Caspar Milquetoast was a cartoon character that lacked fortitude, assertiveness, and gumption. In short, he was a gutless, spineless, pliable person that bent to the wills around him. He’s the inspiration for the word “milquetoast.” He’s also the inspiration for the figureheads of the Republican Party.

The Democrats still elect leaders that can stand up for what they believe in. The last Republican that had a spine of his own was Richard Nixon, and he nearly wrecked the nation. Nixon was such a terrible president, Jimmy Carter was able to win the election after Nixon’s disastrous second term. Now, I like Carter, but Republicans hate him. So that goes to show just how bad the GOP had gotten with a willful leadership.

So who won the 1980 election? Ronald Reagan. Him? A milquetoast? Sure. His toughness was all scripted and Hollywood by-product. The guy rolled over on his fellow actors when he fingered anyone he suspected of Communist sympathies during the Red Scare of the 1950s. The guy was a mouthpiece. Remember Iran-Contra? Reagan was spineless enough that we could actually say he was dishonest if he knew and stupid if he didn’t. The secret bombing of Cambodia and Watergate, those we could lay right at Nixon’s feet. With Reagan, we could reasonably suspect someone was pulling his strings.

Since 1980, the GOP hasn’t campaigned on issues. It’s campaigned on buzzwords. God, guns, and gays. Family and prayer. Hard on crime. Liberal media. These strike a primal chord with anyone that hears them. The manipulation in GOP advertising and speechcrafting is powerful and undeniable. Find yourself weeping after Ollie North gives a stirring speech about how, in an effort to save American lives, he made some mistakes? Thank the speechwriter, not the mouthpiece. In reality, North was part of a murderous operation that fueled terrorism in the Mideast and Central America – and that also brought in a flood of cocaine to the USA. Mistakes? No. They were deliberate violations of the law, on the same level as organized criminals.

Dubya Bush was another Milquetoast Fascist. Everyone knew that Dick Cheney was working Bush like a sock puppet. When 9/11 happened, Cheney was rushed to safety. Bush was left in a pre-announced location where any terrorist with an RPG could brew up. Bush had been the target of an assassination attempt the night before from a team that used the same method that killed the leader of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, but somehow, was left out there vulnerable while the vice-president got rushed to safety? The man was expendable.

Now there are three Milquetoast Fascists running for the GOP nomination along with Ron Paul. Paul is constantly sidelined by the media because they’re connected to those that are pulling the strings for the other three, and Paul has a spine. I don’t agree with everything the guy says, but he’s a breath of fresh air. Why doesn’t he have more popularity? It’s because he’s making the same mistake the Democrats make: he’s talking about the issues. Herman Cain made huge progress in the polls just by repeating the number “NINE!” Maybe Paul should start chanting, “GOLD!”

By the way, NINE is a homophone for the German word for no, “nein.” “Nein! Nein! Nein!” makes for an interesting tax percentage of zero…

But none of the GOP guys on his own is going to win the nomination. All three are sock puppets. To me, Romney is the biggest disappointment because he could have been so much different from the panderer he’s become. Santorum is an old hand at saying whatever he needs to say in order to get elected. In 1993, Santorum voted with the Democrats on labor issues and NAFTA. Why? His home congressional district had a 3:1 Democrat:Republican ratio. The man wanted to stay in power, so he said what people wanted to hear. Santorum also tried to make the National Weather Service not release information if it would be in competition with a pay service. That’s criminally stupid, and obviously a ploy by commercial weather forecasters to make more cash with a little help from a Santorum sock puppet.

Gingrich is a crusty old man and most likely to grow a spine suddenly. That’s why he’s at the bottom of the three Milquetoast Fascists in the political running. His job is to win just enough votes to force a brokered convention that could allow a different Milquetoast Fascist to emerge as a compromise candidate. Then, unbesmirched by the tars and feathers of the primary season, this new GOP Boy Wonder could charge to the top and grab the brass ring… and then bring the USA that much closer to a republican fascism, smiling all the way.

Dear Mr. Santorum,

How are you? I am fine. I see you lost the Michigan primary by a few percentage points. You seem to think that’s kind of a win. It’s not, really. A lot of Democrats showed up to vote for you. I think that’s mean. It’s like you were some kind of socially awkward person that became the target of a joke homecoming queen campaign. There are some people that voted for you because they like you, but also a lot of people that voted for you because they see you as an embarrassing joke in the GOP.

How they singled you out, I don’t know, since the whole primary has been one long embarrassing joke for the GOP. A lot of the other more embarrassing jokes have already left the race, so it’s not like you’re even the coolest embarrassment to the GOP. And if you really had something original to say, you’d be a victim of a media blackout like Ron Paul.

