Breaking News: John Bolton Still Around

Looking over Yahoo headlines and saw Ex-UN Ambassador: Obama Not Qualified as President, and thought "Hmm, I wonder what that's about."

But then I saw the lead paragraph:

DES MOINES, Iowa – Former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton says President Barack Obama isn't qualified to lead the country.

And I'm like, "John Bolton doesn't like Obama?  This is news because..."

I mean, seriously.  This is neo-freak John Bolton, for christ's sake.  There's not even a good reason anyone's even listening to this bozo, let alone taking his criticism of Obama seriously.  And in Iowa of all places.  Like, seriously.  John Bolton has some chance at the presidency.  I'd give better odds to a hobo off the street. 

The fact that Republicans are still stuck with creepers like Bolton hanging around is proof of how inept they truly are.  They needed to shuffle that guy off to academia a long time ago and burned all the bridges in between.  And the party is stinking with them.  John Bolton, Dick Cheney, John McCain, Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, please.  Retire these people.  They are all stones around the neck of anyone associated with them.  It'd be like forming an NFL team entirely based on Hall of Fame players who went broke and need the money.  Yeah, they might have been good in their time, but that time was a long time ago and these people are now an embarrassment.

Of course, the only new Republicans who can gain traction these days are freakshows like Palin and Bachmann; but at least the media knows these people are lightweight entertainers.  They still listen to Gingrich and Cheney as if they know something; despite the fact that they're not only unelectable but can't even be hired by people who are electable. 

And Bolton.  Jesus christ, John Bolton.  Why anyone would want this guy associating with them is beyond me.  It's a new day, yet not only are Republicans going with a Greatest Hits release, they're culling it from some of their biggest disgraces.  But I suppose since the GOP doesn't really have many long-term successes, outside of Ronald Reagan and Abraham Lincoln, that might be the only option they have.

My Parlimentary Mystery

One of the mysteries I haven't been able to figure out is what the allure of parliamentary-style governments is.  Because we already have coalitions in our government.  Sure, there's the hardline Democrat or Republican thing.  But without a doubt, that's a fairly superficial label. 

Conservative Democrats are always more likely to side with their fellow conservatives, not because they're weak-kneed traitors, but because that's what conservatives do.  The question shouldn't be why they're voting conservative, but rather, why they call themselves Democrats.  And what exactly do we imagine is happening when we get steel workers in Ohio voting for the same president as tree-hugging hippies in San Francisco?  Sounds like a coalition to me.

And so we basically have coalition governments.  That's how FDR did it.  That's how LBJ did it.  That's how Reagan did it.  Getting your party's majority in Congress is important, but it's not enough if you can't get your party to obey.  And so FDR cobbled together farmers, and laborers, and blacks, and intellectuals, and anyone else he could grab in order to pass his New Deal.

Same thing with LBJ.  These men didn't pass liberal legislation because they were so strong, but because they were so good at working their coalition.  And fortunately for them, they had more liberals in their coalition than Obama does.

Elections Forever

And so I'm at Socratic Gadfly, because I wanted to write a follow-up post to my one on Critics I Don't Like.  And I see this post about Canada's silly excuse for politics, talking about how The Canadian Parliament gave a vote of no-confidence to conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, triggering parliamentary elections.  To which Mr. Gadfly says "I love parliamentary governments."

And ok, I confess that I don't know much about parliamentary systems, but I don't know.  I just think this sounds like a dreadful idea.  It'd basically be like an everlasting impeachment election, with Republicans mounting continuous votes of no-confidence, grinding all congressional business to a halt as Democrats are constantly staving off every attack.  All it would take would be a lucky break at the polls, and Obama would be history; long before he had the chance to get anything done. 

Maybe I'm missing something, but this sounds absolutely awful.  I don't know how other governments get anything done, but I can't imagine this working out well for us.  Am I missing something here?

The Critics I Don't Like

I don't care what your expectations before 2009 were, any reality-based review of Obama's first two years shows that Obama got a lot of legislation passed in an extremely hostile environment, with the strongest string of liberal-based legislation we've seen since LBJ; and before that, FDR.  That's simply undeniable.

Point: Obama got a lot of fucking shit done, and there isn't one among us who can claim to have done as much as Obama.  Yes, that's because he's the president and we're not; but that's kind of the point.  Sure, he could have done more and I'm sure he has many of the same regrets we do, but it's not easy when you have to get everything right and even one wrong word can destroy everything.

