Land of delusion

Paul Krugman has the story on Republican candidate Mitt Romney's disconnection from reality, as evidenced by his nonsensical assertion that the war in Iraq was prompted by a refusal to allow weapons inspectors into the country. (Hans Blix, anyone? Show of hands?)

Now Krugman, being a media type, is disgusted by the way many news folks have ignored this display of geopolitical and historical ignorance in favor of obsessing over minor matters such as misremembering Ronald Reagan's birthday. (It's December 25th, isn't it? ) No doubt Krugman is equally disgusted with fellow New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd's silly and fetishistic obsession with the price of John Edwards' haircuts.

But I'm worried about a more basic problem. I'm worried about the fact that no one -- NO ONE -- in the Republican party is willing to call their candidates out on this kind of wilful ignorance. Or, as it may be, deliberate lying to a political "base" of partisan supporters who actually believe the lies and simpleminded propaganda that they are fed on a daily basis.

When Ron Paul, the maverick Texas congressman and onetime Libertarian, made the common sense statement in a recent debate that decades of U.S. and British meddling in the politics of middle-eastern countries had created widespread animosity and thus created a situation ripe for exploitation by fanatical malcontents and terrorists, he was in essence shouted down by a mob. Rudy "9-11! 9-11! 9-11!" Giuliani, assuming the role of scolder-in-chief, denounced Paul for supposedly supporting terrorists. When commenters on RedState.com, a Republican political blog, argued that Paul was factually correct, they were summarily banned by the site's administrators.

Apparently the only myth acceptable to the Republican party is that middle eastern people are inherently evil because God made them that way so that His Warriors from the Righteous Republican Party would have someone to kill. Or, at any rate, to use as boogeymen to scare the voters into voting Republican.

We seem to have a rogue political party, with imperial pretensions and connections to private mercenary armies wholly unaccountable to the Constitution or the voting public, that stubbornly refuses to recognize any reality that inconveniently contradicts its own internal myths.

What, me worry? La. La. La.