#2:news Here’s the final nail in the coffin of the GOP as a serious party

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By Tom Toles December 2 at 9:39 AM



(Tom Toles)

How would one even pinpoint the final nail in a coffin that is now nothing BUT nails? It is a veritable Iron Maiden of nails. So let’s just say it’s TODAY’S final nail. They will no doubt find a way to wedge in still more.

But the rise of Donald Trump to what might even be plausible called the likely nominee of the party has one casting nostalgic glances about, scanning the rest of the field for signs, however faint, of sense or integrity.

Jeb Bush, as he has sunk ever lower in the polls, has been rising as the imagined exemplar of the moderate, pragmatic ‘adult in the room.’

Leadership in the world. That is one of the numberless things Republicans claim the Democrats fail at. Leadership in the world. Let that phrase marinate moistly in your mind while I cue up a recent foray of the sensible Mr. Jeb, leading the world, leading his party, leading the fight for responsibility and adulthoodedness.

He was asked in an Iowa town-hall type meeting, “Is climate change a scam that’s foisted on us by the scientific community?’’ Now here, in near crystalline perfection, is the crazed and conspiratorial cement-headedness that is killing one of our major political parties, and our planet into the bargain.

If ever there were a moment to speak truthfully about a debate that that has been shamefully allowed into this realm of science hating, and to show some leadership, personally and for his party, and for the world, this was it. And what did we get?

A big swing and a muff, from Jeb Bush, adult. He responded by delivering a balsamic word salad and a big shrug, and garnished it with an assertion that he likely would have

skipped the Paris climate summit altogether.

And Jeb is supposedly the best the GOP has to offer.