Republicanism: The New Bliss

What's the new fascination with ignorance? Yeah, yeah, it's not exactly new, but it does seem to be in vogue these days, especially among Republicans. The straw that made me start to wonder about this was a story about an e-mail forwarded by Dean Grose, the mayor of Los Alamitos, California. Entitled "No Easter egg hunt this year," the e-mail depicted the White House lawn being turned into a watermelon patch, which, I guess, means that there's no room for Easter eggs--although from the picture, it looks like there's plenty of places for the Easter Bunny to hide its bounty. He sent this e-mail to at least one African American businessperson, who was (reasonably enough) offended. He of course immediately countered that he hadn't meant to offend anyone, but the actual ignorance came from further explanation. He claims that he "was unaware of the racial stereotype that black people like watermelons." I don't even have a comment in response to that. I do wonder, though, if what he says is true, what exactly did he think the joke of the e-mail was? It's either racist or completely nonsensical.

I was just going to write about that, but then I realized that it's only the latest example of feigned ignorance on the right. Last night in his response to Obama's address, Bobby Jindal criticized money for "something called 'volcano monitoring.'" Now, the man is a Rhodes Scholar. What was it exactly about the juxtaposition of the words volcano and monitoring that eluded him?

And George Will--how reclusive is he? After his speech, Barack Obama was seen embracing someone. Will's response? "I don't know when men started to hug each other, but hug they do, and look at that." Brad DeLong sums up the sad situation.

I think it is safe to say that George F. Will has never played a sport, or watched a sport in a bar, or spent any time on a trading floor . . .

Paul Krugman says that the Republicans have become the party of Beavis and Butthead. At least that may make them entertaining (to a point).