On Tuesday night I joined Sean Hannity on Fox News to check out the state of play in the Republican primary. I followed Donald Trump, who launched his new book yesterday, Crippled America. I've had some downer book titles in my time - After America, The End of the World as We Know It, Lights Out - but I think even I would balk at pitching something called Crippled America to a US publisher. The conventional wisdom is that a presidential candidate has to be sunny and optimistic. Trump has bet that the sunniness is now so disconnected from reality that people would prefer honesty. Hence, "We don't win anymore", "we lose at everything", etc.
Jeb Bush, on the other hand, is sticking with an optimism that's weirdly enervating and demoralizing: He has relaunched himself as "the joyful tortoise", and his new slogan is borrowed from Bob the Builder: "Jeb can fix it!" I wonder if he focus-grouped that "joyful tortoise" thing. It sounds like the world's least convincing superhero: The Amazing Spider-Man, The Mighty Thor, The Joyful Tortoise...
Anyway, here's what I had to say with Sean last night:
Bonus Joyfulness from the Big Tortoise: After his feeble attempt at a French joke last week, Jeb apologizes to France. But will he sing "You've Got A Friend" at them?
As for that book of mine that Sean was kind enough to mention, that's my very latest - "A Disgrace to the Profession", the story of the the global-warming "hockey stick" and the damage it has done both to science and public policy. By the way, at PJ Media today, Tom Harris and Dr Tim Ball call the book "a revealing exposé". It's in its fifth printing, and highly relevant in these weeks before Obama, Merkel, Cameron, Hollande, Malcolm Turnbull, Boy Trudeau and the rest of the gang prepare to screw us over at the Paris climate conference. You can get it in paperback, but if you can't wait that long and need it in the next 45 seconds, it's available instantly in Kindle and Nook. Did Sean mention the cat album? Not yet.
~On Wednesday morning I'll be starting the day with John Oakley in Toronto a wee bit later than usual, live on AM640 just after 9am Eastern.
