My Day From Bad To Worse

It's not quite eight a.m. as I start to type this, and my day has not been one anyone would label "banner". Miriam's home from school today; poor thing has a really bad cold. Emergency and one-time expenses are going to make the rest of April pretty tight. It's raining.

The one upside? The cat attacking my wife's right heel while she sat at her desk. I started laughing so hard I got THE LOOK.

Probably not the best morning to read this.

“Now, what I would hope that people would do in the media is — maybe you should do a little research, and start looking at what political ideology they stand for. There’s a very thin line between communism, progressivism, Marxism, socialism — or even, as Mark Levin has said, statism. It’s about nationalizing production, it’s about creating and expanding the welfare state. It’s about this idea of social and economic justice. And you hear that being played out — you know, now with fairness, fair share, economic equality, shared sacrifice, ad nauseum, ad infinitum.”

“And it’s also about the creation of a secular state. And this whole argument that the liberal left is trying to take you down, talking about women’s contraception, is really about a federal government that is reclassifying religious organizations, for them to be able to manipulate them however they wish. So that’s what I wish people would focus on.”

West also challenged his opponents to a debate: “And I would welcome anyone, to have a discussion, and a debate about political ideology. Because when you look at what’s happened in this country right now, you tell me that this government is not nationalizing production: automobile industry, financial sector, health care, cap and trade, and not going through the legislative process — look at what they’re doing through the EPA, as far as the energy sector. Look at what’s happening with the National Labor Relations Board. Who would have ever though we would live in the United States of America, where the federal government would be telling a private-sector organization where they can relocate?”

At first, I wanted to laugh. I mean, come on. This is Class A ignorance, wrapped in shiny stupid paper, delivered to America for free. I really want West to keep winning elections because this kind of thing is just golden.

Then, I saw this short piece from Charlie Pierce, which includes a link to and a quote from a Politico "analysis" of West's words.

The conservative congressman hasn't explicitly said as much, but he's following a path blazed by Michele Bachmann, Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul. Each of them ignored the historic barriers and reasons why House members haven't typically sought the presidency because they've were prescient enough to recognize that the equation has changed dramatically. What changed? Thanks to Internet and direct mail fundraising and the national platform offered by cable news shows, even a House backbencher can now build a well-financed national following. And Barack Obama's victory, just four years removed from the Illinois state Senate, suggests the boundaries surrounding the question of office-holding experience have been erased.

As I wrote in a comment, I couldn't be that stupid if I wanted to out of fear I'd hurt myself.

So, along with the rain, a sick kid, a delay in the arrival of coffee, I've had to read the kind of political analysis that only makes sense to morons, written by people who get paid a fair chunk of change to be stupid in public.

Despair, thy magazine is Politico.