Now the far-right-wingers can boast of being nuttier than Crazy Al "Let Them Eat Catfood" Simpson

"I guess I'm known as a RINO now, which means a Republican in name only, because, I guess, of social views, perhaps, or common sense would be another one, which seems to escape members of our party. . . . For heaven’s sake, you have Grover Norquist wandering the earth in his white robes saying that if you raise taxes one penny, he’ll defeat you. He can’t murder you. He can’t burn your house. The only thing he can do to you, as an elected official, is defeat you for reelection. And if that means more to you than your country when we need patriots to come out in a situation when we’re in extremity, you shouldn’t even be in Congress."

-- Alan Simpson, yesterday on CNN

by Ken

It was just Saturday that Howie wrote about the ferment among "mainstream conservatives" confronting "the radicalization of the GOP, with specific reference to the "mixed blessing" of some of them "taking another look at the Democrats," in the wake of Reaganite Michael Fumento's Salon.com confessional, "My break with the extreme right." Now it's the turn of former Sen. Alan Simpson, aka The Man Who Would Let Old Folks Eat Catfood, who put a fair amount of distance between himself and a sizable contingent of his fellow Republicans. As HuffPost reported, "Alan Simpson Slams Fellow Republicans For Unwillingness To Compromise."

A lot of media types like Crazy Al because he's such a "colorful" quote. Even HuffPost made reference to "his characteristically colorful style." Oh, the fan clubbers are usually careful to maintain a smidgeon of distance between them and their guy, but they usually step well short of mentioning that he the guy is either worse-informed or else just more dishonest than your average Fox Noise propagandameister. On the contrary, there's usually the suggestion, often explicit, that his bluntness is some sort of mark of political "independence."

I'm often taken back by the the violence of his rhetorical assaults on people who are vastly smarter and better-informed than he is. How often, though, do we hear him blasting people who are either dumber or crazier than he is? He did it yesterday with Fareed Zakaria on CNN, as Huffpost reported in "Alan Simpson Slams Fellow Republicans For Unwillingness To Compromise":

Former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) lashed out at members of his party on Sunday, slamming them for their unwillingness to compromise on proposed tax increases.

In his characteristically colorful style, Simpson told CNN's Fareed Zakaria that Republicans' rigid opposition to new tax revenues has hampered productivity and diminished the chances of reaching an agreement with Democrats on debt reduction.

"You can’t cut spending your way out of this hole," Simpson, who was appointed as co-chair of President Obama's Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform in 2010, said. "You can’t grow your way out of this hole, and you can’t tax your way out of this hole. So put that in your pipe and smoke it, we tell these people. This is madness."

Simpson continued: "If you want to be a purist, go somewhere on a mountaintop and praise the east or something. But if you want to be in politics, you learn to compromise. And you learn to compromise on the issue without compromising yourself. Show me a guy who won’t compromise and I’ll show you a guy with rock for brains."

The former senator, along with debt commission co-chair Erskine Bowles, developed a plan in 2010 for bringing down the top tax rate and lowering the deficit by repealing a number of tax cuts and credits. The initial plan, commonly known as Simpson-Bowles, was mostly ignored by lawmakers. A bipartisan budget modeled after their report was rejected by the House earlier this year.

During the interview Sunday, he expressed frustration with his party's focus on social issues, as well as the ability of outspoken figures like Americans for Tax Reform head Grover Norquist to drive the conversation.

By the way, HuffPost has conveniently assembled a gallery of nine Crazy Al video clips for your viewing pleasure.

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"Eric Cantor . . . reminds some people of why they were glad to leave high school behind" (Hendrik Hertzberg)

Eric Cantor: Not a GOP heretic after all,
it turns out, "just a run-of-the-mill martyr"

by Ken

New Yorker senior editor Hendrik Hertzberg, following hard upon a blogpost called "Answer Me These Heresies Three," in which he had some fun with GOP presidential contenders Rick Santorum (caught paying tribute to superior European social mobility), Herman Cain (burbling incoherently about something or other), and Mitt Romney (defending Massachusetts's Willardcare against a ritual attack from the aforementioned Rick Santorum), posted a follow-up that seemed poised to stretch his original choice of three (count 'em, three) heresies (the number inspired by Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count . . . ").

Thanks to a late save, though, HH manages to disqualify his new contender from the "Republican heretic" ranks, and the mystical harmony of threeness is preserved.

