Most of the motley crew trying not to look like they're lining up a White House run in a couple of years have one or two clear, concise moments of idiocy that they will spend months dodging, obfuscating and fudging around:

• Mitt Romney: once strapped his dog, an Irish Setter named Seamus, in a carrier, to his car's roof. The dog got so scared that it crapped all over the car. The reporter who broke the story, in this Boston Globe profile meant it as an anecdote that demonstrated Romney's crisis management — because he stopped and hosed the car down or something. In fact it added to the slightly cold, creepy atmosphere that surrounds Romney. Also, he refuses to deny he wears special Mormon underpants.
• Newt Gingrich: was having an affair at the same time he led the pursuit of Bill Clinton for having an affair. This is apparently not hypocrisy because Clinton was impeached not for having the affair but for lying about it.
• Rudy Giuliani: is probably going to stick with running for the Senate in New York. But in case he decides to step onto the more vicious national stage once more, it's worth remembering that he used public money to finance an affair, remains friends with corrupt former police chief Bernie Kerik, cross-dresses and runs a very shady business.
• Ron Paul: is a racist. Or at least it seems that way if you read quotes from a political newsletter he put out in the 90s. Here are some extracts that would make delicious additions to campaign commercials in, well, anywhere black people live.
  

  If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be.

  Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty and the end of welfare and affirmative action.

  Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the `criminal justice system,' I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.

  ...we are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers.

• Bobby Jindal: his appearance in this video is bad enough. He looks like some combination of Kenneth the Page and Pinocchio. But in it he claims to have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with a New Orleans lawman during Hurricane Katrina to cut through red tape and rescue people. Except he didn't. He overheard a conversation after it all happened.

  Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

• That leaves Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty — who is ironically seen as boring precisely because he is so scandal-averse. We're choosing to ignore South Carolina Governor and hiking enthusiast Mark Sanford because it beggars belief that he would even consider running for President after running away to schtup an Argentinian lady and lying to everyone about it. If you're wondering why Sarah Palin is not on this list — it's because she's bulletproof. She has been repeatedly caught lying, cheating and stealing. She's been repeatedly revealed as a moron in clever-person's glasses. Any other politician would have been sunk by any one of these scandals. But Sarah Barracuda has built a brand based on narcissistic ineptitude and a perpetual victim status. Perhaps the other candidates should try it.

Yesterday morning, four cops were shot dead in a Washington State coffee shop. Police think it was Maurice Clemmons, a man whose 108 year prison sentence for burglary was commuted nine years ago in Arkansas by then-governor Huckabee.

O'Reilly starts out tough: "A lot of people want an explanation: This was a bad Hombre, and you let him out. Why?" But as Huckabee rolls out his defense, wrapped around a rambling explanation of the American legal system, O'Reilly sort of tunes out :

The post prison transfer board, the process, and I'll be very brief about this, but to understand: They recommended to me, as governor for his commutation, which didn't release him, it simply cut his sentence to 47 years. That would give him parole eligibility. That was the commutation. I'm responsible for that, and it's not something I'm happy about at this particular moment

It's almost too obvious to ask, but we will anyway: What if this governor had been someone who doesn't appear in a show a few hours earlier on the same network as Bill O'Reilly? Would O'Reilly have heard this explanation and then said: "It's not your fault, Governor. I'm not saying it's your fault. I don't think anyone here is thinking it's your fault." Would he have made no mention of Huckabee's extraordinary record of pardoning all sorts of criminals (likely due to his religious beliefs) as governor of Arkansas? Or pivoted so quickly into blaming the Washington judges —who at worst were the last failed link in a years-long chain of missed opportunities? Maybe his hatred of paroles and his love of mandatory sentences would have made a vein-popping appearance.

Consider how pissed off O'Reilly got when Paris Hilton—in jail for drunk driving!—got out a few weeks early:

"You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I'll tell you what his 'pinions is."

This morning, a man walked into a coffee shop in Lakewood, Washington and opened fire, killing four police officers in what officials are calling an "execution-style" shooting. Now police are looking to question 37 year-old Maurice Clemmons, who the Seattle Times reports has had a long criminal history. It started in 1990, when Clemmons was sentenced to 60 years in prison in Arkansas for burglary and theft of property:

When Clemmons received the 60-year sentence, he was already serving 48 years on five felony convictions and facing up to 95 more years on charges of robbery, theft of property and possessing a handgun on school property. Records from Clemmons' sentencing described him as 5-foot-7 and 108 pounds. The crimes were committed when he was 17.

