Alan Keyes, surprisingly, was the only batshit insane debater in the recent Republican Debate. (I mean the lack of it in others, not his chiropto-fecal mindset.)
Sure, for most of the debate he masqueraded as the usual intense, righteous, preacher-esque speaker we have all grown to expect from time to time, even if it were married to something a bit more right-wing than I am used to from hearing rhetoric proclaimed in that way. Okay, it’s just his self-chosen style, I can live with that.
That’s until he got to the question about the death penalty. The other candidates mostly expressed misgivings about it, at least with regards to how it is allocated by race. I certainly thought that a Catholic candidate would deliver a sermon at least as fervently against the death penalty as he was against religion.
No, apparently Alan Keyes wants to kill them all and let God sort them out. His impassioned, fiery speech was about how we have to align our morals with those of God, who apparently hates people with bad lawyers, and kill those who cannot afford one. I fear that he would take election as a mandate to implement his Inquisitional form of Catholicism across America.
Freudian slip there. When I said “as he was against religion”, I meant to type “as he was against abortion”. Not that fellow-crusader Baldwin was referring to that, of course…
Gotta admit, Mr. Keyes is entertaining. And persistent; I’m pretty sure he’s never won any election, but he sure keeps trying. Hard to believe he was Ambassador to the U.N. under Reagan. But, hey – he must have been better than Bolton.
I dont remember exactly, but it wasn’t nearly as reasoned as the column he wrote (although I mostly disagree with the column, too), but that might be explained by the 1 minute limit to get his point across. He made no mention of making sure that the crime deserved the punishment or being cautious about applying the death penalty.
But it was more the way he said it combined with what he said. You could see him getting worked up during the speech when he was talking about how we must do God’s work in killing murderers…okay, he didn’t say that, but that’s the gist. Enough people feel like him that he could be quite the rabble-rouser if he wasn’t so…well, chiroptero-fecal.
It still wouldn’t have been Pittable if it hadn’t been his multiple other references in his other answers in the debate to aligning our laws and government with God’s Law.
It’s like a strange cross between Phelps and Falwell were running for office (not to mention other Godwinizable characters with his calculated increasing animation during his responses!)
This is the guy that told the state of Illinois during the 2006 election that Jesus wouldn’t vote for Barack Obama. Nothing he says surprises me after that.
Heh. The couple who own the cottage down the road from my home are big wheels in the Illinois Republican party. She’s one of the Illinois Pubbie Delegates to the National Convention every 4 years. And they were instrumental in getting Keyes to run for the senate in 2004 against Obama.
They weren’t actually serious about his chances, I assume? I mean, everyone more or less said, “Hey, look, the IL GOP had to go all the way to Maryland to find a candidate to throw under the bus.”
I suppose, hey, he hadn’t dragged a now-ex-wife to sex clubs (according to her allegations in once-sealed divorce proceedings) and worse yet, I’m sure, lied his butt off to IL GOP bigwigs when asked if there was anything unfortunate in those papers - so how bad could Keyes make them look? I guess he was only warming up with that “Who Would Jesus Vote For? (WWJVF?)” nonsense.
I have seen him speak in person a couple of times. I was not impressed.
He has run for president twice. Once the Washington Post did a survey on something or the other and asked all the candidates a question. They reported the Keyes Campaign number was his home phone number. They got an answering machine. He did not call back.
In 1998, he ran for the Senate from Maryland. One day a year they open the Bay Bridge for walkers. He was bundled off by his handlers. He walked across, talked to a few people. He finished. He got on the bus to take him back to his car. He went home. No gladhanding, nothing.
Even he does not take his own campaigns seriously.
Yes, I know. I said he didn’t do anything like that - he was Ryan’s replacement after that fiasco - so the IL GOP must have figured that Keyes couldn’t possibly be worse.
was referring to that, of course…
