undeclared.jpgThe Republicans are straining so hard to be hip they’re going to wind up breaking one instead. Like Hal Karp (far left in photo), Loudon Wainwright’s self-absorbed father with serious boundary issues in the short-lived television series, "Undeclared," the Republicans really want to connect with those darned kids today . . . so long as they get to talk about themselves the whole time.

Take Tim Pawlenty, for example, who must have herniated a disk reaching with this reference: 

Opening his remarks with a reference to NBC’s “Inside the Obama White House” special, Pawlenty told the gathering of about 200 students, “I haven’t seen something that staged since that half-naked Austrian fell onto the face of Eminem at the MTV music awards.”

“Eminem was mad,” he continued, to laughter and applause. “And so, just like Eminem getting dumped on, we’ve got to kind of regroup. We’ve got to continue to fight. And we’ve got some things worth fighting for.”

Poor T-Paw.  He doesn’t know that Bruno isn’t really Austrian. Damn, what a shame Ali G didn’t stick aound long enough to interview Pawlenty. (I also think there’s a sizeable portion of the Republican party who’d love to be "dumped on" by "Bruno," but that’s just pure speculation on my part.)

Then there’s addled and grumpy old man, Chuck Grassley, who is just getting the hang of this newfangled Twitter contraption and is using it to yell at passing clouds.  Did no one tell him that the world is reading his "tweets"?  Jebus, I’d hate to see him with a Kindle.  "I CN’T TURN THE PAGES!"

And let us not forget erstwhile senator from Minnesota, Norm "As of Today, I Owe Franken $160K in Attorney Fees" Coleman, who  flipped up the collar on his varsity jacket and snapped his fingers, urging his colleagues to get with it regarding those interwebs the teens are so fond of spending their time on, daddy-o:

“In the end, we need to compete, as I’ve said before, we need to compete in each and every kind of forum,” said Coleman. “And whether it’s on the ground traditionally, or today it’s in — it’s in the ethernet. It’s in the — you know, it’s online. It’s in the blogs, it’s Twitter, it’s Facebook, and the next iteration.”

While I’m waiting for Norm to friend me on Facebook, I discovered that when it comes to laying down the jams, Norm’s tweets are seriously old-school:

normnuts.png 

You’ll have to pry my Edison wax recording cylinder from my cold, dead hands, Norm!  [Editor's note: I still have a metric assload of vinyl in storage, so I can't completely disagree with Coleman when it comes to the sound quality debate...]

So what’s next for these guys – crashing their kids’ dorm parties and humiliating them by trying to score with the hot R.A.?  Although, in all honesty, that would be nothing new for the Republican Party. Yeah, I’m lookin’ at you, John Sweeney.