Keyes to the Kingdom (or, Fit for Command!)

The best fringe candidates are the ones who claim intelligence above and beyond the rest of the field. Lyndon LaRouche isn't running this year (he's old, he's retiring), but there are movements to draft both Alan Keyes and Jerome "Unfit for Command" Corsi into the race. And both are hilarious. The lengthy petition for the Keyes bid includes this preamble:

Whereas, in view of profound national security and foreign policy issues that face our nation, we need a president who deeply understands these issues by virtue of firsthand experience and background — and who will not merely rely on elite "experts" to guide our national security and foreign policy in these perilous times;

Ha! Take that, Mitt Romney! Maybe in your next life you'll get a gig as a mid-level functionary in a popular Republican administration—a true qualification for the power absolute.

Of course, Keyes has actually run for president and won votes. He got 14 percent in the Iowa caucus; he got 1 million votes in the 2000 GOP primary. (Peter Bagge's chronicle of this in Suck is an unjustly-overlooked classic of 21st century political journalism.) The Corsi movement is just weird. For some reason, authorship of a best-selling John Kerry slam book, a fearmongering Iran book, and a grab-bag of paranoid WorldNetDaily columns have turned Corsi into a leading Constitution Party presidential contender.

The chairman of the National Veterans Coalition, retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Charles Jones, told WND his group decided to draft Corsi because he's "probably one of the few people that was really aware of the grave issues facing this country" who "can turn the country around and keep it from going over a cliff."

"He's not only aware of the problems, but he has solutions to them," Jones said. "We feel from a veterans' standpoint it's going to take someone with his intelligence, knowledge and intestinal fortitude."

Jones said his coalition's plan is to call on the 26.2 million veterans on the official roles and another 5 to 8 million unregistered vets to mobilize behind Corsi.

Corsi actually represents the angry right Michael Savage listener pretty well—he loathes Bush almost as much as he loathes terrorists or border-jumpers. But one of the Calvinist elect who can lead America into the golden dawn? Well, OK.