Finally and officially, the 2012 political bullshit starts today.
Republicans are gathered like hogs at the trough as the Iowa caucuses gather to select somebody to head the GOP into November, but there’s a long, hard, pot-holed road ahead — millions of dollars squandered and 13 nonsensical debates later, all is at last hung out to dry in the sunlight of reality.

Yesterday, Mitt Romney blubbered so boldly: “We’re going to win this thing with all of our passion and strength…”

Is he another Newt Gingrich?

Newt early last month: “They’re not going to be the nominee…I’m going to be the nominee. It’s very hard not to look at the recent polls, and think, odds are very high, I’m going to be the nominee.”
And yesterday: “I don’t think I’m going to win. I think if you look at the numbers, I think that volume of negativity has done enough damage.”
Maybe he’s talking about all those nabobs of negativity culled from his own antics.

And through the last few months, each of these clowns had their time in the prime — Michele Bachmann, the early obvious nominee; then Rick Perry, but oops; then Herman Cain and his wonderful way with females; then Newt with intellectual history punching the airwaves and odds so high it’s way-hard to see the ground; and now the guy nobody wants — Romney.

However, they have attempted with much success to ignore a huge, nasty-faced elephant in the room — the last Republican in the White House.
In all the mindless squawk on taxes, war, and President Obama during all the ludicrous campaigning, the entire GOP apparatus has maintained a blissful silence on the guy who near-single-handily put the planet in the shitty spot it is now — George Jr.

One thing Republicans are hoping for is a giant, collective memory loss by US peoples.
Under George Jr.’s tenure, the whole show went to shit in a wire basket and the GOP seeks to put that whole episode in the way-background and focus on Obama, but will the trick play out among the 99 percent who saw their lives shattered by eight years of arrogant incompetence.

The problem, though, is what George Jr. did created such a enormous gap in any kind of GOP reasoning that one could easily drive an entire herd of elephants through with room to spare.

(Illustration found here).

Just take the money and run.
From the New York Times:

In 2001, President George W. Bush inherited a surplus, with projections by the Congressional Budget Office for ever-increasing surpluses, assuming continuation of the good economy and President Bill Clinton’s policies.
But every year starting in 2002, the budget fell into deficit.
In January 2009, just before President Obama took office, the budget office projected a $1.2 trillion deficit for 2009 and deficits in subsequent years, based on continuing Mr. Bush’s policies and the effects of recession.
Mr. Obama’s policies in 2009 and 2010, including the stimulus package, added to the deficits in those years but are largely temporary.
…
First, the Bush tax cuts have had a huge damaging effect.
If all of them expired as scheduled at the end of 2012, future deficits would be cut by about half, to sustainable levels.

And those mangled, horrible wars?
Bob Gates said it all: “In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it.”
Hundreds of thousands dead, at least two counties — Afghanistan and Iraq — have been for all purposes destroyed and literally trillions of dollars flushed down the graveyard drain.
As this political season starts to heat up, all Obama has to do is point to George Jr. and say, ‘Remember and Beware.’

Never has so, so few caused so much damage.
From the San Francisco Chronicle:

“Republicans talk a lot about losing their way during the last decade, and when they do they’re talking about the Bush years,” said Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont-McKenna College.
“For Republicans, the Bush administration has become the `yadda yadda yadda’ period of American history.”
…
The former president himself has been all but invisible since leaving office in 2009 with a Gallup approval rating of just 34 percent.
His predecessor, Democrat Bill Clinton, had a 66 percent approval rating in early 2001 when he stepped down after two terms marred by a sex scandal and impeachment.
In a presidential contest dominated by concerns over the weak economy, government spending and the $15 trillion federal debt, the Republican candidates have been loath to acknowledge the extent to which Bush administration policies contributed to those problems.
Republicans also controlled Congress for six of the eight years Bush was in the White House, clearing the way for many of his policies to be enacted.
…
Bush still has loyal supporters who believe his legacy will be vindicated by history.
But even they say the GOP field won’t be embracing him anytime soon.
“Sad to say, they’re looking at polling data that indicates they’re better off not bringing him into the campaign,” former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer said.
“I think President Bush has made America a safer nation and better nation and I’m proud of it.
But politics isn’t about what’s fair, it’s about winning.”

In other words, little Ari, it’s okay to cheat, lie and don’t speak ill of even a criminal.