After two weeks and nearly 200,000 votes, the 2013 Republican March to Madness Tournament has its Freakshow Four: Rush Limbaugh from the Right-wing Media Region, Michele Bachmann from the Teabaggers Region, Rick Santorum from the Theocons Region, and Dick Cheney from the GOP Establishment Region.
You couldn't ask for a crazier quartet—or a better image of what the GOP has become. But the road to the Freakshow Four has been littered with lunatics. Just take a look at the field that these conservative hacks had to overcome:
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I'll admit to being a bit sad that Rush Limbaugh and Michele Bachmann will face each other in the semi-finals rather than the finals, but your idiot selection committee gets the blame for dimwittingly pitting the Teabaggers Region against the Right-Wing Media Region. Still, what a great portrait of everything wrong with the GOP. Like the other semi-final matchup, voting will begin on Friday and continue throughout the weekend. The winners will be announced next Monday morning, at which time voting will begin in the championship round.
The other matchup in the Freakshow Four is Dick Cheney vs. Rick Santorum. Santorum slid past Pat Robertson in the Crazy 8 (note to self: don't ever say "Santorum slid" again), but it was Cheney who had this weekend's toughest matchup. He barely vanquished Wayne LaPierre, shooting down the NRA flack with 52 percent of the vote. But as they say, you only need one bullet if you hit your target, and Cheney was successful this time. Still, don't go hunting with him: there's a 48 percent chance you'll get shrapnel in your face. Anyway, this time Cheney was dead on—and as a result, Santorum gets to face a weekend of fighting off Dick. And if that's not cause for celebration, I'm not sure what is.
Once again, the Freakshow Four will begin on Friday and last throughout the weekend with results being announced on Monday. And congratulations to the regional champions.