The folks from the Party of Tea are doing their damndest to re-elect Barack Obama. God bless them.
[Check out political cartoons about the Tea Party.]
First there were big fireworks at the nationally televised "Western" debate in Las Vegas. Former Gov. Mitt Romney and Gov. Rick Perry beat each other like rented mules. As Texas governor, Perry granted college tuition aid to the children of undocumented immigrants, and Romney beat the crap out of him on that. Perry fought back by bringing up the undocumented Guatemalan who worked at the Romney mansion. Circular firing squad anyone? Thursday is Teddy Roosevelt's birthday. The rough rider would be horrified if he had been able to watch the debate.
As I was watching the debate, I had a couple of thoughts. First, the Democratic National Committee missed a bet by not sponsoring this debate. Second, that Romney did this in a presidential battleground state with large numbers of Latino voters. Last year Latino voters in Nevada turned out in large numbers to re-elect Senate majority leader Harry Reid in response to Sharron Angle's extremist views. Two other important states in the west, Colorado and New Mexico have large numbers of Latino voters.
[See a collection of political cartoons on immigration.]
A couple of days later, Fox News announced that it was adding two more televised debates to the schedule. This was bad news for the White House as President Obama had hoped for five more Party of Tea presidential debates.
Then there was the sad saga of Sen. Marco Rubio. His usual rap included a reference to his parents exile from Cuba after Fidel Castro's ascent to power. It turns out that a group of conservative birthers found out that the senator's parents left Cuba before the communist takeover. I don't believe that Rubio could forget the date of such an important event in the story of his own family. I know the exact date of my great grandparents' immigration to the United States from Ireland and that was over a hundred years ago. So much for everybody's favorite vice presidential running mate.
[See a collection of political cartoons on the 2012 GOP hopefuls.]
Next week will even be worse for the Tea Partyers. Condoleezza Rice's book about her White House years comes out Tuesday. The former Secretary of State takes shots at former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for their conduct of the war in Iraq. This will put a spotlight on President Obama's success in Libya and President Bush's failure in Iraq. Under Obama's leadership, it cost $1 billion and zero American lives to bring down the dictator in Libya. George W. Bush's Iraqi misadventure cost us $2 trillion and the lives of more than 4000 brave young Americans.
By the way, when is the next Tea Party presidential debate? I can hardly wait.
- See a collection of political cartoons on the Tea Party.
- See a slide show about how Rommey and Perry differ on the economy.
- See a slide show of 10 reasons Obama should be re-elected.
Reader Comments Read all comments (7)
dom youngross of OH 4:36AM November 05, 2011
Occupied of FL 2:00PM October 31, 2011
Bill Hedges of MO 9:47PM October 28, 2011