Yet all the same, there are critics who will INSIST that Obama should have done more.  And his track record on domestic surveillance and whatnot leaves much to be desired.  And they'll go so far as to lay blame on Obama for every political indiscretion they believe he's made, finding each to be more inexcusable than the last. 

But all the same, they think Obama's doing relatively well in a tough situation, and as much as they know he can do better, they're willing to accept him as being better than the alternative.  Overall, they consider Obama to be a decent man who not only wants to do the right thing, but has the ability to do it and really needs to take a stronger stand in order to overcome the obstacles he's facing.

Those people are ok with me.  I have no problem with this sort of thing at all.  I disagree with them, of course, and will defend Obama when I think a defense is warranted.  But I think their points are reasonable, and it's only in a matter of degrees on how much we expect Obama to do more.  In the end, we both agree that Obama is trying to do the right thing, but could have done better.

The Other Ones

It's the other Obama critics I have a problem with.  The ones who insist that Obama is a conservative Democrat or a moderate-conservative Republican or an evangelical Christian or a traitor or a fool. 

The ones who take great joy exposing the truth about Obama in everything they write; all in order to educate us fools so that we finally understand what a charlatan Obama truly is.  The ones who insist that we're suckers being fleeced.  Or who state as fact that Obama is the bastard child of Jimmy Carter and George Bush, exposing him to be a weak-kneed, thumb-sucking, Kumbaya-singing moron who enjoys trampling our freedoms and making a mockery of everything we believe in.

These are the people I have a problem with.  Because, come on.  Whatever you may think of Obama's decisions thus far, it's obvious the man's not an idiot.  Whenever he speaks, it's obvious there's a real person inside thinking about what he's saying.  Moreover, he's obviously someone who has embraced liberal ideas, but who is willing to compromise when he feels it's to his advantage. 

Liberal by Default

And that's exactly what Obama has always claimed to be.  He never said he's a liberal ideologue.  He just wants whatever works, and it just so happens that liberalism works.  And that's why it's at the basis of everything he's trying to do, because he wants to give us what works.  He's said that repeatedly.  This isn't a bug in his personality; it's a feature.  He wants to do what works and he doesn't want to have to spend a long time messing with it.

And let's be honest.  Presidenting ain't easy.  It's not like the man has time to sit down and read Talking Points Memo and Crooks & Liars all damn day.  I guarantee you that there is a LOT OF SHIT that each of us know that Obama will never hear about.  He simply doesn't have the time to sit back and read all the news and analyze it.  No matter how much information Obama is fed, it can never be enough.  That's why Nixon started wiretapping people, and even that wasn't enough.

As scary as it is, a President can only take the information that's given to them and pray they're asking the right questions and getting the right answers.  They're doing all this shit on the fly and everything they say or do becomes the news the moment they do  it.  Under the circumstances, Obama's performance is utterly amazing.

Attacking the Wrong Side

Fortunately, the vast majority of Democrats approve of Obama, which is why his approval ratings have remained as high as they have.  Even the mildly disgruntled Obama critics aren't likely to tell a pollster that they disagree with Obama.  Or if they do, that it's like to stay that way by Election Day.  They might not like what Obama's doing, but they certainly prefer him over the alternative.

But for some reason, Obama's hardcore critics decided it somehow made more sense to bash Obama for not doing more, rather than making Obama's job easier by bashing the Republicans who were stopping him.  Rather than focus their energies on Republican lies and trickery, as they had for the previous eight years, they decided to turn their same muckraking skills on Obama.  Every failure, real and imagined, was due to entirely to Obama's failings, and anyone who doesn't agree is a brainwashed fool who is too dumb to see the truth.

These are the ones I have a problem with.  And the dividing line is this: If you think that Obama is better than the alternative, then you're ok.  But if you think that Obama is as bad as or worse than the alternative, then you're part of the problem. 

The Dividing Line

Because, whoopdidoo!  You exposed Obama again for not having passed something he talked about on the campaign trail.  Yea you!  Meanwhile, Republicans are destroying unions throughout the country and crippling already under-funded schools.  People are literally dying because of Republican policies.  That's the alternative.  Not Pie-in-the-Sky Universal Healthcare and ponies in every garage.  But real villains doing really bad things. Obama may be flawed, but he's the best sheriff we've got.

So to pretend as if Obama's policies somehow equate with conservativism, or that he's the same as Republicans; I'm sorry, but that's insane.  Seriously.  Anyone who can look at Obama's healthcare bill and honestly say that it's no different than if we had a Republican president, that person is a total nut who shouldn't be taken seriously. Differences of opinion are fine, but we're talking difference of reality, here.  And as usual, that's where we have to draw the line.