Clemmons served 11 years before being released.

News accounts say Huckabee commuted Clemmons' sentence, citing Clemmons' young age at the time the crimes were committed.

After Huckabee freed Clemmons it was all downhill: According to the Seattle Times report, Clemmons racked up eight felony charges after moving to Washington—the most recent being second-degree rape of a child, for which he had been in jail pending a trial for the past few months. Clemmons was released from jail six days ago after posting his $150,000 bail with help from a company called Jail Sucks Bail Bonds.

Then he might have gunned down four police officers this morning:
Sgt. Mark Renninger, Officers Ronald Owens, Tina Griswold and Greg Richards.

As Arkansas Governor, Huckabee had a long record of pardoning criminals—including murders and rapists: HuffPo reports that "between 1996 and 2004, Huckabee helped to free more Arkansas prisoners than were freed from all of Arkansas' six neighboring states."

After Clemmons—who is still at large—is found and questioned, after the vigils are finished and all the facts are in (probably before that, actually), we can look forward to a long public debate about kids in jail and the limits of mercy.

What is even going on, when "liberal columnist" Maureen Dowd writes a column about how Obama should govern the country the way Sarah Palin promotes books, and token conservative Ross "still at least definitely not Bill Kristol" Douthat patiently explains that Huckabee and Palin are both ridiculous jokes.

Well, what is going on is that Ross "cares" about the "credibility" of the Republican party, and also he knows, as a grown man who reads books and remembers history, that these clowns will not be president of anything, ever.

Whereas Maureen is, as always, internalizing and repeating the dumbest talking points of the Cheney wing of the Republican party (a world where "bowing" is a scandal and "dithering" is a resonant critique) (and also "mom jeans," because, you know, it's not a Maureen Dowd column without a crack about how a Democrat is embarrassingly feminine). Obviously Obama should just act more like a petulant, polarizing moron, screeching for attention and repeatedly castigating the various people who have wronged him, because that would definitely take care of this Afghanistan mess.

Here are the sort of people he could then welcome into his governing coalition, once he "goes rogue."

Ben Smith followed Mike Huckabee around for a while as he sold his new Christmas book.

Huckabee was the governor of Arkansas. He used to be fat, and then he got skinny, and now he is getting fat again. He's also basically as crazy Christian as they come, but he masks this with a genuinely likable sense of humor, which is why he has a TV program on Fox now.

He won Iowa in 2008. He is raising a lot of money. He just won a Gallup poll of potential 2012 Republican candidates. But he has two problems: Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney.

Palin is the more marketable and exciting version of him, both because she says much dumber and insane things and also she is an attractive lady. Romney is the guy who will almost certainly actually win the nomination, because the sensible money guys in the party like him, despite the fact that he is Mormon Robot.

Here is Huckabee being totally not bitter about Sarah Palin stealing his gimmick:

"Some of the people who had excoriated me and really been very dismissive of me for views that I had taken, and labeled me anything from a populist to an ignoramus - the same people have been very defensive [of] and laudatory to Sarah Palin," Huckabee noted, adding that he'd invited her to appear on his weekly Fox show but "could never get any contact."

"I'm glad she's getting the props - I know I'm not nearly as attractive," he said with a guileless grin.

Now Huckabee is just eating his way across America, trying to get people excited about his book, insulting all the other Republicans who were and are mean to him. Pat Toomey and the Club for Growth—the Wall Street wing of the activist conservative movement—still hate him, which will make fundraising hard. And he still openly hates and ridicules Romney, which will probably prevent him from getting the VP slot.

You don't really need to worry about the Republicans in 2012. Unlike solar flares and earthquakes and volcanoes and stuff.

Politico brought Huckabee's newly filed campaign finance report to our attention with an item about how deadbeat news outlets CNN and ABC News owe the campaign $2,906 and $833, respectively, for "Press Travel Reimbursement." We checked, and it does. But the eye-popping figure to us was $23,570 owed by the campaign to Top Kick Productions of Houston, Texas for "travel - charter." Hmmmm—what is Top Kick Productions, and what films has it produced? Why, Lone Wolf McQuade, Deadly Reunion, and Silent Rage! Certainly looks like Chuck Norris' production company. Indeed, Norris listed Top Kick as his employer in a donation to Huckabee's PAC last year.

Huckabee and Norris were famously inseparable on the trail last year, but why would Huckabee be more than $23,000 in the hole to a white ninja/Texas Ranger for travel expenses? An accountant for the Huckabee campaign confirmed the debt to us, but hasn't gotten back to us about why the campaign owed Norris for travel—it looks like Huckabee flew around on a jet either owned or chartered by Norris, and so is obligated to repay him at market rates. But who knew Chuck Norris had a jet?

