Counting Really Small Blessings

By GAIL COLLINS
NYT

This year I am giving thanks for the Republican presidential debates.

Didn’t see that one coming, did you?

I have a real tolerance for boring television, having watched at least two series now on the air about people who bid on abandoned storage lockers, as well as several segments of the show about extreme coupon-collecting. So the debates are right up my alley. After the 10th or 11th episode, you get a feeling of up-close interaction previously reserved for people who live in Iowa and New Hampshire, where voters are so entitled that they find it hard to support anybody who hasn’t been to the house for dinner, or possibly a sleepover.

You come to know everybody’s special gimmicks. Newt Gingrich will say something snotty to the moderators to show he hates the news media. Whenever Rick Perry gets lost in the verbal weeds, he has taken to demanding that Congress be made part time. Michele Bachmann points out that she’s had 23 foster children. Mitt Romney’s special thing is to swear that, unlike President Obama, he will not apologize for the United States. Which Obama never did.

(More here.)