oh why not

Heaven knows, the GOP herd of presidential aspirants are a sorry lot, all deeply flawed in their own distinctive ways, but they do share one thing in common. None of them are as recklessly demented as Pastor Terry Jones, head of the fifty member Dove Outreach Center. And so it makes sense that, seeing an ideological void that only a Koran incinerating cretin on a mission from God could fill, Jones on Thursday announced that he would make his own bid for president of the United States.   And you thought there were no more surprises left for the presidential field! Aside from his aborted but attention grabbing creation of 'Burn a Koran Day' and the wildly successful 'Judge a Koran Day', Jones and Dove Outreach also sponsored 'No Homo Mayor' week in Gainesville, which ultimately failed to achieve it's goal but nevertheless left no doubt as to the sexual orientation of the city's new chief officer.   Presumably, Jones would run as an Independent, because time is short and he's just a little bit too far to the right for even today's Republican party. Surprisingly, the press release for his 'platform' contains absolutely no mention of radical Islam, although to be fair it does include a picture of Jones holding his best selling book 'Islam is of the Devil' while seemingly floating in the clouds and putting on his best angry and vengeful God face.   His action plan contains seven bullet points, which is quite an ambitious stretch for a platform that contain only three actual points. Point one, 'Stop overspending immediately' is a little generic, necessitating point two - 'balance the budget'; point three, 'reduce military spending', and point seven - 'reduce bureaucracy'. He would realize these goals via the time tested method of reducing corporate taxes, or as he likes to call it, point six.   Now that's still two good points, fully twice the number of many campaigns, but Jones doesn't stop with just these. There's point four, 'deport all illegals' followed by point five, 'also saving us 400 billion dollars per year'. I suppose I could note that number five is more of a subordinate clause than an actual point, but I don't want to get into nitpicking. The important thing is that "this would be an operation similar to what Eisenhower did to provide jobs for the soldiers who were coming home after the war," a fact first noted in Jones' best selling book 'The Secret Life of the 34th President'.   None of the other candidates have yet to comment on Jones' presidential aspirations, not even Mitt 'the more the merrier' Romney, who usually is quick to applaud the efforts of anyone who might dilute the support of his more conservative rivals.   "I'm a little surprised that I haven't even been glad-handed by Romney," muses Jones. "It kind of makes me feel like I'm being ignored, and when I feel ignored I'm liable to do just about any crazy ass thing to get attention, so he shouldn't be surprised if I announce a 'Book of Mormon' burning before too long."