http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/11/01/1443182/-Why-The-GOP-Can-t-Handle-The-Truth?detail=email
William Saletan in Slate has it exactly right: for Republicans, Reality Sucks. The GOP, desperate to divert attention from the fact that its leading Presidential candidates have all the depth and gravitas of third-tier Marvel comic characters, this week seized upon its time-honored strategy of attacking the media. The imaginary offense this time around is the apparent failure of CNBC's debate moderators to show appropriate respect for each GOP candidate's innate stupidity.
The watershed moment came, naturally, when the GOP's most practiced panderer, Ted Cruz, staged an "explosive" whine about the debate questions:
Cruz exploded at the CNBC moderators. “The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media,” Cruz fumed. “You look at the questions: ‘Donald Trump, are you a comic-book villain?’ ‘Ben Carson, can you do math?’ ‘John Kasich, will you insult two people over here?’ ‘Marco Rubio, why don't you resign?’ ‘Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen?’ How about talking about the substantive issues the people care about?”
What a moment! Except for one minor detail:
[Cruz's speech] doesn’t even match the debate transcript. To begin with, nobody called Trump a villain. CNBC’s John Harwood asked Trump how he would fulfill his promises to “build a wall and make another country pay for it” (Mexico), “send 11 million people out of the country” (undocumented immigrants), and “cut taxes $10 trillion without increasing the deficit.”
Second, nobody asked Carson whether he could do math. CNBC’s Becky Quick asked Carson how he would close the $1 trillion gap between current federal spending and the revenue projected from Carson’s 15 percent flat tax.
Third, nobody asked Kasich to insult his colleagues. Kasich volunteered that Trump’s and Carson’s promises were impractical and incoherent. All of these questions were substantive. In fact, Cruz’s speech was a diversion from the query that had been posed to him—namely, why did he oppose this week’s agreement to raise the debt limit?
Saletan patiently explains why the entire premise of this latest Republican bawlfest about the media is a an utterly contrived farce:
By the end of the evening, Cruz, Carson, Trump, Rubio, and several other candidates had declared war on the press. They claimed to speak for the Republican Party, the American people, and the truth. These candidates are deluded. Many of their statements were falsified on the spot. Others were exposed as absurd by their opponents. It’s true that the debate exposed a division within the country. But the division isn’t between the press and the public. It’s between people who listen to evidence—reporters, policy analysts, and many Democrats and Republicans—and an impervious, defiant wing of the GOP.
The whole "controversy" is fake. The only question we should be asking is "why." Why does a party that is supposed to have some pretense of representing the American people, one presumptuous enough to vomit up onto a public stage no less than sixteen candidates whom it characterizes as "qualified to lead," decide it can throw a collective hissy fit at the prospect of those same candidates answering real questions about their plans for all the rest of us?
The GOP's history of voter suppression provides the most obvious answer (famously phrased by Pennsylvania State Senator Daylin Leach): if you have to stop people from voting to win elections, it's because your ideas suck.
But there's something deeper going on here than just a clumsy attempt by Republicans to avoid discussion of their miserable, incoherent and hateful policies. Kim Messick, writing for Salon, convincingly lays out the case that the "modern" Republican Party is simply incapable of coping in the "modern world:"spending let's just go with the last 7 years of nothing but nothing which is a job harder than doing your job, doing your job you devote the time and consideration and go home doing nothing is a 24/7 endeavor you are constantly avoiding and trying to find reasons for doing so then there are the plans of action although the same they still need to practice repeating at days end you take it home and wring your hands over the obvious stupidity but your arrogance tells you you can get away with it. then you don't and you repeat the cycle same everything is it that they really think something will stick after 60 attempts or do they think they missed something and doing it again not knowing what will reveal it??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
