CLOWNS TO THE RIGHT OF ME, JOKERS EVEN FURTHER TO THE RIGHT OF ME

Headline at The Hill right now:

Is the next GOP presidential candidate a CPAC speaker?

Well, Palin's a no-show, but other than that it's quite possible, given the presence of folks like Romney, Pawlenty, Gingrich, ... er, Cheney... (I'm only half-joking about that last one -- he sure sounds as if he's waiting for the call.)

But what strikes me about CPAC is that it's smirky, jokey, flip, and arrogant, and some of that (e.g., the Tiger Woods crack) is coming from Possible Next Presidents themselves.

Can you imagine if, in the runup to 2006 or 2008, most of the major Democratic presidential contenders had attended a convention featuring a Condi Rice pinata, and maybe a Dick Cheney face shoot or a George W. Bush pretzel-eating contest? And can you further imagine Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and Joe Biden trying to outdo one another on missing-WMD jokes and Katrina-failure jokes, all while attendees got to knock down a guy dressed in drag as Lynne Cheney, sumo wrestler?

David Broder would be beside himself -- the lack of gravitas! Charles Krauthammer would need three columns to deride the Democrats' "unseriousness"!

Now imagine how much more unseemly the Dems' behavior would appear to the Beltway mandarins if it were all taking place during a time of 10% unemployment and two wars.

But these are Republicans, so this is no big whoop.