Open Mouth...Insert Foot

Here we go.

Expect to see much...much...more of the scene on the left over the next 18 months, as presidential debate season has gotten underway. I didn't catch much of either of them, but the GOP held its first mass debate on Thursday night, and the Dems held theirs a week earlier. (podium builders are currently working overtime, as everybody and their brother or sister on both sides of the aisle are announcing plans to run for president. there should be an official announcement on this blog by next week as I throw my hat in the ring, also. my platform: free toast across the country with the purchase of any specialty omelet, be it at a nationwide franchise restaurant or a mom-and-pop diner. oh, and lower taxes and better health care and more jobs and three-day weekends for everyone, of course.)

I saw some of the talking heads going back and forth on the highlights...or lowlights...of each debate.

One that made me sit up and say, "what the fuck??" was a clip I saw of The Dairy State's former guv, Tommy Thompson, who was asked if employers had the right to fire homosexual employees just for being gay.

He hemmed and hawed for several seconds, saying something to the effect of, "I think...umm...individual businesses, and uhh....states, should...umm...be able to decide those, umm, types of issues themselves." At least I think that's what he said. He wasn't being very direct with his answer.

The moderator jumped in after he was finished, and asked, "So your answer is.....yes?" Thompson: "Yes."

And the debate moved on.

The very next day, Thompson was talking to reporters, changing his answer, and saying he didn't really hear or understand the question.

If anyone's looking to send a parting gift to Mr. Thompson as he exits the race, may I suggest a bottle of tough-actin' Tinactin for his athlete's tongue?

Republicans are trying to figure out the best ways to make themselves shine leading up to the primary. John McCain, one of the front-runners, first distanced himself a little from Bush, and then cozied up to him a bit more in recent months, and now seems to be trying again to put a little...but not too much...separation between himself and G-Dub. It's a difficult task, to be sure. Bush has no coattails to ride, and why would anybody with any hopes of a political future want to be in bed with a president who just might close out his reign with an approval rating so low it begins with a decimal point? (he is "the commander guy," though. so he's got that going for him.)

Rudy Giuliani is at least a social liberal, which will persuade me to listen to him more than any of the others. Not that he's going to get my vote (probably)...but I won't pick on him as quickly as I will the other nine hundred and fourteen conservatives who are running—or thinking of running—for president.

The next round of debates is scheduled for early June, I believe. And it'll be fun to watch how all the right-wingers dream and strategize and explain their vision in an attempt to win the White House in '08.

You know how I think that'll best be accomplished this time around?

Be a Democrat.

"Finishing second in

the Olympics gets you silver.

Finishing second in politics

gets you oblivion."

—Richard M. Nixon