You know you've done something astonishingly stupid and harmful to the Republican Party when its de facto leader is forced to come out full Oxy in your defense. But following Trump's adventures in birtherism, the pill-popping protector of the Dominican Republic's GDP was quick to leap, anal warts and all, to the defense of his brother-in-idiocy:
http://youtu.be/...
They don’t tell Trump they’re gonna to talk about the birther issue. When they talked, nobody at CNN told Trump they were going to bring this up. They probably told Trump that they were going to talk about OPEC and China and jobs and the economy and the advice that he’s giving. … That’s how this stuff works. That’s how they reel guests in. That’s how they utilize the deceit, and they get you on there, and look, the whole interview is about the birther thing. When they get Trump on, that is the dominant topic, and they get Trump on record and then that serves as the media narrative all day today. And the media narrative all day today is: Trump steps on Romney’s big day, Trump takes glory away from Romney.
Got that? It's not Donald Trump's fault he made an ass of himself, or that he chose to time his assholery to coincide with Romney's clinching the GOP nomination. It's CNN's fault for "reeling in" Trump with their Mephistophelian plans to wreak havoc on Romney's Day in the Sun.
Whoever ultimately approves the material spewed by this idiot was clearly perturbed by Trump's performance, but knew that blaming the Donald just makes Romney look like more of a hapless ass. And Trump can't very well blame CNN for giving him airtime to spew his nonsense. So it's back to the conspiracy bin for the Dittoheads: the evil librul media wuz the culprit! And other GOP surrogates quickly fell into line behind their leader, blaming CNN for the Trump fiasco. There's little doubt that the "blame CNN" meme has gone out to the faithful.
But the real problem isn't Trump, or Limbaugh--it's Romney. The man is simply incapable of standing up for himself to rebuff the racist nutcases in his own party. John Avlon of the Daily Beast compares it to Stockholm Syndrome and he makes a good point. Romney feels a compulsive need now not to repudiate his captors:
Romney’s repeated reluctance to take such a stand speaks to the extent to which he is still being held hostage by the right-wing reality-show primaries. It reeks of Stockholm Syndrome—Romney seems to think his captors are his friends. If the lure of big money isn’t enough to cause him to break the birther embrace, what will? Where is the red line that Romney won’t cross in his pursuit of political gold?
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The fact that his long-fought-for nomination victory is being overshadowed by this radioactive distraction ought to be wakeup call enough. Romney is now the leader of the Republican Party, and it’s his responsibility to stand tall and set a tone that shows a capacity to be president of the United States. Failure to confront and condemn ignorance and hate indicates precisely the opposite
Seen in this light, Limbaugh's lame (no other word really applies) attempt to lay the blame on CNN reflects an awareness on the part of the GOP that Romney is in fact stuck--that he will not and cannot repudiate the nutjobs. That's a hole he dug for himself by endlessly pandering to the right in the primaries. But the primaries are over, and the independents and swing voters are watching. Jonathan Capehart of the
Washington Post:
This is but more evidence that Romney is still trying to convince the conservative base that he is one of them. If he’s not going to criticize Nugent, Limbaugh or Trump, at what point does Romney show himself to be a leader, not just of the Republican Party, but also as a potential president of the United States?
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