Anybody remember who else was on Paul von Hindenburg’s shortlist to be named chancellor of Germany in January 1933?
Could’ve been Baron Hoodat von Votsizface for all we know.
In most competitions, political, sporting, or otherwise, the runner-up doesn’t get a lot of press, the main reason being that s/he is the First Loser.
The winner gets the trophy, a parade, the keys to the Republic; the First Loser gets a polite interview or two — “Them’s the breaks, hah?” — and then toddles on home to gnaw on his or her liver before hitting the rubber-chicken circuit.
And even this shabby treatment is predicated on there being an actual competition taking place.
So why is the goat rodeo the GOP is trying to pass off as a horse race to nominate its pestilential candidate still on the nation’s front pages?
“Hope is not a strategy,” Chris Christie, one of the aspirants for the First Loser’s tinfoil tiara with bottle-cap medallion, told Faux News on Monday. Especially when one has none. (He’s sticking around anyway.)
Exactly why remains a mystery. The Joisey Jagoff and his fellow aspirants for the glue factory are still whinnying at each other in the paddock while Multiple Felonies lumbers around turn three, farting and wheezing old Nazi marching arias.
Face it, Chris, Nikki, Ron, and Vivek. The only horse’s ass in this race that matters is the one you haven’t even seen since before the starter’s pistol fired. You’re racing for second against a fat Nazi.
Even Hindenburg beat Adolf Hitler, f’fucksake. Only once, and not for good. But still.
Mad Blog Media 
Just like the house, next door to the senate, dumpster has the repug party rigged for his 1000 year reign. Loyal Ronna is doing all the window dressing to make him look like a legit party candidate. The debate was all the department store mannequins giving the windows the final touch.
This 1919 Yeats poem gets a real workout whenever The Fear lays its clammy fingers on some hack like me. But damme if it isn’t always worth revisiting.
Hitler’s thousand-year Reich only lasted a dozen years. How many years is that in 21st-century time?
O’G, I suggest Richard J. Evans’ book “The Coming of the Third Reich”. Finished it on the flight home from North Carolina and the similarities in thirties Germany and today in the USA terrified me. Not that we had hyperinflation and lost a world war but what matters is what the dumbass people think. If you want to borrow, I’ll bring it down to you.
Weimar Germany was a parliamentary government which is why Schicklgruber was able to score the Chancellorship with a minority party, albeit the biggest minority party. It was fascinating, as Evans writes. Too many similarities to go into right now without downing a fifth of bourbon and a bullet to the brain. The other parties and the opposition was fragmented and had its head up its ass. Does that sound familiar?
Tell you the truth, I like Chris Christie. Of all the GOP folks, he seems the most real. Plus, being elected GOP governor of a deep blue state means he must have been able to do something right. And having grown up on the East Coast, I kinda like a guy who is willing to unscrew someone’s head and shit down their neck.
I agree Khal. Christie is the best of the bunch. He knows firsthand how that sociopath operates and is still willing to go against him. Folks from New Jersey know the difference between a real crime boss and a punk poseur. Like they said in the movie, “We’re in a tight spot!”
K, I’ll check out that book. I need some fresh reading material.
Alas, gents, I can’t go there with you on Christie. To me he’s another careerist blowhard, 100 pounds of bullshit in a five-pound silk sack. The worst sort of bully — the kind that runs his mouth until confronted and then turns into a ring-kissing camp follower.
Remember George H.W. Bush and his assault on Ronald Reagan’s “voodoo economics?” Next thing you know he’s Reagan’s veep and all is forgiven. Christie talked shit on Trump until it was clear that the gravy train was pulling out of the station without him and then he jumped on board and headed for the club car. Now he’s talking shit again, except nobody’s listening because for all his shit-talking and ring-kissing he came away with bupkis.
Nah, fuck that guy. He thinks he’s Tony Soprano but he’s only singing soprano because Trump cut off his nuts.
I’m not a big fan of politicians of any stripe. I put them up there with used car dealers.
I held my nose and voted for Hillary even though she would rather rub one out with the Wall Street gang for a quarter million a trick than break bread with factory grunts. Trump is dangerous, most of the rest of the GOP field either crazy or useless, and I think anyone from California on the Dem side would lose to a box of rocks in the Electoral College. So sure, Christie is a turd in a bowl but he’s the only one that floats (occasionally makes sense), has a track record as a governor in a real state, and is not out to overthrow the government.
But yeah, it is a shitshow.
The thing about politicians is that they tend to be a reflection of their society. Remember the old saw, “The customer is always right?” Man, has that ever gone the way of the Model T, the Ford Trimotor, and a sack of groceries that doesn’t gobble up a week’s pay.
The average Joe or Jane with problems that need solving — who has enjoyed an hour on hold with one unresponsive company (“Your call is important to us. Please continue to hold. …”) and robo-replies to emails from another (“We have received your email and it has been forwarded to a Customer Service Representative for review and resolution. …”), as the cat yowls and the offspring howls and the groceries turn out to be spoiled, past their sell-by dates, or not what the life partner wants to eat after a long day on the thankless job ignoring phone calls and emails (“Jesus, this again?”) — well, when s/he watches a fat white congresscritter in a silk suit serving up a poor dinner-theater performance of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” as reimagined by the Zach Brothers (Snyder and Galifianakis) instead of taking care of business as everything goes sideways faster than an ill-considered quip on social media, is it any wonder that the images conjured up are less “God Bless America” and more “God damn it, where did the kid leave my AR-15 this time? I’ve had about enough of this shit.”
You might be right Patrick. It’s a shame that at this point only a republican that values the constitution would even be on my list. That doesn’t mean I would vote for them, but it would give republicans someone to vote for that wouldn’t destroy democracy. Sad fucking state of affairs of state.
I’m a little miffed at Joe, too. I got the distinct impression that he planned to be a one-termer, basically a caretaker, and that the Donks would soon be unveiling the Next Generation of whatever it is they’re planning to sell for the next few go-rounds.
But then it got good to him, and Those in the Know started talking about how Kamala was basically a hard-nosed prosecutor, OK with retail politics, not so good wholesale. And he remembers Obama talking him out of giving Hillary a fight for the nom’ back when he was a hair more lively. So here we are.
An interesting aside: Paul Krugman at the NYT once again makes the argument that Joe has done pretty OK, given the mess he inherited, and deserves more credit for keeping us more or less out of the ditch.
I think the current shadow puppet play is backup in case Mango Mussolini gets disqualified for the Oval Office by the courts and taken off the ballot. Otherwise it’s just whoever gets the Democratic nod by default.
I dunno about you, but I would prefer that he stay in the race and get beat again, but by a more substantial margin. This would help restore some small measure of my faith in our fellow Americans.
And if he happened to suffer a massive infarction during the post-game interview and soil himself on camera while shrieking like a turpentined baboon with piles, well, bonus.
I would prefer apoplexy, but I haven’t heard of any recent victims of it. None in this century for sure. Still the preferred exit for assholes, though.
Apoplexy. A fine word. The medicos don’t use it anymore, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still enjoy watching a terminal case on live TV.