Friday, March 7, 2014

Barbs, Slaps And Slurs

By Baxter

In the olden days, people avenged insults by fighting duels. Today, they don't even get that far, because we have talking head TV shows and social media.

The Republicans should know this better than anyone lately. Insulting others is their stock in trade, whether through their economic and social policies — which demonize the poor and say women are incapable of making their own medical decisions — or by their conduct at, say, Congressional committee hearings.

Darrell Issa, whose checkered past already makes him vulnerable to plenty of insults himself, has had to apologize to Congressman Elijah Cummings, whom Issa gifted with a priceless "I paid for this microphone!" moment that, to the Democrats' glee, will surely haunt Issa forever.

But the GOP insulter-in-chief has got to be Ted Cruz, mainly because we cats love it when Republicans train the abuse on one another. Speaking at the clown confab that is CPAC yesterday, Cruz jabbed three of his party's former standard bearers as "President Dole, President McCain and President Romney."

Whoa. In a hierarchical organization like the GOP, a young whipper-snapper zapping the old guys who have gone the distance will surely raise some eyebrows. (Even we devoted Democrats twitched our whiskers a bit.)

The CPACkers, of course — nutjobs that they are — lapped up Cruz's speech like kittens with a bowl of milk. But we caution our teabagger friends: Watch out for unintended consequences. Like... Bob and Elizabeth Dole endorsing Hillary in 2016. We cats PURR.

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