Here's Another Fine Mess

God wants politics
God wants a good laugh
What God wants
God gets God help us all

                                -- Roger Waters, What God Wants-Pt.2



The crowd at IUS last night for the senatorial debate between top contenders Joe Donnelly and Richard Mourdock was treated to a bit of God's words being run through the man-filter, just to add that speck of imperfection the deity finds so amusing. My wife gasped and audibly said "Oh, my God." I was thinking about furnace pipes at the time, I believe, but the candidate's comment entered my brain nonetheless.

The whole affair was dismal by any measure. The moderator read questions, but did little else. His participation, now that I think about it, could have actually been taped and the fellow at the  podium may have only been punching buttons on a recorder, which really makes more sense. The candidates were on hand to chime in on cue with rehearsed lines. I truly believe Donnelly mentioned his support for a balanced budget amendment and his participation in cutting $2.4 trillion dollars of government spending no less than three times. Joe D wants nothing to come between him and the antsy, still-discomfited Lugar supporters who are too embarrassed to sign on with an embarrassment like Mourdock.

Donnelly should heed Harry Truman's words that (paraphrasing here), "given a choice between a Democrat that sounds like a Republican and a true Republican, the voters will choose the real thing every time." Luckily, Truman didn't widen the choice to include a face off between a Democrat that sounds like a Republican, and a full-blown lunatic.

Also, luckily for Donnelly, and incidentally for Obama as well, the full-blown lunatic showed up last night while the cameras were running. If we Hoosiers are muttering to ourselves in some distant time about that idiot senator Mourdock, if we are embarrassed by yet another  Mourdockism played back to national derision in, say, the year 2015, if we wonder then, "how in the world did President Romney get the votes to attack Belgium?" We'll be able to answer, honestly, we were warned about this fruitcake, but we did nothing. Maybe we thought, "he's just one vote, and anyway, he'll probably never run into Rand Paul, James Inhofe or any of the many Dunces of the Confederacy, so, he'll be a harmless little statement about Hoosier values."   

Or, we can be adults, hold our noses and vote for Joe Donnelly, truly the lesser of two evils. Or, ignore the evidence and vote for Mourdock the evil of two lessers.