Let's get real. For four GOP debates now, watching journalists solicit crazy answers to serious questions -- mostly serious, anyhow -- has become as surreal as taking acid. In between, all we can do is listen to the most amazing stuff and talk back to our television. So wouldn't the next debate be much more fun if we took the candidates' positions to their logical conclusion? Before it's too late, don't you want to find out how nuts some of these people really are?
I sure do. So here are my suggested questions for a truly enlightening evening:
Mr. Trump, you have called for surveillance of mosques and requiring Muslims to register. Do you intend to identify Muslims by pigmentation, or by the wild look in their eyes? If so, how do you tell them apart from Mexicans? Looking forward, do you see Japanese internment camps as a definitive model for solving both problems? In conceiving such camps, will you wall off the Mexican section, and allow the Muslims to celebrate their favorite holidays, like Ramadan and 9/11?
Dr. Carson, you have compared Obamacare to slavery. In your mind, was slavery more like being stuck in the emergency room, or paying high deductibles? Have you ever interviewed a slave? If so, did you inquire about their healthcare? And do you think the movie "12 Years A Slave" was wildly exaggerated?
Ms. Fiorina, you scored points by sticking it to Donald Trump when he ridiculed your appearance. Did you get this idea from your 2010 Senate race, when you ridiculed Barbara Boxer's hairstyle? In your view, is same-sex ridicule okay? Is it conceivable that California's voters rejected you because they didn't like you? Or, like you, did they see the presidency of the most powerful nation on earth as a more appropriate entry level job for a woman with your mastery of factually dubious talking points?
Senator Rubio, you bravely advocate special operations against ISIS where "we strike them, we capture or kill their leaders, we videotape the operations" because "I want the world to see how these ISIS leaders cry like babies "and "begin to sing like canaries..." Have you run your cinematic ambitions past the generals charged with filming this operation, then getting American soldiers and their captives out of hostile territory alive? How do you know that these erstwhile jihadists will begin acting like stoolies in a '30s gangster movie? Has it occurred to you that, as a military strategist, you may resemble George Patton less than George Armstrong Custer? Have you imagined the Battle of Little Big Horn reenacted by jihadists with videocams who think scalping is for sissies? As president, how will you react if murderous fanatics begin starring captured American soldiers in special movies of their own?
Senator Cruz, in claiming Galileo as a model for your vigorous denial of climate change, you confused his opponents with flat-earth advocates. Do you, in fact, believe that the earth is round? Does your remark reflect a genuine lack of basic scientific knowledge? Or are you striving to make your enthusiasts forget that you graduated from Princeton and Harvard?
Senator Rubio, you have advocated the "sunlight" of disclosing a candidate's donors, while a "dark money" group channels millions from undisclosed sources to pay for pro-Rubio commercials. Were you "shocked" to discover this, like the cop in "Casablanca"? Are there, in fact, two Marco Rubio's? Or, like Sybil in the movie, do you have multiple personalities dedicated to each of your biggest soft-money donors?
Governor Christie, you favor refusing asylum to Syrian orphans. Might you, instead, vet people of small stature to screen out murderous jihadist midgets? Are traumatized six-year-old Syrians uniquely skilled and vicious? If radicalized children are such a threat, what would you do about Muslim preschools?
Ms. Fiorina, you have said that among your first acts as president would be to "call my friend Bibi Netanyahu." How many times have you actually met your friend Bibi, and how elastic is your definition of friendship? Do you, in fact, have friends? Or is Bibi more like the imaginary friend kids make up when they're five years old?
Mr. Trump, your solution to ISIS is to "take away all their oil." Did you get this idea from watching retired army officers on Meet the Press? Can you be more precise about logistics? Or is the only problem how many oil tankers to send after your rhetoric reduces hardened jihadist killers to supplicants desperate to please you? If so, would you make them pay for the tankers?
Senator Cruz, your strong professions of evangelical faith seem to affect your stated view of science. Do you still believe that fracking is not just an oil extraction technique, but a "providential blessing"? If so, did God give us global warming to put date palms in our backyards? On the subject of evolution, do you believe that "The Flintstones" was a cartoon, or a documentary?
Dr. Carson, you have referred to prospective Syrian refugees as "rabid dogs." Given your fondness for Nazi references, are you by any chance familiar with how the Nazis characterized Jews? Do you still think that an armed Jewish populace could have taken out the entire SS and Gestapo, and that the shooting victims in Oregon should have tried harder? Back to Syria, are the Chinese still there?
Senator Rubio, by the estimate of a conservative tax research group, your tax cut for the wealthy would virtually double the deficit every year, adding about $4 trillion to the national debt over the next decade. How do you relate this problem to your experience with credit cards? Is there an undisclosed foreign entity -- like, say, the Chinese -- who would be willing to balance your budget by funneling $4 trillion through your dark money group?
Ms. Fiorina, you claim to be qualified to be president because you "actually know how the economy works." When did you acquire this knowledge? Was it after you got kicked out of Hewlett-Packard? Given that no one has offered you another CEO job, did you learn how the economy works by reading? If so, was your principal source of information"Atlas Shrugged"?
Mr. Trump, a recent Pew Research survey shows that more Mexicans are leaving the US than staying. How do you explain this? Do you have a formula for making sure that the millions of "rapists and murderers" are leaving, and the handful of "good people "are staying? Will Mexicans in both categories have to register?
Governor Bush, let's talk. Do you ever wonder what you're doing in the company of these pretenders? Would one of the "cool things I could be doing" include hanging out with a smarter group of people? For that matter, do you ever feel like you wandered into an insane asylum, and can't get out?
If so, I sure do understand. You're awfully stoic about it all, but that's how it looks from here.
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