In three tidy paragraphs, Politico neatly packages this year's "hip-hop" flavored CPAC so far:
The Conservative Political Action Conference may not have A-list Govs. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) or Bobby Jindal (R-La.) this year, but it has Samuel Wurzelbacher.
Wurzelbacher, better known as "Joe the Plumber," is getting the rock-star treatment at CPAC, mobbed by attendees seeking autographs, handshakes and photos.
"Oh my god, there he is," one flustered young woman shouted, holding her hand over her mouth upon spotting the McCain campaign icon.
Michael Steele's hilarious attempt at "off the hook" and Joe Wurzelbacher's meteoric rise into the Jindalsphere highlight this year's conference, which could mark the Republican Party's final, rigor mortis-generated hurrah. By all accounts, CPAC has been a circus befitting of the GOP's clownish efforts to remain relevant. From the plumber's own mouth:
"Man, this CPAC thing is crazy," Wurzelbacher said to Huckabee as the two shook hands.
Couldn't have said it better myself. Some of the low-lights Joe alludes to follow:
- Michelle Bachman, in a cringe-inducing effort to praise Michael "Parachute Pants" Steele, exclaimed, "Michael Steele, you be da man! You be da man!"
- In keeping with Steele's "last decade called..." motif, the focus of the conference's ire was not Barack Obama but, rather, Hillary Clinton. The vast rightwing conspiracy lives on...
- Tucker Carlson faced pitchforks after praising the New York Times.
- Bolton evoked boisterous knee slapping when he joked about nuking Chicago.
- Mitch McConnell, in his own last throes, pleaded for the preservation of the Guantanamo prison camp.
I think that's enough. Like the Obama administration, I don't do torture.