The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal’s “Best of the Web” at WSJ written by the editor, James Taranto.
Clown Car vs. Trite Truck
“The Republican Field Is a Clown Car,” according to the headline of a column by the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, who explains the metaphor:
“If you can’t take a joke,” Lindsey Graham has said , “don’t run for president.”
Graham, a senator from South Carolina and one of umpteen Republicans running for president, can take a joke—which is why he appreciates the absurdity that is the GOP field. There are far too many candidates (so many that there are concerns they won’t all fit on a debate stage), and to gain attention they are juggling, tooting horns and blowing slide whistles like so many painted performers emerging from a clown car.
Hmm, haven’t we heard this before? Why yes, we have. Lots of times:
- “The 2015 GOP Clown Car: Bigger, Meaner, and More Dangerous Than Ever”–headline, Huffington Post, May 1
- “GOP Clown Car Runs Into Ditch”–headline, Politico website, Jan. 24
- “2016 Republican Presidential Clown Car Is Packed and Ready to Go”–headline, Daily Kos, Feb. 9
- “Who’s Riding Shotgun in the GOP ‘Clown Car’?”–video title, MSNBC website, March 18
- “Republicans Need to Shut the Door on This Candidate Clown Car”–headline, Chicago Tribune, May 7
- “Georgia Dems Chair on GOP Cattle-Call: ‘The Clown Car Just Rolled In to Town.’ ”–headline, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 15
Graham has a point: If you can’t take a joke, you might want to stay out of politics. But if you can’t write your own material, you ought to stay out of comedy, or at least journalism.
For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.”
