I watched the recent New York State gubernatorial debate or clown show, depending on where you sit on the political fence, and marveled at just how deep this contagious national lunacy has progressed into the body politic. This present offering of political challengers from all across the national spectrum range from the mildly unhinged to the certifiably lunatic. You might say that this is the season of lunatics. From one whack job yelling that "the rent is too damn high" wearing black gloves for no clearly defined reason to a former Manhattan "madam" who made a living sexually farming out young women to raunchy people like disgraced former New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer and pick of the lunatics "Crazy Carl" Paladino, this debate would have been laughable if it was not about a very serious matter.
But New York can take some consolation in the fact that Delaware is still leading the nation when it comes to sheer finger-biting, high-pitched laughing lunacy. Republican and Tea Party senate candidate, Christine O'Donnell, as they say "beats all" comers. And the thing that makes her absolutely dangerous is that she genuinely believes the crack-pot drivel she says and that all knowledge resides within her fuddled soul. "You cannot masturbate without lust," she smugly remarks shaking her head to drive home what she thinks is a deep philosophical and moral point.
It never dawned on this political nit-wit that it is clearly stupid and asinine to compare and equate self-pleasure with the Biblical notion of adultery. By her warped reasoning people had better return to the good ole days of Hatpin Mary and the chastity belt. Ms. O'Donnell is so sexually repressed that she rails against "lust" in much the same way that ignorant medieval Roman Catholic priests and bishops concluded that reading books and seeing the world though scientific eyes was sacrilege and an abomination that had to be punished by burning on the stake.
It's this kind of thinking that is the underpinning foundation of both extremism and lunacy. But this smug, self-righteous Diva of the Tea Party Movement whom I call "Baby Palin, or Palin Lite," is so wrapped up in her own morbid desire to "teach America" and return to the values of yesteryear that she cannot see that she is clearly out of touch with reality. The upshot is, like the rest of the Tea Party Bunch, Ms. O'Donnell sees the world in imagery of black and white. For her and her ilk there are no shades of grey in between; there can be no compromising on what they perceive as unalterable "truth."
From her coo-coo reasoning on religious and human behavioral issues, to the U.S. Constitution and politics, Ms. O'Donnell has earned the right to be called Crazy Christine. And don't bother to try and analyze or study just how her mind, and that of her Tea Party colleagues, work that would drive sane people, well, crazy. How can someone be as off the wall as to slap-dash in five minutes or less self-pleasure, pornography, religion and subjective opinion without missing a beat? Moreover, not having the ability to figure out that you are making yourself a pontificated idiot and that people are laughing at you and not with you?
Now we come to the witchcraft thing. She says that as a teenager she dabbled in witchcraft. Here's how she explained it: "One of my first dates with a witch was on a Satanic altar and I didn't know it. I mean, there's little blood there and stuff like that.... We went to a movie and then had a midnight picnic on a Satanic altar." There we go again: witchcraft and Satanism and a Christian (one presumes) altar. No blood too and was her date a female? Ms. O'Donnell says "witch" and that usually implies a female since the male is usually called a "warlock." Now for someone so moralistic as to equate masturbation with "sin, lust and adultery" dating a female, using her method of thinking, would indicate lesbianism. But of course, a decent Catholic gal like that would never engage in these lustful sins?
Finally, Ms. O'Donnell's sexual repression is evidenced by her rigid Puritanistic stances that are manifested in lunacy and extremism. Her views are not mainstream American views but a holier-than-thou, putrid mix of arrogant self-righteousness, barely concealed intolerance for any other view but her own, and conclusions cast in iron that come from a limited near-delusional mind. She gets things wrong not because others are wrong, but because she believes that she is right always.
Christine O'Donnell, Carl Paladino and others are the most extreme candidates to run for public office in five decades. The sad thing is that their brand of banal political lunacy has caught on to a segment of the American populace that is angry, scared and receptive to archaic, reactionary and, frankly, imbecilic flim-flam utterances packaged as deep, careful philosophical thought. Americans must be careful and concerned about these people ending up in the highest political chambers in the land. Their brand of intolerance will lead America along a path to international confrontation, intolerance and backwardness. These are the zealots who will lead us "on to war with the cross of Jesus flying on before." There should be no place in modern American politics for these kinds of people.
No, Americans must reject people like Christine O'Donnell and her band of lunatics. We cannot afford to take a chance on any of these people even if we are angry with the present administration in Washington. What can Americans expect from a woman who also suggests that the medical bills racked up by an AIDS patient are embodiments of God's wrath? It is either she is stupid or insensitive. Either way that's not a person who we want as a United States senator even with the imperfections of this much maligned body in Washington.