In short: It's perfectly ok to criticize Obama.  Just don't make an ass of yourself about it.

A World Without Borders

I read an interesting interview in Fortune titled Where in the World is Cheap Labor?, which was an interview with Auret van Heerden, the CEO of the Fair Labor Association, an anti-slave labor group. Basically, it confirms everything Doctor Biobrain has been saying about the exploitation of cheap labor.  And as I've always said, the more Big Business relies upon these places, the sooner they'll develop a middle class and improved labor conditions.

Exploiters don't create inequality.  They exploit the inequality that already exists.  And by doing so, they slowly begin to depend upon a more productive and sophisticated labor force.  As it turns out, smart workers are better workers.  And of course, the more people you employ, the more managers, middlemen, and accountants you'll need to keep track of it all.  And you have to pay those people real wages.

And so Big Business will continue to flow into these places, up to the point that the expense of being there is in balance with the productivity they'll get from the workers.  And once the workers become too expensive, then Big Business will move to the next Second World Country and start anew.

It's like they're reverse-locusts.  They swarm in to suck the countries dry, but end up leaving them more prosperous than they arrived.

Note: This is only in reference to the exploitation of cheap labor, not the exploitation of natural resources; which goes by a completely different set of rules.

Second Note: The processes I'm talking about occur over decades, not years.   But in the grand scheme of things, a few decades is nothing.  Important change never happens overnight.


Economic Tide

And as the Fortune article asks, what happens when globetrotting Big Business finally finishes their sweep of the globe, and each major area has already seen wages rise to an economic balance; and then what?  What can they do when there is no relative inequality between the various nations?

What else?  Raise wages for everyone.  And where's the money going to come from?  Consumers, and hopefully, profits.  But it was all inevitable, eventually.  As much as it pains them to realize it, we're worth more to them as workers than slaves, and there really is no such thing as a free lunch. 

At this point, I'm just going to quote the first two Q&A's, as van Heerden does a better job than me at explaining it.  Enjoy!

Is China still an option for global manufacturers seeking lower costs of production?

It's an incredibly fast-moving situation. Labor markets which we previously thought were inexhaustible, like China and India, have actually tightened up quite dramatically. Employers can't get workers. Wages have gone up. Add to that the energy cost increases, and the factories, the contract manufacturers, are now suddenly squeezed. So they're turning around to their buyers -- to the retailers or the brands -- and they're saying, "Hey, my prices need to go up." And the brands are saying, "Whoa! We don't think we can pass those prices on to the consumer." There's something of a train smash looming.

Won't they just look for cheaper alternatives elsewhere?

They're wondering if they could push more stuff to Bangladesh or Vietnam or Indonesia and so on, but the options are limited. The last country added to the supply chain was Cambodia in 2000, and there are only one or two places left. People are looking at Africa again to see if there isn't something that they've overlooked there. Finding another cheap platform, another cheap country, was the default until now, but frankly that's no longer an option. There's nowhere else to go.

It's always a mistake to extrapolate the future from how things are exactly right now.  In the grand scheme of things, there's no such thing as a free lunch.

Politicking Ain't Easy

I saw this post at TPM about the New Hampshire Republican who said that "defective people, the drug addicts, mentally ill, the retarded -- all of them" should be left to die. And well, that is what it is.  I suppose I can understand the sentiment in a theoretical sense, but, well.  No. 

But the part of that post I found more interesting was a letter that guy wrote to a newspaper, which I'll reprint in its entirety, as it's a bit of honesty that really should be better understood:

I'm a New Hampshire Republican representative. Got slid in during the Republican landslide last fall. So far I really don't know what I'm doing. The whole process is so alien to anything else. A new Rep really needs a coach along with him at first but there is no room for anyone to sit with him, and no way they could holler at him in a committee meeting.

Am learning the hard way. Little by little. I think that a few of the other first time reps must be in the same boat with me. We're all sort of bluffing it out. The few votes I've made so far I really didn't know what I was voting for or against. Just looked at the people around me and went along with them.

There is so much pomp and circumstance connected with the legislature. You have to separate the real doings from all the fluff. People who obviously are making very generous salaries come and go as witnesses before the various committees with tidbits of usually self-serving information. You wonder where the money is coming from to pay these people.

