My Republican Friends...
...are embarrassed by the field and the foibles of the current crop of Republican candidates for the party's presidential nomination.
My Republican friends -- and I do have them -- are past patience with the Hermanator, who can't seem to recall the difference between Libya and other Arab states, what he is for and what he is against. All he knows is that whatever President Obama did with that country, wherever it is, was wrong, and The Herman would have done better. His brain freeze with the editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel is only the latest evidence of his lack of preparation and credentials for the top job. Never mind the sexual harassment accusations, serious as they may be. The Presidency is not a starter job in politics, with the notable exception of Dwight Eisenhower.
My Republican friends have taken to laughing, bitterly, about Rick Perry. Not only his erratic performance in New Hampshire, not only his inability to remember the third federal department he wants to eliminate (he need only have referred to his own stump speech for a clue). It is the whole Perry package: the walk, the talk, the hair, the Texas twang, the whole deal. That dog won't hunt, as they like to say in Austin, not after W, and my Republican friends know it.
My Republican friends have already dismissed Rick and Ron and Michele and Sarah and when I ask them about Newt, they tend to sigh. "Ah, Newt," they say, "so bright, so gifted, but no, we can't have Newt, not after the checkered marital history, the questionable money-making schemes." Sadly, they say, Newt's too old, his moment is past. Newt, we hardly knew ye. Jon Huntsman? Terrific guy, really knows his foreign policy, great daughters, why doesn't anyone notice him? David Petraeus? Now, there is a general! A regular Ike. But is he even a Republican? Anyway, he just got a new job, for Obama, of all people, and its too late to start in Iowa, with the caucuses just a couple of months away.
My Republican friends then turn to Mitt. They just look blank for a moment. Well, yes, of course, there's Mitt (there's always, Mitt, or at least it seems that way.) Fine guy, great family, did a hellova job with the Olympics. The Massachusetts thing? Well, he was just doing what he had to do to govern that hopelessly blue state. We can count on Mitt to do the right thing, or at least the thing he needs to do to get nominated. "He's our guy," my Republican friends say. "He'll be great.
"Won't he?"