Ratched-ing Up the Crazy

From The Washington Examiner:

Rick Santorum just might get his wish to debate Newt Gingrich head-to-head again before the Iowa caucuses next month.

Santorum and Gingrich are currently the only confirmed participants in the Donald Trump-moderated debate on ION Television December 27.

…snip…

Santorum said he was excited about the possibility of the debate turning into a two-man show.

“I think it’s great,” Santorum said. “I’d love a head-to-head with Newt Gingrich. I’d like to head-to-head with anybody in the field. I think those are the best debates.”

Republican stategist Mark McKinnon:

And this Trump debate is proof the inmates have taken over the asylum.

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They Report, They Decide?

From News Hounds:

Bret Baier visited The O’Reilly Factor tonight to discuss his somewhat contentious interview with Mitt Romney the day before. Apparently, Romney was not pleased and complained that Baier was overly aggressive. Contentious interview with a Republican candidate? A discussion on the top-rated O’Reilly about it in which Baier suggests Romney is a sissy? Is Fox throwing its weight behind its former contributor Newt Gingrich – who, it just so happens, had an hourlong lapdog interview with Hannity tonight? Or is Baier really trying to be fair and balanced with tough questions?

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Putting the Ass in HarASSment

From Dave Wiegel at SLATE:

There are two contradictory rules in politics about how to handle an opponent’s embarrassing scandal.

Door Number One: Pile on. The guy’s not “under fire” unless there are flames on him. In the words of James Carville, “if he’s drowning, toss the sonuvabitch an anvil.”

Door Number Two: Back away. The guy’s on fire: You don’t want to get singed!

The choice that Cain’s opponents are making tells us a lot about how he can move past this. They’re all picking Door Number Two. Rick Santorum, in Iowa, isn’t talking about it. Ron Paul is explicitly saying he won’t go after Cain’s “character.” The Perry and Romney campaigns merely deny that the story came from them.

So who outed Herb Herman Cain?
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Ass Warfare

President Barack Obama:

Either we ask the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share in taxes, or we’re going to have to ask seniors to pay more for Medicare. Either we gut education and medical research, or we’ve got to reform the tax code so that the most profitable corporations have to give up tax loopholes that other companies don’t get. We can’t afford to do both. This is not class warfare. It’s math.

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Debate of Duh Nation

From POLITICO:

Rick Perry battled a withering barrage of attacks in his first debate as a presidential candidate Wednesday night, at times stumbling in the face of harsh criticism – and difficult questioning – at the POLITICO/NBC debate.

But Perry proved himself to be an aggressive, often caustic debater, waiting only a few moments to go on the attack against his top rival, Mitt Romney, for his jobs record as governor of Massachusetts.

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I’ll take ‘Rigging Elections’ for a few million, ALEC

From Sandra Khalifa at CAMPUS PROGRESS:

If there has been any doubt regarding the intent behind this year’s upsurge in voter ID legislation, Governor Scott Walker’s latest move leaves little room to question the conservative disenfranchisement agenda, at least in the state of Wisconsin. In what seems like a blatant attempt to lessen the accessibility of photo identification, Governor Walker’s administration has announced the closure of sixteen DMV centers throughout the state – for “economic” purposes.

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She gets headaches? I thought she was just a carrier!

From Andrew Levy:

(CNN) — First of all: Michele Bachmann will not be getting my vote for president.

But that is a political decision, not a medical one. Reading media reports that she suffers from a severe migraine condition, I feel for her.

As one of over 30 million Americans who gets migraines regularly, I suspect I’m not alone in feeling empathy here. Bachmann has the same problem, politically speaking, that millions of other “migraineurs” experience with their co-workers, bosses, and friends. If you’ve never had a migraine, you tend to assume that the blinding headaches and neurological disruptions mean that the migraineur is either very brave, or very fragile.

The truth is neither of these.

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Texass 2-(Mis)Step

From Alex Pareene at Salon:

Even though they have the exact same style of speaking and propensity to execute innocent people, current Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Texas Gov. George W. Bush are very different politicians. And they don’t like each other, according to the New York Times. Or rather their staffs and “camps” don’t like each other.

Rick Perry was Bush’s lieutenant governor. Whether the two men personally like each other is totally unknown (politicians don’t like other humans anyway; that is why they go into politics), but Perry is “signaling” that he is very different from Bush because Bush was a terrible president who left office hated by everyone and Rick Perry would maybe like to be the next president (or he is at least surrounded by people who think he could be the next president).

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