Current GOP Incapable of Being Satirized?

A casualty of Poe's Law. I admit I'm a bit embarrassed... but can you blame me?

I was surfing through the Twittersphere... (Twitterverse?) this morning and came across an article that took my breath away. In an attempt to win the endorsement of an Evansville newspaper, Republican candidate Richard "Rape Pregnancy is a Gift from God" Mourdock, went on at considerable length about his stance on pregnancies that occur as a result of rape, how rape victims should have prayed harder, how scientific studies show that a woman is less likely to get raped if she prays before a big date, and how people who aren't "right with God" have a stronger chance of finding themselves in those undesirable situations, among other things.

I was outraged. I immediately retweeted with my own added comment: "Unvelievable! Will Mitt still support this nut after this?!" I added it to my Facebook page: "Eagerly awaiting a statement from Mitt Romney about this. Anything other than a complete repudiation and withdrawal of support from Richard Mourdock after these fantastical comments is a complete fail for Romney and should disqualify him from any chance of elected office, especially the Presidency." I was livid!

...Ahem... I was then informed a bit later that the piece (from the Daily Currant) was satirical. I suppose the comments were really fantastical after all. Not knowing that The Daily Currant is a satirical website, I became a victim of Poe's Law. I then sent out tweets and status updates informing everyone of my mistake. But with the current mindset of the Republican Party, can you blame me for believing it?

It was not a far cry for me to believe that Mourdock would say such things after his "God intended" rape pregnancy comment. Perhaps the "rape halo" section of the piece should have given away the satire, but is that a far cry from Georgia Rep. Paul Broun's comments that "evolution, embryology, the Big Bang theory" are "lies straight from the pit of hell"? By the way, Broun, who believes the Earth is 9,000 years old because the Bible says so, is on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. THE SCIENCE COMMITTEE!!!

You can understand my mistake when Missouri Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin makes a statement about "legitimate rape" and women's bodies having "ways to shut that thing down." That "thing" being pregnancy from a rape, you know because... science and sorcery!

You can understand my mistake when Rep. Steve King (R-Douchelandia) says he's personally never heard of a child becoming pregnant due to a rape or incest, which is completely believable when you consider he co-sponsored a bill, along with Akin and GOP Veep candidate Paul Ryan in 2011, originally calling for an exemption in the federal ban on abortion funding only in the case of “forcible rape.” Yes, forcible rape, as opposed to consentual rape because no means no, but does it really?

When over 30% of Republicans still believe that President Obama is Muslim (a higher percentage than in 2008), when 63% of Republicans still believe that Iraq had WMD to this day, long after the invasion of 2003 and long after the facts have shown otherwise, when a majority of Republicans have fallen for the Birther conspiracy and still believe that President Obama was born in another country despite all evidence to the contrary, trying to satirize a GOP member who has already said something ridiculous is an almost insurmountable task. Just ask Roger Simon.

My point is this: with all the lunacy that's been uttered on an almost daily basis by the Fox "News" network and conservative radio hosts led by Rush Limbaugh, and swallowed hook, line and sinker by this new species of "Republican," it's really getting harder and harder to differentiate the truth from satire. And when a political party is incapable of being satirized it makes for a very sad state of affairs for the future of said party when an outrageous joke can be mistaken for the truth.

(Cross-posted on ABLC)