From HH's newyorker.com blog:

October 24, 2011
HERESIES, CONT’D: FOUR SHALT THOU NOT COUNT
Posted by Hendrik Hertzberg

A week ago, Eric Cantor, who reminds some people of why they were glad to leave high school behind, went on Fox News Sunday and said the Fox News/Republican Party unsayable:

We agree that there’s too much income disparity in this country.

Expanding on this remarkable admission, the House Majority Leader added that “we”, i.e., Republicans and Democrats alike,

know in this country right now that there is a complaint about folks at the top end of the income scale, if they make too much, and too many don’t make enough. Well, we need to both go encourage those at the top of the income scale to actually put their money to work to create more jobs so that we can see a closing of the gap. You know, we are about income mobility and that’s what we should be focussed on to take care of the income disparity in this country.

Adepts at code-breaking will understand that “encouraging those at the top of the income scale to actually put their money to work” is Cantorspeak for cutting rich people’s income taxes, gutting environmental and financial regulations, and, probably, abolishing corporate taxes, capital gains taxes, and inheritance taxes altogether. Still, good for Cantor for recognizing that the “complaint” is valid. (And good for Occupy Wall Street for doing the complaining.)

Not only that, but Cantor was all set to give a lecture Friday afternoon on that very formerly taboo subject, income inequality (or “disparity,” as he prefers to call it), at Wharton, the University of Pennsylvania’s business school. Around lunchtime, he suddenly bailed out, so to speak, after learning that the speaker series of which his lecture was to be a part is open to the general public, riled-up Occupy fans and business-school students alike.

Cantor, therefore, is not really a fully qualified heretic [You can disregard this link; it's just to the earlier "Heresies Three" post -- Ed.], just a run-of-the-mill martyr.

Update: Tim Noah reads the prepared text of the speech Cantor was going to give, and suggests that its cancellation was an act of euthanasia.

Thanks to Mr. H anyway for his charming image of Majority Leader Cantor as the ghost of high school past, and also for calling attention to the incident -- which I'd been meaning to take note of -- of Majority Leader Cantor's panicky pullout from the Wharton School speech upon discovering that he wouldn't be addressing a private audience of friendlies.

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Will Delaware Teabaggers Hurt Mike Castle-- He Doesn't Think So

Castle, courtesy of our pals at Delaware Liberal

Though he's moved awkwardly to the right, Delaware Congressman Mike Castle, isn't fooling any teabaggers.

Castle ranked among the top 10 House Republicans in his support for Obama, siding with the president nearly 56 percent of the time on votes where Obama took a clear position, a Congressional Quarterly vote study showed. On average, House Republicans supported Obama's position on 26 percent of votes last year.

During President George W. Bush's last year in office, Castle voted with his position less often -- 41 percent of the time.

Castle also ranked 17th among 177 House Republicans in the number of times he voted out of sync with most other members of his party. The study showed he voted against his party 24 percent of the time. In 2008, he ranked 6th, voting against the majority of his party nearly 30 percent of the time.

A more reliable ProgressivePunch look at substantive votes only shows that Castle is the fourth most likely Republican to have crossed the aisle to vote with Democrats-- after Libertarian Ron Paul and former Democrats Rodney Alexander and Ralph Hall. Castle's record is exactly tied with Parker Griffith's, Alabama's freshly minted Republican who was a Democrat two weeks ago.

Castle, who has not exactly endeared himself to the extremists in his own party-- and is absolutely loathed by birthers, deathers, gun-nuts and teabaggers. He's not likely to pass any meaningful purity test being demanded by the right-wing of his party and the Club For Growth is already complaining that he's refusing to sign their latest crazy pledge to repeal healthcare reform. Although Club For Growth has bamboozled 11 Republican candidates in 5 contested primaries-- including another self-proclaimed "moderate," Mark Kirk-- to take their rather extreme pledge, Castle hasn't buckled yet.

The NRSC is doing everything in their power to push his candidacy, despite a spirited primary challenge from Fox News propagandist and anti-choice fanatic Christine O'Donnell (the wing-nut Biden swamped last year). They feel O'Donnell, a teabagger fave, is unelectable, especially in a state Obama took 62-37%. Yesterday the NRSC and NRC gave Castle the opportunity to showcase himself as the Republican tasked with his party's weekly radio address. He talked about how much he supports Obama's war policy in Afghanistan.

It remains to be seen how much of a stink the teabaggers will make over Republicans who have voted against them on all their issues. If they withhold their support from Castle... well, it won't mean much in his primary battle, but without their votes he won't win the general election against Beau Biden.