The problem with paying attention to your surroundings is that, sooner or later, you're going to want it all to start making sense.  We are pattern-seekers, we humans, and love amazing ourselves with patterns and meanings we can conjure and overlay, making sense of all we see.

The process is on autopilot, works right in our heads -- even if the pattern perceived is arbitrary, unreal, fabricated, made up whole cloth, created from lies, brewed from bad brain chemicals, slipped in by hypnosis, installed via mental illness, or sent running in by nightmare.

Professional prevaricators -- Republican candidates now appearing on the Dumb-and-Dumber-Duh-bates -- are all excel in one area:  making things up and applying false meaning to the resulting patterns we see.

The main pattern each one wants you to see is one of being a font of religious virtue, integrity, and solid citizenry, being a regular community pillar.  With that false front established, they are then free to lie like punctured balloons, and take everything not arc-welded to the floor.

The Newt, The Willard, Uncle Ron, and Santorum -- this is the best the GOP can muster, all this odious, jerkwater bluster?  Rather than suffer drivel and lies from this gang of knotheads, we have a suggestion:  Every time one of them is caught lying, we should all chant and shout, "Show us your copy of the Bible where it says to do that!" This is especially effective if, seconds earlier, they were chiming on about their faith and extolling their own solid, religious values.  This should be a snap, as they are always doing that.

These folks are running for public office, after all, for a seat paid by public funds, operating in the public interest, and would have enormous power over us all -- and, keys to the nukes, to boot.  If we do not ask them to explain their lies to us now, they never will.  You already know that. Us asking the question over and over simply notifies them their game is up.

If we keep shouting and chanting this question, nothing else from these windbags will get through -- forcing their lies to a minimum, an added bonus for us all.  Plus, who knows?  These towering giants of intellect and religious righteousness might stop, might stoop over, might bend down long enough to answer a question from the little people, might tell us why they lie.

You have to admit, it would be thrilling to see some small flame of truth emerging from all the dull, hot, furnace roar of their petty bellowing, from their own hot air constantly recycled and re-stoking their own fires.  These pampered pundits are painfully well-paid.  Each pointy-headed prophet heads up his own cult.  In Free Speech Land, which is still mostly hereabouts, it is still OK to force some verbal pitfalls and ask liars to explain, "Show us in your copy of the Bible where it says it's OK to do that!"

These candidates can no longer be shamed into speaking the truth, for this is a festival of and for their egos:  Each one can do no wrong, each one feels more-or-less heaven-sent, the right soul for the job.  If we keep asking that one question, it could frustrate them, a bit, eventually break them down, force them into telling the truth.  Imagine this scene playing out somewhere:

"You're right," any one of them might say, the podium a porcupine bristling with microphone quills, "and in fact, I have been lying my ass off, my whole life, just look for yourself -- as you can see, I have no buttocks left at all!  It's part of my miracle weight loss plan!"  Then, having turned and shown us their baggy-pantsed, empty exteriors, their vanished, ghost-town posteriors, they would be thereby humiliated from the national stage, bumped back down to selling snake-oil cure-alls and miraculous dieting plans.  Hey -- we can dream.  That much is still legal.

Even better, everyone -- here are some test questions to ask yourself about your favorite candidate -- and, forget about that whole, "having-a-beer" thing:  They can pull a fake long enough to drain a beer.  Try these out instead:  Would you buy a vacuum cleaner from (candidate's name) if he came to the door all alone?  Would you let this person in if he came to the door, solo, knocked, asked to use the phone?  Or, if he had a clipboard, said he was the cable guy, and asked for your credit card?  How about if he rapped on the door, came to shoot the breeze and made sure you were given a very special doomsday-religious-tract?

We may not get satisfactory answers -- but, we can get some satisfaction just in the asking of the thing, whenever liars attempt to speechify us, or pacify us with potential programs and policies plainly illegal and wrongheaded.  We can always ask, and keep asking, drown them out, let them know we are on to their game, just by asking: "Show us where in your holy book it says you can or you should do something like that!"

Of course, truth is always scarce around Republicans, one more endangered species they've caused.  As truth is such a stranger -- Caution: Candidates may be severely injured if attempting to speak the truth suddenly after extended absences -- what else might do the trick?  Well, since shame has lost all its power over these thugs, there's always ridicule!

Ridicule, in this case, being similar to the informal court of elementary-school justice, in the neighborhood of wedgies and swirlies, but stepped down a few degrees -- more like yanking out shirt-tails, trying to pull their pants down with a speedy, deft tug.  Of course, with Secret Service protection, getting close enough is tough -- and would create problems for the pants-pullers, too.  Still, it remains a nice dream, but, let us regroup:  Instead, we can be converting our protest signs into something quite novel, attaching cheap pants from Goodwill and thrift stores everywhere, just staple them right onto the signs.  Now, we just need a good chanting theme...

It won't be as satisfying as yelling, "Off with their heads!" which is quite final and may be dicey if not illegal -- but, you have to admit that shouting, "Off with their pants!" has a nice, em-bare-assing ring, don't you think?

Serving Suggestions: Menu, for Candidates of the GOP's 2012 American Apocalypse Tour: Boiled Crow, with Humble Pie as just desserts.  And, for the Little People:  We'll try to choke down some more of this damn cake.