Don’t worry, Rick. Not enough people like any of the other candidates for them to win the nomination. Even Romney’s biggest backer hates him. Why do you think the Romney SuperPAC didn’t spend a nickel on mass media ads in Colorado? They wanted you to stay in the race as a spoiler so the convention would have to settle for a compromise candidate that didn’t get bruised up in the primary battles.

I don’t know how you plan to regain your dignity, Rick, but you’ve clearly lost it. Look at me, I’m not even calling you “Mr. Santorum.” You’ve fallen that low. You could pull a Jimmy Carter and do some charitable work, but then I think they’d kick you out of the GOP for something as hippie as that. Besides, since you only donated $4000 last year on a $900,000 income, I don’t think your system could take the shock of doing real charity. By the way, Rick, I earn about $50,000, and I donated north of $5000 last year. I know it’s only a grand more than you, but when you run the percentages, you can see how far short you’ve fallen of that mark.

I know you love Jesus, and I think that’s great. Jesus taught us all to be more charitable, so maybe you could make a start by donating 0.9% of your income and work your way up to 10% over the years. I would be happy for you. It’s not how long the change takes, it’s the fact that the change is happening that’s important. If you could help teach the so-called Christian Conservatives to also be more like Jesus, that would be great! Then, as a nation, we would be more compassionate, tolerant, charitable, and generally decent.

Why, just think of how much better the world would be if the major backers of the GOP weren’t making their money off of cheating Native Americans on their oil leases or from starving African children over unfair debt arrangements! It would be awesome if you could get those guys to be more like Jesus!

But I digress. Right now, Rick, you’re not really winning anything. People are laughing at you, not with you, and I think that is sad. Give me a call if you need someone to talk to, OK, bro?

Keep smiling,

Dean Webb

The news this morning was a hoot. First, there was a poll that revealed that the more people know about either Romney or Gingrich, the less they like them. My take on that is the more people know about Republicans, the less they like them. To prove my point, Karl Rove showed his butt on the teevee.

He was all upset about how Clint Eastwood was somehow putting too much money or influence or both in the Democrats’ corner. Really? Seriously? You got the nerve to say that, Rove?

Karl Rove is hollering about the very thing that he himself is doing. I already knew he was a sleazeball running a SuperPAC with anonymous donors. Now I know he’s that much more hypocritical, arrogant, and venal with his boo-hoo-hoo about Eastwood’s latest clip.

I normally tell my Government classes that when the economy is in poor shape, the incumbent president usually loses the November election. Am I going to have to amend that with, “unless his opposition is divided, with each faction led by someone less likeable than a ham loaf? Because although Karl Rove may look like a ham loaf, I like him – and Gingrich and Romney – less than a tin can full of processed pork.

Why are the Republicans hating on Mitt Romney? He’s exactly the sort of man they helped to create. By rolling back regulations and getting rid of government interference in the economy, he’s the very man the Reagan Revolution wanted to see standing on the national stage. Mitt Romney is the Frankenstein Monster of the GOP. You guys created him, and he’s aliiiiiiiiiiiiive!

It’s so very ironic to see the GOP candidates not named Romney complaining and moaning about the unfair advantages that Romney enjoys because of his wealth. It’s such a twist of fate to see them cajole Mr. Romney for firing people and corporate raiding. You were the ones that brought that to the USA, so own up to it. You were the ones that put the judges into the Supreme Court that ruled in favor of Citizens United and allowed as much money into campaigns as superPACs could stuff into them. You were the ones that extolled the virtues of free enterprise as the rich gutted companies and moved their acts to Mexico, China, India, and points beyond. This is all your mess, and now you’re in the thick of it.

Ludwig van der Mises once said that those who criticize capitalism as immoral do not understand what capitalism is. It never purports to be a moral system, like Christianity or Islam do. It is an economic system that holds at its core the idea of individuals making all economic choices, free of government interference, as the most efficient means of addressing everyone’s needs. The GOP has long embraced that ideal, even if they did dilute it with some government involvement. Now the product of that ideal has stepped to the lead of their primaries, and the party complains. The GOP hates itself and needs a serious re-think if it’s going to remain consistent.

Considering he was supposed to have been massacred there, edging Santorum by 8 votes is a huge win for Romney. Of course Santorum’s sudden rise is also a victory for him and Ron Paul actually getting mentioned is a huge victory for him. Those are the winners of Iowa.

Gingrich needs to quit whining if he wants to get more traction. He’s not out just yet, but soon will be due to his lack of organization. Perry is wisely considering an exit. Bachmann was supposed to have tromped over everyone in Iowa, but came in last. Proving she’s insane, she’s gone on to campaign in South Carolina.

After winning Iowa, Romney enjoyed getting an endorsement from John McCain. I see that as a quid pro quo for Romney’s endorsement of McCain in 2008. At the end of the day, Romney’s going to be the GOP nominee. He can win elections and he can negotiate with the Democrats. The GOP may split over this, but it’s time the “Anyone But Romney” group learned that American politics has to be about compromise if it’s going to succeed.