Representatives for ABC News and CNN had no immediate comment about the fact that they're deadbeats.

The conference, organized by Phyllis Schlafly (she is still around!), took place in St. Louis, which was a neat trick because it meant that even though five congress members and various presidential contenders were there, no one actually covered it, because who wanted to go to St. Louis this weekend?

Issues discussed: "How To Counter The Homosexual Extremist Movement," "How To Stop Socialism In Health Care" and "How To Recognize Living Under Nazis & Communists."

Oh, and Joe the Plumber was there.

Wurzelbacher was given a golden wrench and golden plunger by Reps. Price and King, the purpose of which was to throw a wrench in the works and to flush out Washington, according to the Free Press. He lamented the value placed on good speeches by politicians, quoting Benjamin Franklin's comment that "well done is better than well said."

And Michele Bachmann! Whoo boy! She said that if conservatives take control of Congress next year they will "repeal" ACORN and "defunding the left is going to be so easy and it's going to solve so many of our problems."

And Mike Huckabee wants to somehow send the east side of Manhattan adrift, into the sea, because of the UN building and because he is a terrorist.

According to Huckabee, "it's time to get a jackhammer and to simply chip off that part of New York City and let it float into the East River, never to be seen again!" We are pretty sure the UN building would be seen again! If it avoided running aground in Williamsburg it would probably just wash up on Montauk.

So, who's Kristin Maguire? She's South Carolina's former Board of Education Chairwoman and a big wig in the state's Republican party. She resigned from the board earlier today to deal with "family matters," a term that's long been a disgraced politico's go-to excuse. It used to work, but now people are hip to it and realize that something scintillating, perhaps even sinister, remains unseen. And, according to the admittedly biased FITSNews, that's precisely the case with Maguire. They claim that the mother of four home-schooled children vacated her seat because of her super-secret hobby: writing erotic fiction.

Yes, apparently there are some similarities between Maguire and a virtual alter ego, Bridget Keeney. Like what? Well, like age, number of children and their background in engineering. That's not much to go on, of course, but FITS claims to have seen documents proving Maguire discussed the matter with Sanford ahead of her resignation and that his administration helped her cover her trail. This wouldn't be a big deal, of course, except for the fact that — surprise! — Maguire was thick as thieves with the "family values" set. She even donated $1,300 to failed presidential candidate and rabid bigot Mike Huckabee last year.

Maguire wouldn't talk to the site, but made no effort to deny the claims. Nor did she address allegations that she and Sanford's chief of staff tried, together, like a family, to scrub the skin stories from the Internet. She did, however, tell FITS that she had been to some of the sites where Ms. Keeney's work was archived.

Of course, none of this comes as a surprise: it's part and parcel for the Republican party, a clan that once included Larry Craig, Mark Foley and, by way of ideological network, Ted Haggard. The Republicans have an unparalleled ability to bounce back from sex scandals. People forget. We, like, have the collective memory of a gold fish, but we wonder if, should the Maguire story gain traction and end up being absolutely, positively confirmed, the GOP can dust itself off from this sort of story.

First and foremost, Maguire's a woman. The most prominent Republican sex scandals involve men, who, we all know, are dogs and are at least forgiven for their sexual appetites, like that prostitute-hiring Senator, David Vitter. As for the gays, like Foley, they're quietly and quickly dropped in the political dust bin, like some long-lost uncle no one can quite remember.

But Maguire's femininity, coupled with her post as head of the state's education board, could force the GOP and its followers to confront two things at once: one, women's sexuality, a topic we're sure the right-wing does not want to discuss and, two, children. She long touted teaching abstinence and intelligent design in schools, a stance that made her popular with the right-wing set. Those same family values groups, one of the GOP's most loyal constituents, also have a long history of using children to induce panic when it comes to the gays, because homos can't control their rampant sexuality and then seduce and transform the nation's children.

It would be hard for those groups to ignore Maguire's alleged prose, like a tale entitled "Continental Cuisine," which features a woman blowing a man while his pal wanks one off. (Sample line: "The rhythmic sway of the train car added to the bobbing of my head as I sucked deeply.")

Another tale goes by the name, "Lauren's Masturbatory Musings." You can only imagine what that one concerns. Both are available at FITSNews' site and are quite tawdry, trashy and downright raunchy, which means they're great.