Yes, slowly if I keep my health, I'll master this trade and hopefully be of some use to the state. I like to write about things and applied for this job mostly to have the opportunity to write about politics from the inside. They say the pen is mightier than the sword but you've still got to get your scribbling read by the people.

And that's the truth, I'm sure.  I believe it.  I just wish more politicians would say this sort of thing.

Because all new jobs are tricky to become accustomed to, and I can easily understand how difficult being a legislator would be.  Yet, we expect them to do it all.  They're supposed to know how to raise funds, fight opponents, manipulate the media, run a staff, respond to constituents, save the day, and never make a mistake.  And, if they're lucky enough to have time left over, they'll read the legislation they're voting on; even if it was changed a few hours before the vote.

Because it really is too much for most people to handle.  You get into office by running on charm, sham, and luck; and then you hold on for your dear life for a few years until you can start to understand how it all works.  That's how it is for regular jobs, and in politics, it's like that times a million.  And so you really are dependent upon the party apparatus to tell you how to vote and what to think. 

And of course, even those people are just making it up as they go along and nobody ever really has any firm answers about anything.  Just as soon as you think you understand the rules of the game, everything shifts and you're out of a job.  Any politician who can stay in office past two terms has a real knack for it and should be commended for his/her performance.



And that's why, whenever I hear people whine about how Obama sold us out or is a conservative, I just want to punch them in the fucking face.  Seriously.  Oh, wah!  So you gave a few bucks to Obama.  You put a sign in your yard and a bumpersticker on your car.  And now you think he owes you the world, because you're his base and you have all the answers.  Well why the hell won't you get off your ass and run for office, if you think it's so easy?  Huh?

Because seriously, I'm not trying to make excuses for him.  This is an acknowledgment that this shit is hard, and as smart as I am, I don't want his fucking job.  And if the only thing Obama ever did was to prevent John McCain and Sarah Palin from owning the Whitehouse, that was more than you've ever done in your life.  So you should be down on your knees praising his black ass that he did what you couldn't have ever done, and what many of his critics said couldn't be done.

And if he gave us a respectable healthcare plan, job stimuli, credit card and Wall Street reform, and a repeal of DADT; well, that's just the icing on the cake.  Because the man's doing an impossible job and needs all the help he can get.  And thanks to Republican over-reach, he really shouldn't need that much help, as we're all getting a clear idea of how much better Obama is than the alternative. 

History as Science

People have a tendency towards accepting things that fit what they were looking for, while rejecting anything that doesn't fit what they were looking for.  It's like our brains light up like a pinball machine when we see what we were hoping to see.  But because we're such fallible creatures (as are all creatures), that tendency must be rejected.

If anything, the moment you see an extraordinary claim that fits what you want, you must dig deeper to make sure you're not lying to yourself.  That's because your natural defenses of cynicism and disbelief are down, and you can end up believing all kinds of crazy stuff with no bearing on reality.

And so it is with Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Exxon) and his theory that deficit spending will bring another Holocaust.

As he says:

We can do better than that, but we'd better hurry, because two, three, four more years of what the president proposed, 1.65 trillion in deficit spending? There's not gonna be a country. I don't care how much smarter we think we are in this country. How much more intellectual some of the liberals may be here, you can't outrun history.

There are lessons that are established and if you commit this act, then in the laws of nature and history, you're gonna get this result. You spend too much money you don't have for long enough, you're gonna lose your country. It's happened over and over. Doesn't matter how smart you are, it doesn't matter how many letters you have after your name, it doesn't matter — if you commit certain acts, you're gonna get certain results. Just as sure as it's a scientific experiment that's been proved over and over. Well it has. You spend too much, you're gonna lose the country.

His basis for this?  He read a book.  A history book.  Ahh, one of those.  Say no more, Congressman Gohmert.  We thought you were crazy, but if you have a history book to support your crazy claims, then I guess your theory is solid.

Because, yes, when they say that history repeats itself, they mean it exactly repeats itself, even when circumstances building up to events are completely different.  As long as you can find a few circumstantial parallels, it means you're heading towards the same place.  Based upon this, I've deduced that the leader who will bring about this new holocaust will be named Schmadolph Schmitler, or possibly Shodolph Shotler; depending upon whether or not they repeal Obamacare.

Seriously, Gohmert really needs to consider not only reading another history book, but getting some analysis of what it means.  But then again, if he thinks he already knows more than the intellectuals with "lots of letters after their names," it's fairly obvious that the guy will ignore anyone who doesn't already agree with him.  The man might not know much about history, but he knows what he likes.

