What a nightmare this Conservative Political Action Conference has been. I can’t imagine how Republicans think this is going to play well with people who are genuinely struggling with actual problems.
• From Mother Jones: John Bolton at CPAC: The Benefits of Nuking Chicago:
“The fact is on foreign policy I don’t think President Obama thinks it’s a priority,” said Bolton. “He said during the campaign he thought Iran was a tiny threat. Tiny, tiny depending on how many nuclear weapons they are ultimately able to deliver on target. Its, uh, its tiny compared to the Soviet Union, but is the loss of one American city” – here Bolton changes his tone subtly to prepare for the joke – “pick one at random – Chicago – is that a tiny threat?”
Bolton wasn’t the only one who thought this was funny. The room erupted in laughter and applause.
• Thinkprogress: Joe the Plumber suggests some congressmembers should be shot
JOE: “Back in the day, really, when people would talk about our military in a poor way, somebody would shoot ‘em. And there’d be nothing said about that, because they knew it was wrong. You don’t talk about our troops. You support our troops. Especially when our congressmen and senators sit there and say bad things in an ongoing conflict.”
He also wants to slap anyone who “talked treasonous talk about America,” though that presumably doesn’t extend to Republicans wanting the President to fail.
• Speaking of which, Thinkprogress has another interview in which Tom DeLay joins Rush Limbaugh in openly hoping for Obama’s failure