As much as we may love them, it will be interesting to see how the GOP and, more immediately, Sanford himself react to claims that he knew about this rubbish months ago. It's a bit sad, really: the Republicans have been trying with all their might to remake their image. This doesn't do them any favors, even if it's just an unfounded reminder of the party's previous carnal sins.

Image via stewf's flickr.

Like all good Obama opponents, Voight touted tried and true conservative arguments: the President wants to grow the government so that we're all socialist and can't think for our selves and it will destroy America and then we'll all go to hell and burn with the gays and abortionists. That's not verbatim, mind you, but does come astonishingly close to the real thing, which included this:

I'm here to validate the millions of people who are opposeed to the obama healthcare. We're witnessing a slow and steady takeover of our true freedoms. We're becoming a socialist nation, and Obama is causing civil unrest in this country.

Hmm. And here we thought the civil unrest was coming from unhinged ninnies like Voight himself. You learn something new everyday! Please be sure to note Huckabee's unadulterated adoration.

If you watch The Daily Show you've probably noticed how guys like Bill Kristol, John Bolton, Next Gingrich and Mike Huckabee are booked as guests with regularity. Perhaps you've found yourself wondering, "Why the hell would these guys want to appear on The Daily Show?" I sure have! And now, thanks to Daily Intel's Jacob Gershman, we know why.

While the (conservative) movement professes a disdain for the "liberal media elite," it has made an exception for the true-blue 46-year-old comedian. "He always gives you a chance to answer, which some people don't do," says John Bolton, President Bush's ambassador to the United Nations and a Fox News contributor, who went on the show last month. "He's got his perspective, but he's been fair." Says Bolton: "In general, a lot of the media, especially on the left, has lost interest in debate and analysis. It has been much more ad hominem. Stewart fundamentally wants to talk about the issues. That's what I want to do."

Conservatives like Stewart because he's providing them a platform to reach an audience that usually tunes them out. And they often find that Stewart takes them more seriously than right-wing political hosts, who are often just using them to validate their broad positions, do. Stewart will poke fun, but he offers a good-faith debate on powder kegs - torture, abortion, nuclear weapons, health care - that explode on other networks. "Shepard Smith did the same discussion [on torture]," says (Neo-conservative Cliff) May. "He kept yelling me at me: 'This is where I get off the bus! Not in my name!' He wasn't arguing with me. It was just assertions and anger. That's not what Jon deals in."

So maybe there's hope that Stewart can book Sarah Palin as a guest! After all, Bill Kristol promised he'd try to get her to go on the show during his last appearance! Wouldn't that just be swell?!

So, yes, the "Czars" are officials in charge of managing and organizing the executive branch's efforts on certain issues, like drugs, the auto industry, energy, and so on. They all have actual official titles—"Energy Czar" Carol Browner is "Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change" and Gil Kerlikowske is the "Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy" and so on—and in fact one of the very few things all of these people have in common is that the media has decided to call all of them "Czars."

And also you should be terrified of all of the Czars, because they are unAmerican. Specifically they are Russian, and did you notice how we nationalized the car industry and then appointed a Czar to run it, which is what the communists did, according to Neil Cavuto?

(Thanks to intern Amber van Natten for meticulously putting together this video!)

The song is by some presumably terrible conservative song parodist named "Weird" Paul Shanklin (j/k his real nickname is "Racist" Paul Shanklin), and Chip mailed it to all the RNC members whose votes he needs to lead the committee, and then the dreaded MSM got word of it and, yes, sorta misrepresented the whole thing, or at least oversimplified it, and now the kings of backlash politics will ride the derision of the elites to victory, again.

This November everyone declared the GOP dead, forever. They became a stupid useless rump party, representing only racist white people in the old Confederacy and angry white militia members in Oklahoma and Texas and Montana. How will they ever win an election again, now that only white males vote for them? They'd have to modernize and liberalize and stop loving God and hating Gays so much, that's how! Well, that's all bullshit, and the future of the party remains in the hands of puffy white drawling southerners allied with slimy rich businessmen Mormons. Yes, Mike Huckabee, charming friendly gay-hating bigot with a pretty good sense of humor, and Mitt Romney, android rich person with 500 square-jawed sons, are perfectly legitimate party leaders and the GOP will do just fine doing what they've been doing for 40 years—stoking class and racial resentments, fear-mongering, hating queers and taxes, we all know the drill.

In other words while it may seem like they're shooting themselves in the leg by promoting this Chip Saltsman dick and his funny racist little song, they're just sticking with what works.