Politics are Real

So Walker and his Republican buddies did it.  They pulled the plug on government unions in Wisconsin; thus poking the union machine in the eye.  What a bunch of morons.  I mean, it was a dumb enough scheme to begin with, but they knew they had to do it with a quick knock-out blow.  Once that was denied them, they needed to re-group and play it cool for a few years; at least until things simmered down some.

But no.  They believed the hype about the future going to the bold and they went bold.  And now, they're screwed.  Royally.  Whoever out there that's telling people that politics isn't real doesn't know what the hell they're talking about.  Life isn't a slippery slope; it's a pendulum.  The more you push in one direction, the more the other side will push back.  Make a win on abortion rights in the 70's and you've enraged anti-abortion crowds for decades to come. 

That's the reality of it.  Actions cause reactions and there are no knock-out blows.  And if your plan requires your opponent to lie down and die after you blast them your hardest, then your victory will most assuredly be short-lived.  The only easy victories are the ones your opponent can't rally support around. 

Cause and Effects

And like the whole collective bargaining thing, that wasn't a cheap gimmick or some easily won toss-off from a simpler age.  People fought for that, almost as hard as the people who fought against it.  And finally, the people who were against it realized it wasn't worth the fight.  Because you know what the alternative is?  Strikes.  If you don't give unions the right to negotiate contracts legitimately, then they'll take the power illegitimately.  That's life.  That's how it works.

And then, of course, there's the impending recall elections which will most assuredly take down at least a few of the eight eligible Republicans.  Their Senate leader doesn't think recall laws are "legit" because you shouldn't be able to recall a politician for how he votes.  But why the hell not? 

It'd be one thing if the Wisconsin GOPers had run on the platform of crippling unions, but they didn't.  Now Wisconsinites want another bite at the apple, now that they know what they're getting.  That sounds perfectly reasonable to me.  As I've said before, democracy is not a term-limited dictatorship.  Nor is it a free pass to do whatever the hell you want, just as long as you can trick your way into office. 

These recalls are what democracy and accountability are all about.  If you don't like facing the will of the people, then you shouldn't get into politics.



And that's why Obama couldn't just give us single-payer universal healthcare.  Well, the main reason was because Democrats in Congress wouldn't have let him.  But even if he somehow pulled out all the cards and forced it on them, that would be the least of his worries.  Because people don't like it when you move too far, too fast.  People get scared with radical change.  And if everyone were to be told they'd be losing their health insurance soon, and instead be taken care of by Big Daddy Government; a lot of people would have been unhappy about that; to say the least.

And so it's about giving people what they can accept.  That's what democracy is all about.  Because democracy isn't some nice-guy, feel-good gesture designed to make us all feel happy inside.  And it's certainly not about giving us the best leaders, as we obviously could do better than what we've been getting.  It's about giving people control over their own lives, so they feel like the system can work for them.  And if you deny them that power and insist that elections are meaningless and you hide your real plans until after you're elected, then you're going to get bad results.

Democracy isn't for the benefit of the people.  It's for the benefit of the government.  People who have input into their daily lives are a lot happier and saner than people who do not.  That's simply undeniable.  That's not to say you can please all the people all the time, as you obviously can't.  But you at least need them to think that they have a legitimate means to control their lives. 

And that means we must ensure that elections have meaning.  And in Wisconsin's case, that means they're just going to have to have another one, as the last one was obviously a lie.  Politics are real.

Obama Defies Caricaturization

Carpetbagger has a post highlighting how rightwing freak Michele Bachmann (R-Crazytown) attacks Obama for running a "gangster government," while also attacking him for being too weak.  As he notes, it can't be both.

But of course, we saw this whole "Obama is too tough and too weak" thing  back in 2008, when Hillary Clinton's people were making the same argument: Insisting that Obama wasn't tough enough to fight Republicans, while also insisting that his attacks on Hillary were too harsh. And the real problem is that Obama is smarter than his opponents and continues to make political moves they can't comprehend.

Does he always win every battle? No. Does every maneuver he makes work? No.  But, he doesn't fall into political traps or adopt positions he can't easily defend. And as frustrating as that can be for those on the left who want to see him take bolder positions, it's far more frustrating for his opponents, as he gives them so little to work with.

Had Obama adopted many of the bolder liberal positions he's often attacked from on the left for not adopting, freaks like Bachmann would have something real to complain about and their attacks could gain traction. But as it is, they keep attacking a strawman as Obama defies all their best efforts at caricaturing him.

