As a stunning example of the ignorant, ridiculous, indescribably absurd and flat-out contemptible religiosity of the back-water hole of a state known as West Virginia, Mike Huckabee is still alive in the presidential race. By announcing Huckabee as the victor of the West Virginia GOP convention in the mid-afternoon when most polls were still open, an impossible air of legitimacy rippled through the states where “Deliverance” doubles as a term for being eternally saved from a mythical beast with a pitchfork as well as regional family reunions.

“Why, Sue, are you so bitter?” you might ask.

I am bitter because there is still a part of me that fondly remembers what Republicans used to be all about.

Huckabee, on the other hand, holds nothing in common with traditional Republican values. Only his shared belief in an imaginary man in the sky with a penchant to impregnate nomadic virgins holds any sway with the mind-numbingly delusional party base. Huckabee has as much in common with Barry Goldwater as I do with a one-legged Chinese midget named “Sven.”

And while we’re talking about delusions, all Ron Paul supporters need to shut the hell up. It’s over, and I’m over it. Being lectured by some septuagenarian gold bug spouting about the Constitution while allocating his district the most earmarks of any Congressman in the Houston area just smacks of so much hypocrisy that it makes me throw up a little every time I see him. Newsletters be damned, he’s just another politician and this hero-worship has got to stop.

What isn’t going to stop any time soon is the war. As far as the war in Iraq goes, the results of the general election won’t matter. At all.

If the Democrats wanted out of the war, we’d be out already. I think a lot of Americans — which include anti-war McCain supporters (I know, right?) — acknowledge that. So please forget about “ending” the war in this election. The most pertinent question now is whether we can avoid a war with Iran — and the person left least likely to get us involved in that lost the Democratic strongholds of New York and California last night.

So much for that hope.

As we head into a recession, we can all get ready for a considerably long period of encroaching government, protracted bloody conflict, and general disgust for all things American. My only hope is that when it’s all over it will end like it did the last time things were this bad– with the election of someone like Ronald Reagan.

Filed under: Politics is Personal, Jesus is Magic, Mock the Vote, Daily Rant