Sunday Morning Comin' Down

"Turning Dog Shit Into Gold" Edition.

First, a quick refresher on your favorite cult and mine, the Tribe That Rubs Shit In Their Hair:

Longtime readers know that "The Tribe That Rubs Shit In Their Hair" is my shorthand for inbred Conservative meatsticks who have wallowed in wingnut Hate Radio racist dung and Fox News Liberal Conspiracy claptrap for so long that is has become the quotidian argot of their wretched lives.  It is their tavern-talk -- their worst, paranoid delusions, externalized, validated, tarted up as The Unvarnished Truth and then regurgitated back to them by ghouls and treason-mongers like Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly... which are, in turn, passed around again like so many fish stories, getting bigger and wilder and truthier with each iteration.    It is the shit they eagerly rub in their hair -- the shit which, year after year, they sculpt into ever more elaborate pompadours because everyone else in their dingy, lightless corner of Universe is doing it and they lost their sense of smell 40 years ago.

They preen over each other. They are happy in each other's company. They praise each other on the little, individual touches with which they have customized their Shitheap Toupees -- an extra layer of Benghaaaazi, perhaps, appliqued over something something the New Black Panther Party because ACORN!.

And all is right with the world...right up until they leave the cocoon of their Wingnut Pig Sty and step into the normal world, where they are Shocked!Shocked! that ordinary people flee from them in horror.

...

I mention this in because I am very lazy and it spares me typing new stuff and because there are many professionals in our Great American Media who seem baffled by the fact that Dr. Ben Spacey continues the float dirigibly above every other Republican candidate except Donald Trump.  I, in turn, am baffled by their bafflement, because in so very many ways, Dr. Ben is the Kwisatz Haderach of the Tribe That Rubs Shit In Its Hair.

The prophet and savior for whom they have waited for so long.

Mental Ben is a doctor who rejects science.  A black man who drops wildly inappropriate Nazi and slavery references as casually and frequently as Trump drop the word "Yoooge".  A leading Republican candidate for President of the United States who cannot tell you how the deficit works.  Or the debt.  Or the difference between them. He cannot tell you how foreign policy works, or who the players are in the various interlocking quagmires into which we have waded up to our knees.  He doesn't understand how our government works, how a bill becomes a law, or how the enactment and enforcement of that law gets paid for.

But he can recite -- chapter, verse and footnote, passionately and verbatim -- every single debunked, ALL CAPS fucked-in-the-head wingnut/birther conspiracy theory your Crazy Uncle Liberty ever forwarded along to you on the email machine:

Mental Ben whines like a diaper baby and lashes out when reporters ask him basic questions about the only extant documentary evidence of his life and thoughts -- his own biography, written by him, which is sitting in large piles right next him because he is currently on a time-out from his campaign for president so that he can hawk copies of that book.

Yes, according to Mental Ben, reporters asking questions about his book Out Herod's Herod!

From Brother Pierce:

The show began with Chris Jansing's sitdown with Dr. Ben (The Blade) Carson, who is a gifted neurosurgeon, a remarkable American success story, and an outright nut. The topic was the many leaks that have sprung in Carson's retelling of his remarkable American success story. A sample follows:​

CARSON: No, not like this. I have never seen this before. And many other people who are politically experienced tell me they've never seen it before either.

JANSING: You don't think that Bill Clinton or the president with his birth certificate, people who still--
CARSON: No, not like this.

JANSING: Refuse to believe?

CARSON: Not even close.

JANSING: So what do you think is going on? Why you?

CARSON: Because I'm a threat.

JANSING: To?

CARSON: To the progressives, the secular progressive movement in this country. I'm a very big threat because they can look at the polling data and they can see that I'm the candidate who's most likely to be able to beat Hillary Clinton. They see that.

JANSING: Is this fun for you?

CARSON: Would I have preferred to be doing something else? Certainly. But it is important to me. And when I think about the sacrifices that were made by those who preceded us in order that we might have the freedom that we have now, it's the very least that I can do.

​Unconvincing denials followed by ahistorical bunkum—Bill Clinton was accused by sensible people of having inconvenient witnesses and his political opponents murdered. Let Carson say "not like this" to the family of Vince Foster.—topped off by the vainglorious hammering of nails into one's own palms. Ben Carson: Blood sacrifice in the cause of fantasy economics and the defeat of imaginary political demons. Who the fck is this guy when he's at home?

But he did become an instant Hate/Radio Fox News Favorite for spitting in Kenyan Usurper's eye at the National Prayer Breakfast in 2013.

In other words, Mental Ben is the perfect cask-strength distillation of every animating characteristic of the Tribe That Rubs Shit In Their Hair.  And the rest of the Republican field is not far behind and racing like mad to catch up.  

Unsurprisingly, this has caused all the usual media suspects to react in all the usual ways...

On "This Week...", Beltway Media employee Maggie Haberman shook her head incredulously...

Haberman (not actual quote): :  No I don't think lying will hurt Ben Carson because we've finally reached a place in our politics where Republicans openly and proudly will tell you that they are done pretending to give a fuck about the truth anymore, And DonaldTrump has shown the way -- saying things that are demonstrably shoutycrackers bullshit and it doesn't seem to matter.

While the Wingnut Media looked upon the fruits of their 30 year Long War Against Reality and were pleased at their good work:

Rich Lowry (actual quote): I know.  It's like  We've learned in this Republican race that media coverage is extremely important and a negative media coverage of a certain type is like gold for these candidates. And this coverage has been so disproportionate, he should have been more precise; some of the things he said in his book.  But to most Republicans, it's going to feel like a campaign character assassination...

Alex Castellanos (not actual quote):  Bwahahaha!  Ted Cruz rocked the place in the last debate when he went after the Librul Media Conspiracy and now Mental Ben has a golden ticket to do the same.   Hell, without the myth of the Librul Media Conspiracy to lean on, I'd be upselling undercoating packages at Shaky Mel's House of Previously Owned Vehicles instead of appearing on national teevee.  Thanks Lee Atwater!

Lee Atwater in Hell (not actual quote):  Respect!  You and Rich and all my other bastard kids have done an amazing job re-invested my legacy over and over again and turning the Party of That Sumbitch Lincoln into an unstoppable army of angry, pig-ignorant hillbillies.  

Meanwhile, a little ways down the dial, Beltway Media figurehead, Shuck Todd, was Habermanning his own incredulity at Carly Fiorina's saying she doesn't need to show Shuck no stinkin' badges!

Candidates for office often present detailed plans that offer a framework of their goals if they win. Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina, when asked about the lack of an issues page and detailed tax plan on her campaign website, saw it d

ifferently. "How often do these get enacted? Never," she said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"That's the problem. Politicians put out detailed plans for all kinds of things that never happen."

Instead, Fiorina offers an "Answers" page on her website, allowing visitors to submit questions on various issues, which she answers through her appearances on the campaign trail. She explained that her remarks to voters hold her more accountable than a written plan.

"Anybody can write a plan. Anybody can put a plan on a website," she said.

...

Poor Shuck Todd. Having spent his professional life ignoring Tom Wait's most important piece of horticultural advice ( "Never let the weeds get higher than the garden") like the rest of his Beltway friends, he now shocked!shocked! to find his garden overrun by gloating liars and meatheads who treat any concern for basic factual reality as unscrupulous PC "Gotcha" backstabbery by the Dirty Hippie Commie Media.

In other words, the Party of Lincoln is now, finally, out and proud as Tribe That Rubs Shit In Its Hair because the plutocrats, con men and demagogues who run the freak show have found a way to turn that shit into gold: