Window Dressing

By Baxter

Oh, dear. We cats just can't write about CPAC yet. There's so much to discuss, so much to laugh at — we just can't choose. Gosh!

In the meantime, then, we'll focus on the latest GOP travails in the Sunshine State.

Jennifer Carroll, Florida's Republican lieutenant governor, has resigned after being questioned in a racketeering investigation. (Just what Governor Rick Scott needs, yes? A reminder of his own crooked past.) Anyway, as the first African-American and first woman elected to that office, Jen was one of the Republican Party's rising stars — so it must be quite a blow for them to lose her.

But see, this is the trouble that the GOP gets into all the time — because they think they can shove forward a few women and people of color to prove how "diverse" they are. And then those candidates or officials turn out to be disasters. Like:

• David Rivera — You know it can't be good when even Republicans describe you as "pathological" and "Nixonian."
• J.C. Watts — Mr. Family Values turned out to be Mr. Fathered Kids Out Of Wedlock.
• Bobby Jindal — As Chris Matthews said, "Oh, god."
• Ted Cruz — The new Joe McCarthy should remember how the old Joe McCarthy ended up.
• Mia Love — Wasn't she supposed to be in Congress by now? Hm!
• Michael Steele — Indeed, Mikey's found a second act on MSNBC. But he embarrassed himself in a Maryland Senate race, and then the RNC couldn't wait to get him out of his (expensively redecorated) chairman's office. Poor Mikey.
• Clarence Thomas — Oh, please.
• Sarah Palin — Perhaps the ultimate example of disaster, yes?
• Allen West — Crazy man. We rest our case.

How much easier it would be if the GOP would just stop hating on women and minorities. As any good businessperson knows, you can't attract quality recruits if your policies repel them. We cats PURR.