… read the Constitution. Don’t just read it to look at the words and then say, “there! I’ve read the Constitution!” Read it in character. Read it like a slave owner of 1787, seeking to protect his way of life. Read it like a New England businessman bent on securing protections for his aspirations. Read it like a Virginia planter, wary of surrendering his aristocracy to a democratic mob. In so doing, you’ll see that it’s a document full to the brim with compromises, tradeoffs, and concessions. Realize as well that that’s not a bad thing.

What’s bad is when the compromises, tradeoffs, and concessions come to a halt. Politics is the art of the compromise, the “art of the second best,” as one wag put it. We seem to have lost that art in American politics today. Both sides of the aisle are highly polarized, and legislation has ground to a halt. When extremist positions can halt the government of a nation, those positions force a crisis that either succeeds in giving them power or reduces them to irrelevance. The sad thing with that is when an extremist position gains power, it’s typically of an authoritarian bent. Fascists in Italy, Nazis in Germany, Communists in Russia and China, Khmer Rouges in Cambodia, Peronistas in Argentina, Militarists in Chile, Baathists in Iraq and Syria, Khomeini’s party in Iran, Nationalists in Egypt – the list goes on, if you’d like me to keep going, but I’ll stop here as I’ve made my point.

The United States is a special place on earth so long as we continue to be able to make deals with ourselves. That Constitution, written over two centuries ago, endures as a national bond only so far as we’re willing to make compromises and accept the tides of history as they wash over us. Our own descent into extremism over the slavery issue produced our nation’s worst war ever. In terms of repercussions, we still face the fallout of that war today. Although we don’t have any one issue that truly divides the nation today as slavery did in the 1850s, we have the partisans ready to seize upon any issue that, through division, enables them to make a bid for total power. This is a very unsafe place to be.

Now, if extremists aren’t really trying to gain total power and they’re not really extremists, we’re going to need some extraordinary proof to back up those extraordinary claims. Surrender a point or two. Make a concession. Give an inch. Let the government of America continue, inefficient though it may be. The continuance of government lends stability to the nation, and that stability translates into economic growth. We seem to actually have a slight recovery underway, but one more argument over taxes and spending that produces no results is enough to scare us into thinking things will get worse and then it’s goodbye, recovery. Historically, high levels of extremism coupled with hard times produce massive upheavals in government. We were lucky in 1789 that our leaders then weren’t ideologues. They were practical men and they did a practical business in Philadelphia.

Our current system, with the big money of corporations unfettered in the mass media and lobbyists and congressmen rife with corruption, has left the electorate feeling so unempowered that it produced the aimless “Occupy” movement. While there was a bit of excitement to actually have a street protest in the USA, the apathy was so massive that the movement failed to put forward a list of demands. It simply awaited the inevitable police sweep to clear the parks for some other bums to loiter there. The Tea Party was a genuine uprising as well, until the Koch brothers hijacked it to serve their own needs. We’re out of solutions when protest movements either fizzle or become co-opted and the legislatures refuse to compromise.

All we need for a massive crisis would be a galvanizing issue. The global economy could easily provide that issue in the coming year (or even the coming few months), and then we’d be in an awful fix. If the Republicans and Democrats collectively fail to reach a compromise to stabilize the nation, one side or the other may gain the presidency only to lose any ability to govern because of a permanently split Congress.

And that then prompts one more reading of the Constitution, this time as a modern extremist looking for ways to halt all changes other than the ones of his own faction’s choosing. Like any document, the Constitution is one whose words can be twisted to provide perverted meanings contrary to the spirit in which it was written. Our Constitution was written so a diverse group could co-exist peacefully and effectively through compromise and agreement. When we fail to compromise, we fail as a nation.

While they’re ready to blather on about their policy agenda, as soon as they’re asked about getting rich with actions that constitute insider trading for the rest of us, they lose their silver tongues. It’s legal for Congressmen to trade shares based on information they’re privy to through hearings. Why is it legal for them? Look at who makes the laws. Yeah.

While it’s legal, it looks sleazy. Neither Pelosi nor Boehner don’t want to own up to it, but their bank accounts and asset portfolios tell a different story. It’s both sides of the aisle, too. If anyone tries to turn this into some kind of partisan debate, I’m going to respond with a blast of his or her favorite Congressmen and all of their peccadilloes. ALL of them are crooks until proven innocent.

The fact is that this is only one aspect of the corruption that is endemic in all of Congress. Lobbyists, pork barrel spending, iron triangles, and revolving doors make a more complete picture. The real kick in the head is that I have to call corruption “other contributuions” or “other services” when coaching my students on how to write for the AP exam. Our curriculum is essentially blind to the fact that there is a gravy train that starts at Capitol Hill and extends clear across the Washington Mall and intervening streets to the White House.