Titanic Cruise Director, Reince Preibus, was all over the teevee like diaper rash Sunday reassuring I'm-not-exactly-sure-who that while, yes, the ship had struck an iceberg and, yes, it was cracked down to the keel and, yes, all the lifeboats had unfortunately been put to the torch for that awesome Marco Rubio weeny roast and bonfire a few months ago -- remember how much fun that was! -- and, yes, those are the icy waters of the Atlantic lapping at the GOP's loafers...nonetheless, somehow everything is actually going according to plan (from "Meet the Press"):
CHUCK TODD: Are you confident Donald Trump can win a general election?
REINCE PRIEBUS: Sure, I think all of our candidates can win a general election, especially when you look at Hillary Clinton--CHUCK TODD: Is he your best candidate?
REINCE PRIEBUS: --who quite possibly could be indicted, and who knows. They're the ones that could have an open convention, and Joe Biden could be the nominee of the Democratic party.
and the GOP convention in Cleveland is gonna be amazing!
CHUCK TODD: But is Donald Trump your strongest candidate?
REINCE PRIEBUS: I don't know. Listen, I don't worry about who is the strongest candidate. Obviously, we have our own conversations here. But the fact is that we're here, prepared to support whoever the eventual nominee is, with the biggest, best Republican National Committee that we've ever put together, Chuck.
But aside from the entertaining sight of Priebus on every Sunday show flop-sweating through nine different suits, overall Sunday was just another day for America's elite pundit caste to stumble off the political battlefield, their precious theories blown to atoms, shell-shocked and groping around for some...sort of...theory that would let them remain members of America's elite pundit caste.
David Brooks is the author of several hundred columns explaining why the GOP is somehow not what it so clearly is and why it would be impossible for someone like Donald J. Trump to win it's nomination for president. So in the glowering light from the bonfire of every sober political pronouncement he has ever made, Mr. Brooks is not yet ready to float some self-promoting theory about Donald Trump. Instead he would simply like Trump (and, presumably, those millions and millions of Republican voters who have chosen him over every other candidate on offer) to burn in Hell for the imminent destruction of David Brooks' political party (h/t Heather for the video):
DAVID BROOKS: I think it's likely to be Trump. I think he's the walking dead. I think he'll get the nomination and he will just go down to a crushing defeat. And will be known for a hundred years from now, people will say, "Who's the biggest loser in American politics?" And it won't be McGovern, it won't be Dukakis, the word Trump. And I hope when he's down there in Hades he's aware of all that.
Meanwhile, on CNN, Matt Dowd -- former life-long Republican and architect of the 2004 re-election of George W. Bush -- continues to work his funny little fan dance long after it's sell-by date has come and gone. "'Republican'? Moi? Perish the thought! I'm an Independent! Just look at my LinkedIn page!"
But the goofiest Conservative duck-and-cover moment came from Hugh Hewitt who, inexplicably, is still being treated as a Very Serious Person by all of the Beltway's Very Serious People. Hugh is apparently trying to recast himself as the punditocracy's favorite stock character -- the Oracle who Saw This All Coming:
STEPHANOPOULOS: Someone out there trying to make a lot of money right now. Are you pretty sure there's going to be a contested convention?
HEWITT: I've been predicting it since May of 2014 in The Weekly Standard. It's happening.
STEPHANOPOULOS: It's happening.
Except, no. Mr. Hewitt did not "predict" any such thing.
Instead, in the course of cranking out a lot of other wingnut flapdoodle, Mr. Hewitt wrote a notional, "Wouldn't it be cool if...?" column about what could happen if this went left and that went right and suddenly no one had enough delegates to whatever...which could result in a contest between Ted Cruz -- a "firebrand with the extraordinary rhetorical and debating skills" and Hewitt's own personal wingnut Jesus -- and...
...Bilderberg Build-a-Bear and two-time presidential loser, Mittens von R-Money:
Which brings us to the unlikely duo of Texas senator Ted Cruz and 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney.
So, as predictions go, I rate Mr. Hewitt's as somewhere between Laugh-In "predicting" that the Berlin Wall would come down (and be replaced with a moat full of alligators)...
...and Kaiser Wilhelm II promising German troops in 1914 that they would be "home before the leaves have fallen from the trees" while forgetting to add "...in 1919 after the dumbest, most hellacious war in human history".
In other words, more than sufficient oracular powers to be awarded a job for life at the Big Kid's Beltway Table.
Crossposted from Driftglass, who is celebrating his 11th blogiversary this week.
