(Asked to break the tedium of hearing  Ohio repeatedly called a  "battleground state". 
Could they be referring to the Browns and Modell legacy?)