This Isn’t Funny

A lot of people, especially on the Left, have the tendency to make jokes about the 2012 GOP candidates; these people look forward to each new debate in what seems to have become an merciless and unending string of debates — I think we’ve had more than ten now — in order to “live-blog” or “live-tweet” them, mostly to point out the foolish answers that are given and thereby to congratulate themselves for not being foolish enough to be taken in by such ridiculousness.

I’m not someone who watches these debates. It’s not that I don’t like to laugh, though; I love to laugh and I generally don’t mind laughing at others’ expense. I don’t watch because I’m not going to vote for any of these people and because I’m terrified of them. Here are just a few quotations from last night’s debate:

Rick Santorum on profiling: “The folks who are most likely to be committing these crimes, obviously Muslims would be people you’d look at … not exclusively, but these are things that you profile to find your most likely candidate.” Santorum later said, “Africa was a country on the brink.”

Herman Cain on terrorism: “They want to kill all of us, so we should use every means to kill them first.” Cain also claimed that “As a result of this administration, our national security has been downgraded.”

Newt Gingrich on extending the PATRIOT Act: “All of us will be in danger for the rest of our lives. This is not going to end in the short run. …no, I would not change it.”

Rick Perry on Iran, arguing that Obama has failed to do something that he actually did earlier this week: “We need to sanction the Iranian Central Bank … that will shut down that economy, and at that point in time they’ll truly have to deal with the United States.”

Michele Bachmann on Iraq: “We won the peace in Iraq, and now President Obama is giving that peace away.”

Ron Paul on foreign aid (which makes up approximately 1% of the budget): “I think aid is all worthless. It doesn’t do any good to most of the people. You end up taking money from poor people in this country and it goes to rich people in other countries, gets used for weapons of war … the biggest threat to our country is our financial situation, and this is aggravating it.”

There’s a whole lot more, but I think this is enough to make my point. And that point is this:

This stuff is only funny if you forget that they’re very serious and that a lot of people around the country are nodding their heads in agreement. What’s more, you would also need to forget that these people are running for President of the United States in earnest and one of them will actually be in a position to contend for that job in a few short months.

The only candidate who is seemingly capable of making any sense at all out there is Jon Huntsman and he’s polling at 2% on a good day. I’m not talking about making sense to someone like me, who isn’t going to vote for anyone on that stage; I’m talking about using reason to make and support claims that stand up to scrutiny. If that’s too high a bar for a presidential candidate, we’re all doomed.

So this isn’t funny. Seriously.