CPAC Follies of 2013

"And they call us crazy!"

Wayne LaPierre
CPAC Convention, March 2013 

Yes we do, Wayne. Yes we do.

The annual Conservative Political Action Conference is finally over. It was a weekend that seemed to last a month. The most comprehensive, yearly gathering of Conservative activists has folded up the tents and have gone their separate ways. Were there lessons taken away from the 2013 CPAC convention? You bet'cha! And what - you may well ask - was the fundamental lesson learned this past weekend? Hold onto your hats, kiddies:

THE GOP IS NOT RIGHT WING ENOUGH!   

As the late Jack Parr liked to say in his day: "I kid you not."

Chris Christie

New Jersey governor Chris Cristie has got to be thanking his lucky stars on this fine Monday morn. By not being invited to this freak circus he was spared the embarrassment of being photographed with any of the clowns - photographs that would surely come back to haunt him should  he be nominated as GOP standard bearer in 2016. Of course he's dreaming if he thinks that's ever going to happen. The half-wits and maniacs in the South and Midwest who now control "the party of Abraham Lincoln" (What would I do without quotation marks?) will NEVER nominate a non-extremist Northeastern Catholic with a vowel at the end of his name. 'Tain't  never gonna happen, Bubbah. 

"If you're not free to protect yourself when the government puts its thumb on that freedom, then you're not free at all."

 Wayne LaPierre

That was uber-doofus, Wayne LaPierre, again. When all else fails you can count on this hideous jackass to try to make people paranoid about the big, bad government; that it's coming to kill them. By the way, the government he is referring to is armed to the teeth with tanks, predator drones, jet fighters, and nuclear weapons. There lies the idiocy behind poor old Wayne's argument. Forget about the might of the federal government; any state National Guard worth its weight in rocks could, within minutes, make mincemeat out of any self-raised army of anti-government yahoos and their puny little AK-47's. He must know this. Why would he keep broadcasting this message to a group of not-too-bright reactionaries - that they could take on the military of the United States - AND DEFEAT THEM??? What's the matter with this asshole? Does he even have a pulse? What gives?

Sarah Palin was there, mocking the attempt New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg made to stem the health crisis posed by obesity when he tried to initiate a ban on those huge mega-sodas (mega-pops if you live in the Midwest or Alaska) that are sold by nearly every fast-food restaurant in the nation. While she addressed these nitwits she was drinking out of one. Isn't that a scream? Last month I wrote that in the wake of her getting canned by Fox Noise, her fifteen minutes of fame were up and that she'd probably head back to Wasilla, destined for eternal obscurity. Although most people are in agreement that she is pretty-much irrelevant these days, that irrelevance is not quite apparent to the insanity junkies who plan these CPAC parties. To them, Sarah Palin's star is still on the rise. Go figure.

Our gal Sarah (or "Fascist Barbie" as I always called her) also had a few choice words for Karl Rove. Rove's latest cause has been a herculean effort to prevent the Tea party crazies from getting on the ballot and dooming the party on Election Day. He's trying to kill the Frankenstein monster he is partly responsible for creating. Show me a political party that has become too weird for the likes of Karl Rove, and I'll show you a political party that has lost its marbles; a party that is within less than a decade of disappearing into the trash heap of history. Remember, you read it here on The Rant, folks.

Allen West

That was the main problem with this year's CPAC gathering. So many of their speakers are walking illustrations of why conservatism in America is going the way of the 8-Track tape. One of their speakers was the recently defeated, former congressman Allen West. ALLEN WEST! The same guy who accused most of the Democrats in congress of being card-carrying members of the Communist Party! You can't get more irrelevant than this blabbering twit. My guess is that the geniuses at CPAC felt they needed to get as many black people into the act as they possibly could in order to spotlight their "racial diversity". As you're probably aware, African Americans are quite the rarity among the screaming right wing fringe these days. Gee, I wonder why.

Mega-knucklehead Ted Cruz was there. Since arriving in Washington in January, this freshman senator from Texas has gone out of his way to show the American people that he is the second coming of Joe McCarthy. He has so many McCarthy-like mannerisms that I am utterly convinced that he has thoroughly studied the long-dead Wisconsin red-baiter. Did you catch that incident a few weeks ago when he accused the now-Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, of somehow being in cahoots with the North Koreans? That was pure Joe McCarthy - with every i dotted and every t crossed!  Keep your eye on Ted Cruz. His will be an interesting sideshow.

What if someone gave a speech and nobody came? Donald Trump found out the hard way. When his turn came to stand before the masses, the "masses" (so to speak) had disappeared from view. Trump was forced to give his little tirade before a room that was nearly devoid of human beings. It really was oodles of fun to watch. I get such a kick out of the Donald.

Marco Rubio

To be fair, CPAC  is not affiliated with the Republican party - at least not officially. But let's be honest; we all know whose bread they are buttering. The interesting thing about the entire debacle is that it seems they didn't even attempt to get their stories straight  when they charged into this thing. This was emphasized by the speeches made by Rand Paul and Marco Rubio. According to Rand, the GOP has got to move further to the right. That's not what Marco thinks. According to him the party is fine 'n' dandy just the way it is, thank you very much. The whole affair was quite amusing.

The highlight of the weekend was Mitt Romney pleading with the Republicans to learn from his mistakes. My guess is that they turned a deaf ear toward him. I can see it now. When this party attempts to "moderate" itself, it will disintegrate into a million pieces. What we have here is the nucleus of the ideological thunderclap that could easily destroy and extinct the Republicans in a matter of a few years.  

I cannot wait for 2016. I'm giddy with anticipation.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net   

Molly Colgan

SUGGESTED READING:

Molly Colgan is the daughter and niece of some dear friends of mine. She is also a college student who is studying to be an educator. Below is a link to her blog. She explores the connections between literacy and education, among other choice subjects:
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ELAted Education

This is not a shameless plug. I was reading, sharing and re-tweeting some of the articles posted within this site for almost a week before I realized that Molly was the author. Take a look when you have a moment. She's an excellent writer. Her vocation is "making literacy dangerous again." That works for me.

ATERTHOUGHT, 3/24/17:

I never dreamed when I wrote this piece four years ago that Donald Trump would be tweeting away in the Oval Office today. I should have known better.

Idiot Nation.