How appropriate that we are in somewhat similar times in 2009 and the GOP has become a traveling circus of misfits ~ morally and economically bankrupted by the Cheney/Bush administration and now wandering in the Dust Bowl of American politics ~ looking for new leadership and wondering what went wrong. Meanwhile Tent cities and shelters from California to Massachusetts are growing with the newly homeless. The National Alliance to End Homelessness predicted in January that the recession/ depression would force 1.5 million more people into homelessness over the next two years
Mike Whitney makes the same GOP Circus comparison in his recent article Requiem For The Republican Party ~ " The poor GOP isn't really even a party anymore; it's more like a vaudeville troupe scuttling from one backwater to the next performing the same worn slapstick. They've simply become irrelevant, a "non-party" that no one pays much attention to apart from the occasional zinger on the Daily Show or Letterman.... The Republicans beat themselves and they know it. It was a self-inflicted wound. (Politicide?) The party has simply run out of steam. How much mileage can one get on a platform which contains just two planks: War and tax cuts? That's not a vision of the future; it's the early signs of dementia."
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22545.htm
But the GOP Carnivale slowly stumbles on, its worn out acts still being trumpeted by its pipe organ FOX News, and now Newt Gingrich shows strong evidence of this dementia with his recent speech to Management ( AIPAC ) where he blasts the Bush administration for being too soft on Iran, which he feels should now be in the crosshairs of American armed forces ~ "I favor taking out Iranian and North Korean missiles on their sites," Gingrich pandered to his wildly cheering AIPAC audience. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/164535
And how out of touch is this? American Progress Report writes that GOP Carnivale Barker Russ Limbaugh " continues to be no stranger to belittling the poor and dismissing the economic troubles of others. In March, Limbaugh scoffed at a question on homeless children, asking, "Would somebody tell me the last time you saw a kid sleeping under a bridge?" As Media Matters reported, even Limbaugh's employer Clear Channel is struggling under the weight of the recession. Already this year, Clear Channel has "shed nearly 3,000 employees, or 12 percent of its workforce." While Limbaugh jets around the country in his $54 million Gulfstream G550, laughing off the recession, does he realize that his own bloated contract is contributing to the rising unemployment rate?" Under The Radar / http://pr.thinkprogress.org/2009/05/pr20090506
No wonder Arlen Specter left this chaotic Circus scene causing Former US presidential candidate Bob Barr to rightfully observe ~ "The Republican Party is in very deep trouble right now..Specter's decision is another sign that the Republican Party nationally lacks any semblance of leadership," as Barr told CNN on Saturday. http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=93420&;sectionid=3510203
Carnivale has not been renewed for a third season and the GOP may not see another election chance for some time with it's outdated message of War and Tax Cuts for the very wealthy.
Allen L Roland http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2009/05/06.html
Cartoon courtesy of Pat Oliphant / Washington Post
