GOP 'wacko birds' take center stage on Sunday shows

I’m certain quite a few serious-minded Republicans, those who are still interested in winning elections, are still shaking their heads over the big stage given to GOP fringies (wacko birds, as John McCain famously labeled them) on the Sunday morning TV news shows.

As stunning as it was to see a loose cannon like Congressman Louie Gohmert on the roundtable discussion at ABC’s This Week, (what was

Gohmert

Stephanopoulos thinking?) it was beyond bizarre that Gohmert’s appearance was preceded by a story on Iowa presidential campaigning for 2016 that featured an interview with Donald Trump.

Trump, of course, looked and sounded like a fool. Gohmert was Gohmert – not much more damaging to the GOP than the many times ultraliberal Democrat Katrina Vanden Heuvel has appeared on the This Week panel and complained that President Obama must become more of a leftist.

But the GOP hit the Sunday morning trifecta when Congressman Steve King of Iowa – an annual rival of Michele Bachmann for the 

King

dumbest quote of the year – was featured on NBC’s Meet The Press. King did the right-wing proud by sticking to his racist comment about Hispanic drug smugglers with calves the size of cantaloupes.  

Of course, liberal Democrats are still giggling over this whole mess the GOP stepped in.

Over at Salon, Jim Newell is still burping up a few fits of laughter as he wonders aloud how the Republican leadership allowed this trio to become the face of the GOP at a time when Obama’s approval ratings are slipping and Congress is headed for some key showdowns.

Newell calls Gohmert “the flat-out dumbest member of the congressional GOP” and delights in the Texas Republican’s apparent ignorance about the rapidly growing number of uninsured Americans over the past two decades. A supporter of GOP plans to shut down the government, Gohmert challenged Obama’s suggestion that the GOP is trying to prevent 30 million people from getting health care coverage by trying to block funding for Obamacare. In fact, he called it an “absolute, blatant lie.”  What? “Whether or not they have insurance under an exchange or not does not prevent people from getting health care,”the congressman said confidently.

And then we have the clownish Trump, who claims he would spend out of pocket “whatever it takes” if he decides to run for the Republican presidential nomination in ’16. Trump told ABC that he’s still not convinced that Obama’s birth certificate is real and that the president was born in the United States.

Trump

But when asked if GOP Sen. Ted Cruz, who is making noises about a presidential run though he was clearly born in Canada, is eligible to serve in the White House, Trump seemed far less animated.

“If he was born in Canada, perhaps not.” Trump told ABC’s Jonathan Karl.

“I don’t know the circumstances.  I heard, somebody told me, he was born in Canada.  That’s really his thing,” Trump added.