Besides, the stupid song itself is obnoxious because it reappropriates a leftist critique of culture for nefarious purposes, not because it has the word "negro" in it. It's only "racist" so far as it assumes all of Obama's appeal stems from this racist archetype and not from his own qualities as a remarkable person. And because it's right-wing white people using the word "negro" but they're really only doing it to get a rise out of people, and it worked, and that's why Chip Saltsman will be the next leader of the Republican National Committee.

Huckabee's got a "friend" who tells him this whole mess is the result of "financial terrorism": "Just today, a friend of mine in the financial markets indicated that he's been doing a careful analysis of the last 12 days, and there seems to be a manipulation of the marketplace - at the last half-hour of each day, there is an extraordinary rush of computerized trading going on. He believes that there may, in fact, be evidence of economic terrorism that is fueling a lot of what's going on. Now it's a fascinating idea, that if somebody could break down the world economy, it would have a greater impact that any bomb ever set off. It seems to be there is plausible argument for it."

But, Norris sagely points out, don't forget the Chinese! "Oh yeah, I think - oh definitely, Mike. The thing is, China has one and a half trillion dollars* of our debt. Now, what did we give China for collateral for that one and a half trillion dollars? So the thing is, you know, with our government - what did - what secret deal did they get, give China, said, 'Well, you know, ah, we won't tell the people but you can drill 50 miles off the Florida shore, and do a slant drilling into our oil in Florida,' you know - so a lot of things are going on underhandedly that we the people don't know, and that's why it's so important, Mike, that we the people get the power back. We need a voter revolution in our country." (audience applause)

Also? When Congress took off for the Jewish Holidays, they were really Christmas shopping, and Barack Obama is big on infanticide. Read it here.

Wall Street has become Las Vegas East. Except the difference is, when the gamblers lose at the crap tables in Vegas, they don't have the audacity to go ask the government to cover their losses. The real tragedy was that investments were not all that took a plunge, integrity did. It was in 1995 that Republicans led welfare reform. We quit giving out money to poor people who didn't work. Now we're about to give out huge sums to the richest companies in the land. And some of the people whose very leadership of the companies sank their companies and brought our economy to its knees gained them hundreds of millions and bonuses and pay. Like the CEO of the collapsed Washington Mutual. He's poised to receive 20 million dollars for 17 days on the job. Look, I'd be willing to be fired from any job for half that much money.

The hours of news coverage that preceded Huck's variety show yesterday were also noteworthy. Numerous mentions were made to Barack Obama's post-debate lead in the polls (even as anchor Sean Hannity and other pundits maintained that McCain had indisputably "won" the debate). More surprisingly, conservative columnist Kathleen Parker's call for Sarah Palin to step down, a three-day-old story. To be fair (and balanced!) a segment was also devoted to replaying Rev. Wright's "God Damn America" sermon, and that story is many years old. But it all seemed a far cry from the Fox we watched before the nation became glued to CNBC. It's a Fox that seems resigned to a likely Obama win in November, but determined to make the whole thing sufficiently Pyrrhic that Democrats will be virtually begging John Roberts to take it back.

OK, just two more things really. LOL on the nips:

And LOL on the acne:

TYRA BANKS: Do you want the gay vote?

GOVERNOR HUCKABEE: Sure, I want every vote. Seriously, I want to be president of everybody. And I can disagree with people over a choice they make in their life or a over a lifestyle and still be their president and still say I want to keep you free, I want to keep your country safe, I want to make your taxes lower not higher. I want to solve some issues like the problems we have in education and rebuild our health care system, and I think whether a person is straight or gay, they want a president who is solving issues, not just pointing out differences among people... . I’ve had people who are gay that worked on my staff. It’s not like I’m some homophobe.

Then he says being gay is a sin, but makes it sound like he means "light sin." And he says he's against gay marriage but he tolerates the viewpoints of people who support gay marriage. Here's why all the right-wing Republicans threw up their hands and decided to just vote for John McCain:

TYRA BANKS: “I’m asking you so many questions about this because I love the gays and the gays love me. And I know I cannot walk down the street here in New York City if I didn’t press that issue and truly ask you that.”

GOVERNOR HUCKABEE: “I think you should. I think people will respect my views on that; I respect theirs. The great thing about America is, we can have totally different viewpoints and we can do it without having animosity and hatred. This is one of the great countries where you can have sharp disagreements without killing each other over it. That’s where I think we need to celebrate what is great about America, and that is, we all don’t have to agree.”

[Faded Youth]