Bachmann Calls Life Beginning At Conception ‘Seminal Issue,’ Bad Man Calls Democrats ‘Nazis’

NEW YORK—The Iowa debate season wrapped up last night on Fox News, and pats on the back all around, because we survived, y’all! So there were winners last night. And there were also losers! But we don’t know how these things work so we’re just taking our cue from the professionals on this. And here is what we’ve learned:

Beltway pundits still don’t like Newt Gingrich very much, and—as usual—continue to believe that their insidery feelings are somehow representative of people living elsewhere in America who don’t make a living going on cable news talk shows and waxing rhapsodic about how all the other beltway pundits feel about the politicians they all bump into during their nights out on the DC cocktail party circuit; Rick Perry would probably seem like a more formidable candidate if this were the only debate you’d ever seen; Mitt Romney stayed above the fray and played it very safe; Rick Santorum somehow remains in the race despite being the most forgettable person on stage at debate after debate; and Ron Paul can’t possibly get elected because he doesn’t want to drop bombs on Iran.

Oh, and Michele Bachmann was asked a question about life beginning at conception and she answered by calling it a “seminal issue.” (And that’s when our Cabernet came shooting out of our nostrils.)

Meanwhile, a BIG GET this morning for Mitt Romney, who just snagged South Carolina governor Nikki Haley’s endorsement. Haley, you’ll recall, is not only a favorite of the Tea Party but the governor of a state where Newt Gingrich currently holds a pretty commanding lead in the polls. Pontificators will be pontificating about this later, trust you me (er, us).

So oof, some tough numbers out for President Obama today, who just hit new lows in both approval rating and re-elect. According to new data from the AP the President stands at a measly 44% approval with a 54% disapproval, alongside 52% saying he doesn’t deserve to be re-elected. So what’s that old saying again? About how a President can’t be re-elected with approval numbers lower than 50% unless he’s running in a general election against Newt Gingrich? We think that’s how it goes.

Elsewhere in America, the Justice Department is finally getting around to realizing what the rest of us have known for a pretty long time now: Sherriff Joe is pretty much The Worst Dude!

Ok so ugh, UGH, renowned horrible man and congressional representative from Florida’s 22nd district Allen West said yesterday that Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels would be “very proud of the Democrat party [sic] [SIC] [which, btw, when are you guys going to stop doing this anyway? Because for real come on it's so annoying just say DEM-O-CRA-TIC already—it's not that hard! Do you hear us running around saying "Republic" party just to be derogatory? No, no you don't. But then again you also don't see us running around screaming about how we need to pass a bill declaring English as our national language when we don't even know how to talk it good, but whatever, moving on.] because they have an incredible propaganda machine.” West later said “Don’t start taking my words and twisting it around,” and ordinarily we’d have more sympathy for Mr. West because he’s just such a nice guy (and because the liberal media is just so liberal and all), but for real, bro: this isn’t an internet comment thread, it’s the United States Congress. So, you know, maybe just don’t bring up Nazis ever and you’ll be all good!

And finally, we just want to mention how pissed we are at Congress this morning. Not for its flagrant intransigence and staggering inability to ever get anything done, but instead because for once they actually did get something done—and in so doing totally ruined our morning. Now let us clarify: we wake up at 5am every day to write the Gifzette, and the hardest part our job each day is settling on whatever it is we’re going to gif. Because lulz don’t come easy on the internet! But like anyone, we have our good days and we have our bad days. Some mornings God smiles down upon us and hands us awkward Mitt Romney on a silver platter; other days we have to mine the depths of YouTube just to find footage of Thomas Friedman telling the Iraqis to go suck on something; other days, the bad days, it starts to seem as if literally nothing noteworthy has ever been caught on film in the whole history of moving images and so we end up just giffing Eli Manning making really bad career decisions. But yesterday was different. Yesterday was special! We had a government shutdown looming, and we were ready to rise to the occasion. So last night, in a rare moment of preparedness, we decided to save ourselves a little bit of time during those rough morning hours—a miserable, groggy time when we’re waiting for the coffee to kick in and barely surviving the nonsensical yammering coming from Joe Scarborough on our television set—and we prepared this, arguably our best work yet, a timely piece incorporating some of Roland Emmerich’s most artful and culturally significant imagery in a poetic allusion to all the obstinate Republicans preparing to blow up the government—and then those jerks went and avoided a government shutdown. So yeah, thanks for nothing, Congress.

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