CPAC DAY 2: JUST JOY-POPPING, TRYING TO STAY CLEAN. I can't, I just can't -- oh well, the live feed is right there. Some guy is introducing the guy who's introducing John Thune. I didn't catch the name of this warm-up act but he says he wants to test the idea of Obamacare the same way Reagan did in the 1980 Presidential debate, when he asked "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" As Obamacare is just getting started/strangled, the analogy turns out to be shaky, and the questions are on the order of "How many of you believe that the quality and availability of your health care will go down under the health care law?" Believe! Well, guy, you can get them to believe anything, as their response shows.

Also "the real liberals really want Obamacare to fail so they can get what they really want" -- Single Payer Hitlercare! Cripes, why didn't you guys tell me that was the plan! (He also traced the problem of attempted national healthcare back to Ted Kennedy, but by that point the crowd was too worn-out to boo.)

The event's moderator -- some loopy talk-show host -- characterizes the Obamacare approach as, "Well, at least the senior citizens won't die as quickly waiting on all those long lines." Even the CPAC crowd doesn't know what to do with that. (Later she tells a long story about how she got messed up in a motorcycle crash, but "I'm an American -- I wanted to live.")

Eventually Thune arrives. He looks like a former high-school swim team star grown rich in the tanning-salon business.



"We can't win the peace if we don't tell it like it is." He's talking about Obama's under-utilization of the word "terrorism." You can imagine how serious the speech is. Oh, also Reagan Reagan Reagan, cut everything, Jesus loves Israel and torture, "The FCC is trying to take over the internet," and such old, old chestnuts at the Balanced Budget Amendment. I can see why the fringe of the fringe like him -- he spits the talking points without gagging -- but he's basically the same old vanilla dairy queen in a plastic cup and he has as much chance of being President as did the man he replaced and physically resembles, Tom Daschle.