Animal Crackers

Posted: 03 Mar 2012 11:55 PM PST

By lambert strether, who is an old-school blogger from Corrente.
So far, I’ve successfully avoided commenting on the primary campaigns of either legacy party; the spectacle seems much too far above my poor power to add or detract. But… Check out this video. When Santorum told this story on himself, what was he thinking? Watch it; it’s only 46 seconds long, though it seems longer:


(Transcript here.) Yes, unable to confess to the dominant Pirates pitcher Kent Tekulve that he’d been pissed on by an old lady’s dog, Santorum tells Tekulve a story: that he (_Santorum) pissed himself because he was so “excited” to see him (^Tekulve). Isn’t this a perfect example of the authoritarian mindset? I mean, at least Santorum didn’t roll over so Tekulve could scratch his belly…
Anyhow, I can guess what Santorum was thinking; he was thinking about dogs, and probably more than the rest of us do. Because Santorum, despite having dodged a Google bomb, with some assistance from Google, still has troubles: dog troubles, and has had, ever since — sharing his views on gay people — he also shared, by an association natural to him, his views of “man on dog” sex with the Associated Press. Thing is, Santorum’s not the only leading Republican candidate with dog troubles; Mitt Romney’s famous for them too, since it emerged that he’d strapped his Irish setter, Seamus, into a carrier on top of his car, and drove until he had to stop because a a “brown liquid” was dripping down the back windshield.
And indeed Romney ought to be famous; MoDo’s understudy, liberal Gail Collins, has riffed on the Seamus story over thirty times since 2007; and good Democrats have been pounding Santorum for the “man on dog” thing for donkey’s years. With the result that both men are now running for President, but what of that?
Still, and as usual, liberal Democrats always go for the capillaries; they’re focusing on Republican candidates, instead of treating the Republican aristocracy as the tightly connected, tribal network of friends and families that it is (for example), and trying to take them all down. Consider the following examples of extremely creepy behavior:
President George W. Bush (R), as a child, “put firecrackers in frogs” and blew them up.*
Fred Malek (R), McCain’s 2008 national finance co-chair and now a Romney advisor, looked on and did nothing while a dog was killed, then barbecued, when drunk in college.
George Allen (R), the once and future Senator of Virginia, shoved a severed deer’s head into a black family’s mail box.
Bill Frist (R), former Senate Majority Leader, while a medical student, stole cats from the pound, treated them as pets, and only then dissected them.
And if it’s not the Republican dads, it’s the wives and kids:
Rudy Giuliani (R)’s current wife, Judy, used puppies to demonstrate surgical staplers on sales calls, then had the puppies put down.

Mike Huckabee (R)’s son, David, was fired from Boy Scout camp after killing a dog (“a Scout is kind.”)
That’s one President, two Senators, four presidential candidates, two current presidential candidates, one governor, the Mayor of New York, and “Richard Nixon’s Jew counter”. (Numbers do not add because some players have played more than one position.) These are not “isolated incidents.” These are not “bad apples.” We’re looking at the Republican aristocracy here. It’s no wonder that we turned us into a nation that wasn’t ashamed of torture under Bush.
Of course, I wouldn’t want readers to think that Republicans were the only sick puppies in town. Here’s the Drone King telling a joke. At least, he says “You think I’m joking,” so I’m guessing that’s irony, right?


Frankly, I’m not sure which politician repels me the most. Which is more evil? Likening gay people to animals? Or joking about blowing people into pink mist, after having turned war into a first-person shooter game with real blood? Santorum looks a little foolish, a little… puppy-like, but Obama… Am I the only one who thinks Obama’s eyes look dead?
NOTE * I won’t say psychopath. But feel free to think it. I mean, if you found out your neighbor’s child was torturing animals, wouldn’t you be creeped out?
NOTE An earlier and partisan version of this post appears at Corrente; it’s heartwarming that all the players mentioned back then are still in action now.