And that's why he's still more popular than his opponents will ever be, and why he looks to be a shoo-in for re-election.  Yes, it helps that the Republican field is so paltry, but that's mainly because Obama has set the bar so damn high.

Huckabee's Kenyan Problem

Mike Huckabee is screwed.  He thinks he's playing some clever game with his "I believe Obama's a citizen, but his Kenyan background scares me" routine, but he's really jumped down a bottomless rabbithole with no easy way back up. 

And his problem is one that far too many conservatives find themselves victim to: You can't say anything to a targeted audience anymore.  Now that lots of people have videocameras in their pockets, can easily save video and audio recordings, and can distribute anything to the world within minutes; you really can't say anything without risk of having it blow up in your face.  Heck, even innocuous-seeming phone calls with wealthy backers can be fraught with disaster.

And that sure does make things difficult for anyone trying to incite hate against another person or group without the whole world hearing about it in your own words.  It used to be that you had to be careful around any microphone, in case it was live.  Now, the whole world's a potential microphone.

Revisionist Media History

Yet all the same, I see comments like this, suggesting that it's now easier to be offensive than it used to be:

This story would have mattered fifteen or twenty years ago. This story would have had a huge impact back then. That was before the new media landscape. You couldn't get away with such blatant lies and pathetic attempts to explain away stupid behavior.

Those days are gone. Right now, with the willing aid of Fox news and the complacency of the sanitized mainstream corporate press, not only can these right wingers make the most absurd claims, but they know the media will not fight them on corrections.

Really?  When exactly was this mytical time when the media held popular politicians accountable for anything beyond the most obvious racial slurs and offenses?  Fifteen years ago would be 1996.  We're to imagine that the media was vigilant against hateful lies four years into Clinton's presidency?  I don't think so.  Not only were those lies not exposed, they were often enhanced by the media.  After all, it was irresponsible not to speculate about Clinton rumors.

The reality is that media vigilance is the exception, not the norm.  There has simply never been a time in America's history in which the media had a sustained demand for the truth.  That's simply not in human nature, and like it or not, journalists are human.  Like most people, they'll spend more time worrying about what their bosses and peers think than in uncovering truth.  Even big stories like Watergate will only become big if the kewl kidz decide it's a big story.

And of course, the reality is that this quickly became a media firestorm which required Huckabee to immediately go into damage control mode, having to pile lies upon lies to defend himself; all of which are being used to bury him.  Had this sort of coverage existed fifteen years ago, Clinton might not ever have been impeached.  The fact that Huck has to go on Fox News to spin his lies only shows how damaging this sort of thing obviously is.

Side Effect or Drug Trip?

And really, Huck's schtick is simply ridiculous.  There is absolutely no way in a million years that he can possibly ride the "Obama's an unAmerican Kenya-lover" into the Whitehouse.  Even if it could somehow get him the nomination, which is extremely doubtful, he would be buried in the General Election.  The only possible way any Republican can win in 2012 is if they can make Obama the villain to a majority of the population, without looking like they're making Obama a villain.  And if that were possible, someone would have figured out how to do it a long time ago. 

Even worse for Huckabee is that he's definitely jumping the shark on this one, as his claims are so provably false that they only serve to embarrass anyone who associates with him. The more he pimps this stuff, the more radioactive he'll become.  Especially as his claims are so provably false and embarrassing that it can only mean that he believes them to be true.  And that means the only people who will want to support him are people who are, themselves, too dumb to be of any use.

Sure, at some level he knows he's playing a game.  But at a guess, I'm thinking he conflated Indonesia with Kenya, and since he had heard something he wanted to repeat regarding Obama's paternal influence upon his mind; assumed these to be the same thing.  That's the only way his Mau Mau Revolution comments make any sense.

And this is a problem that is slowly destroying the Republican Party, as the hucksters are also the suckers, and they can't remember the underlying truth that was somehow supporting the lies they're spinning.  And at this point, I'm thinking Huckabee's leading the pack of the sucker hucksters.  You can't be a good liar if you don't remember what the lie is, and the Republican Party has been lying for so long that there is simply no basis to any of it anymore. 

And that's why they'll be the most surprised when Obama once again beats the turds out of them in a presidential election.  Their only hope is for the Tea Partiers to permit a handsome and polite moderate to win their nomination, and there's absolutely no chance of that happening.  At this point, Obama knows he just needs to hold on to what he can while the GOP destroys itself further every day.