The Year of The Dumb Republican Woman

Too many women in Republican politics, it seems, are turning out to be just as stupid as men are. Of course, what do you expect from the party that gave us lawmakers hoping to make abortion a capital crime? Nevadans Sharron Angle and Sue Lowden may have disappeared for the time being, but several GOP women threaten to loom large in what passes for political discourse in this new year.

First, Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann is getting a seat on the House Intelligence Committee.

Next! Incoming New Hampshire senator Kelly Ayotte is already hitting the ground running in her attempts to appear dumber and dimmer than Bachmann. Delivering the Republican response to President Obama's weekly address this New Year's Day, Ayotte declared that the American people sent a message that they want both the size of government and the deficit reduced by voting for GOP candidates in November. Never mind polls indicating that most people don't consider the deficit a top priority and that they support more government spending to create more jobs while opposing cuts in Social Security to bring down the deficit. By talking up the need for jobs today, Obama seemed more in tune with average Americans than Ayotte did. How dumb is that, a Republican giving a Democratic President the advantage in the debate? The election was not an endorsement of Republican ideas, as one new senator insists, but rather discontent with the status quo. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, the only freshman Democrat elected to a full Senate term last year? No, Marco Rubio of Florida.

Sarah Palin, of course, continues to dominate among dumb women in the Republican party, with her folksy (read uneducated) demeanor and her insistence on opposing everything coming out of the Obama White House - including First Lady Michelle Obama's anti-obesity campaign. One might think Sarah Palin is actually pretty smart in her attempts at solidarity with the dumb male GOP primary voter by shooting a defenseless caribou and encouraging consumption of fatty foods. After all, those are the biggest pastimes of her intended audience. But with only 49 percent of Republicans endorsing her possible presidential bid compared to 67 percent of them expressing enthusiasm for a run by former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee - who, being someone who's dealt with obesity himself, has sharply criticized Palin for her attack on Mrs. Obama - she appears to have peaked and her moment in the sun has passed. Only no one can convince her.

Chris Matthews, incidentally, thought it was ridiculous of Palin to compare herself to Ronald Reagan, a two-term governor of California, the nation's most populous state, who, Matthews said, revitalized the American economy and ended the Cold War as President. Uh, Chris? The collapse of OPEC revitalized the American economy. Pope John Paul II, Lech Wałęsa, and Lithuanian nationalists ended the Cold War. That damn actor in the White House had nothing to do with any of it.

Finally, to perpetual remedial student Christine O'Donnell, who has enjoyed fourteen minutes and thirty seconds of fame with the clock ticking. Under investigation for using campaign funds for personal expenses, O'Donnell countercharged that she is the victim of a leftist smear campaign directed by Vice President Biden and aimed at destroying her political career. Uh, I think she already did that herself. How many points did she lose by in her bid for Biden's U.S. Senate seat in Delaware? Seventeen?

Unlike with Bachmann or Palin (the jury's still out on Ayotte), I don't dislike Christine O'Donnell. I'm more inclined to pity her. And, if God protects fools and children, she sure has it covered both ways.