CPAC 2013: Wingers Just Want to Have Fun

Every year around this time Republicans get to let their hair down and show the world that no matter what we've heard otherwise, they do have a silly side.

Doom and gloom and global warming is our problem, not theirs.  Enough about the poor, the pregnant, and the pressures put on them by the peons.  Get those party hats on!

Tomorrow the three-day celebration of hedonism, corporatism, and puritanism known as the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) begins.  This is the 40th such event and you have to hand it to them--each year they outdo themselves.  I mean, holy cow!  What a line-up!

But, wait. . .no Limbaugh?  No Beck? No Coulter?  No Eastwood?  It appears that way. They're not on the list.  Steven Crowder "Fox News's Brightest, Funniest Conservative Mind" will be there, and isn't afraid to call himself a comedian.  There are others who will be giving him a run for his money, however:  Donald Trump and Allen West will be there.  So will Sarah Palin and Rick Perry.  So will Newt Gingrich and Bobby Jindal.  And Rand Paul and Mitt Romney.  And Ted Cruz. (Dick Morris will be there,too, talking on "The Making of America: The Substance and Meaning of the Constitution", but apparently he doesn't photograph well.  They left him off the front page.)

For good measure, the NRA will be represented by both Wayne LaPierre and David Keene.

Theprogram for these three days (March 14-16) reads like a thriller, what with war and conspiracies and scary Obama and what-not.  Amazing what they can find to talk about.  And--no way!--Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson are scheduled to go mano-a-mano, Crossfire-style. (And you thought nobody cared anymore.)

"Fight Club 2013: A Liberal & A Conservative Duke it Out"

The Honorable [??] Paul Begala, Political Contributor, CNN 
Tucker Carlson, Editor in Chief, The Daily Caller 
Referee: Colin Hanna, President, Let Freedom Ring

It'll cost you, that CPAC.  And there's a dress code, so don't be trying to get in there in just any old thing:

Well, come on, you obviously can't wear strapless necklines during the daytime activities (We're talking to you, Paul Ryan), but Walmart wear?  Leggings or pants? ("If struggling with this decision, don't pack the items in question.  Neither jeans nor leggings are appropriate for the official conference.")

Lots of fun after-conference stuff, too.  Here's a can't miss:  "The Walking Dead, Obama Zombies on Parade" bash on Friday night.  (They're gonna dress up like zombies, and everything.  There's a message in there someplace, but I'm not one of them so I'm not privy to it.  Sorry.)

I've written about previous CPAC conferences here, and here.  They're addicting, I admit.  I can't promise I won't be writing about it again this week, but for now I'm having enough fun just anticipating what's going to happen this year.  (Don't disappoint me, Republicans--I've looked forward to this for a whole year.  And you owe me, you rascally rascals.)

Why You Gotta Lie? A compendium of the Worst from the GOP Revels

The media is abuzz about the speeches at the 2012 GOP Convention in Tampa, critiquing them on style, effectiveness, the number of laughs, the number of attacks on Barack Obama--especially the attacks on Obama.  Clint Eastwood even got an invisible Obama to sit in an empty chair and become the foil for some raucously out-there jokes.

On the last night of the convention, the night when Mitt Romney was to accept his party's nomination and give the speech everyone was waiting for, he was outstripped by an aging but really, really famous Academy Award-winning actor/director who called President Obama crazy and twice pretended that Obama was making crude suggestions about where Romney could put his, um, ideas.  This was a moment so bizarre it rendered even the usually verbose Rachel Maddow speechless.  The reaction over the Twitterverse, indeed over the entire Internets, was "What the Hell was THAT?"

The Romney people were scrambling the next morning to tone down the tittering. "C'mon! It was just a light moment on an otherwise wonderful night."  But it could be that the distractions are a blessing in disguise.  The first days of the convention got a lot of attention, mainly because the main speeches were rife with easily refutable lies.

The folks in the Romney camp would just as soon everybody--especially the newsguys--forget about that part.  They're out there making their case for a Romney/Ryan win and the Clint Eastwood mess is a much more agreeable distraction than a bunch of lyin' liars.

So in case anyone actually believes all that stuff coming out of their Party party, let's take a look at some of the prevarication highlights (Wouldn't it be great if the Republicans could make their case without lying about their opposition? The problem for them is if they couldn't lie about the opposition, they wouldn't have a case):

Remember Mike Huckabee's speech, where he hints at an old, outrageous (and debunked) lie that says President Obama not only believes in abortion, but believes in killing babies afterward?  This is what he said:

Let me clear the air about whether guys like me would only support an evangelical. Of the four people on the two tickets, the only self-professed evangelical is Barack Obama, and he supports changing the definition of marriage, believes that human life is disposable and expendable at any time in the womb or even beyond the womb, and tells people of faith that they must bow their knees to the god of government and violate their faith and conscience in order to comply with what he calls health care.

(More on the origins of that lie here.)

And more:

MediaIte:  Jon Stewart video on RNC first night misquotes about Obama.

Alternet is on it with Six Big Lies from the first day of the Convention

The always entertaining LOLGOP looks at the "reporting" by Howie Kurtz.

Michael Tomasky, Howie's Daily Beast colleague, finds a web of lies in Ryan's speech.

ThinkProgress checks out the Wednesday night line-up.

The WaPo editorial board dissects Ryan's misleading speech.

Brian Beutler lists Ryan's top five fibs over at TPM.

Joan Walsh calls Ryan's lies "brazen".

Ryan Grim sets the record straight on Ryan's lies about the GM Janesville factory closing.

Alex Pareene makes fun of Rand Paul, that guy who said he got all choked up emotionally, it being like a "lump between my chin and my belly button." (To be fair, it sounds like something I might say on one of the many occasions when I begin talking before thinking, but if I saw those words on a teleprompter in front of me I would hope I'd have the good sense to think twice before saying them out loud.)

But worst than that, he's still trying out the debunked sentence-out-of-context, "You didn't build that", to see if anyone on earth will buy the lie that Barack Obama meant it as a slight to small business owners.  (Apparently they will.  Paul's audience LOVED it.)

Dan Amira at New York Magazine called Ryan's speech "effective."  He also called it "appalling and disingenuous."

Conservative Ted Frier rips Ryan for his lies in "GOP holds Masked Ball, not Convention".

Business Insider says there's a little problem with Ryan's account of Obama's role in the the AAA Credit Rating downgrade.

Chris at Eclectablog does his own round-up of GOP lies from the Convention.

And on and on it goes.  One has to wonder if putting Clint Eastwood on stage in a dumb conversation with an empty chair mightn't have been somebody's brilliant idea to make this last convention night so memorable everybody would forget about those damnable, sticky lies.

 Mightn't it have been better to give Mitt Romney a speech that was unforgettable?  Oh, right.  Romney. Even the man chosen to introduce Romney--Marco Rubio--gave a token few minutes to talk about their party's chosen leader before turning the attention to his own--Marco Rubio's--life story.  Poor Mitt gets no respect. When people are reduced to keeping count of the number of times his name is mentioned throughout the entire convention, it's clear it's not about him, it's about, I don't know. . .2016?