Another thought on McCain vs. Romney

All the wingnutospheric fawning over Yosemite Mitt reminds me of junior high school girls fawning over KEWT!1!! HAWT!!!1! SEXAY!!! ninth-grade boys. The boys in question may be crappy students who don't do much except fill space on the school baseball team. But somehow, they've managed to convince others of their kewlness and budding BMOC potential. They're the kinds of guys that make you look back decades later and say, "EW! What was I thinking? He was really gross!"

Unless you're a right-wing true believer, of course. Case in point, Kathleen Parker, swooning over George Bush's obviously staged photo op on the aircraft carrier.

As one-two punches go, the Byrd-Waxman sally was a bad day for nerds everywhere. Performing a whiney duet of the desperate, they managed to evoke images of skinny boys studying the quarterback's swagger for clues on cool. It's almost as painful to watch them contort in envy as it must have been for them to watch Bush, a stud muffin no matter what his other flaws, arriving on a testosterone bullet to the cheers of 5,000 sailors.

By now, I'm sure Kathleen Parker has graduated from high school and her political thinking has evolved somewhat.

Meanwhile, Mary Matalin reportedly calls herself "Bush's #1 fan." She has never offered much of an explanation for her wingnuttiness and her opinions show little insight or independent thought. Just like dozens of kids in middle and high school who are drawn to the KEWL kids in the hopes that KEWLness will reflect on them.

See, this is why they will never accept McCain but they will happily cast votes for Mitt Romney. Mittster is the epitome of the cute but vapid cool kid. John McCain, meanwhile, is the smart kid with substance who desperately wants to fit in and hasn't quite figured out that the little lemmings who badly need an authority figure simply won't have him.

Put it another way, the GOP is no longer the Daddy Party. In fact, it's now the Tween Party and is well on its way to becoming the Baby Party.

Meanwhile, in Bohemian Paris, Arkansas:

Filthy grown-up Republicans. I miss them sometimes.

One of the reasons I miss them is that it leaves me in the uncomfortable position of needing to be a grown-up Democrat. I've got the condescension down, mind you, and the whole superior tone of voice -- it's the responsibility I hate. It would be so much easier to just ignore the whole thing and move on.

Note to other reality-based community members: Get used to saying "Yes, dear, but..."