Attention, Reince Priebus: Send in the clown cars

[Tx4obama]

Attention, Reince Priebus: Send in the clown cars

Before the clown car became a metaphor, there were real cars full of clowns.

Ridiculously small, they were driven into the circus ring and then an impossibly large number of clowns piled out of them.

I always thought the clown car involved a trapdoor in the circus floor and one in the bottom of the car, so that clowns could surreptitiously be fed into the car. But clown historians say there were no trapdoors. The clowns used their contortionist skills to pack themselves inside, and the average clown car could, depending on the regalia — like parasols, funny hats and musical instruments — disgorge between 14 and 21 clowns.

Today, a clown car is a political metaphor describing any group of politicians packed into in an unintentionally silly event. While an entire presidential campaign could be described as a clown car, the term more often it is used to describe smaller events like presidential primary debates.

While the first televised general election presidential debate broadcast in 1960 was staid, serious and had a very basic set, it drew an incredible audience of 66 million viewers out of a population of 179 million.

-snip-

Full article here: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/attention-reince-priebus-send-in-the-clown-cars-95450.html?hp=l1

p.s. It's hard to tell by the excerpt above but the article is about Priebus, Republican Debates, and Hillary Clinton

[Rhiannon12866]

1. K&R! Reince wouldn't agree with me, but this article reminded me of a video I posted here ages ago

After listening to Rachel, it sounds like we have even more clowns than ever among the RW...


Clown Car On the Right by Eli's Femur Bone
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101716424

[Blue Owl]

2. Let him drive that jalopy full of batshit to the White House

Let's see how far he gets -- it's already sputtering!

[tanyev]

3. "Today, a clown car is a political metaphor describing any group of politicians

packed into in an unintentionally silly event."

Really? Because all the uses I saw of it referred exclusively to the collection of clowns that kept showing up at the GOP debates.