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You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2012 / Open Thread: The TerMITTnator

Open Thread: The TerMITTnator

by Anne Laurie|  August 30, 201111:52 pm| 45 Comments

This post is in: Election 2012, Open Threads, Assholes

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(Mike Luckovich via Gocomics.com)
__
Don’t have a Mac, iPod, or iPad, but (or should that be “therefore”?) I LOL’d.

***********

Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly reports that my personal nemesis, Willard “Mitt” Romney, has decided he can no longer stand above the fray now that James Richard “Guv Goodhair” Perry is stealing the GOP primary limelight:

In a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention today, Romney has apparently come up with an opening salvo.

According to excerpts of the speech released by his campaign, Mr. Romney plans to say: “Career politicians got us into this mess, and they simply don’t know how to get us out!”
__
It is an argument Mr. Romney has made repeatedly on the campaign trail — that he is not a career politician, and is one of the few candidates, having spent 25 years in the private sector, with the know-how to create jobs — but never in such a pointed contrast to Mr. Perry, who first entered politics in 1984 and has not lost an election since.

… Romney’s reliance on his private-sector background is itself problematic — he got rich by putting thousands of Americans out of work.
__
But even if we put all of that aside, the “career politician” line seems especially odd given Romney’s background. Isn’t this the guy who ran for the Senate in 1994, ran for governor in 2002, ran for president in 2008, and is running for president again in 2012? Indeed, by most measures, he’s been running for the White House continuously for more than four years.
__
In other words, wouldn’t Mitt Romney be a career politician, too, if only voters liked him a little more?

As a stickler for accuracy, I must point out that Willard started his vulture-capitalist career with a mere multi-million-dollar trust fund, although in true Galtian fashion he’s used all the tools of the modern MBA sociopath to multiply that into a quarter-billion-dollar fortune for his campaign managers to steal from his own kids. But President Obama can safely state that Romney has devoted his life to destroying American jobs in both the public and private sector… or is that going to be the Romney campaign’s advertising pitch to his fellow Republicans?

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Reader Interactions

45Comments

  1. 1.

    Corner Stone

    August 30, 2011 at 11:54 pm

    Guys in V-neck shirts? No.

  2. 2.

    Mark S.

    August 30, 2011 at 11:59 pm

    Jesus, Mitt, that was some weak shit. Well, I’ve to admit, Williard doesn’t seem like a career politician, because he’s about the worst one I’ve ever seen.

  3. 3.

    MikeJ

    August 31, 2011 at 12:01 am

    or should that be “therefore”?) I LOL’d.

    I don’t dislike Macs because I don’t use them, I dislike them because I do.

    Cleek has dropped to number two(hah! number two!) for “itunes shit” google. Perhaps another link will help him.

    Sorry to steer away from the substance into the minutia so soon.

  4. 4.

    SiubhanDuinne

    August 31, 2011 at 12:03 am

    Why, WHY, WHY am I being tormented by all these Ron Paul 2012 t-shirt ads?

  5. 5.

    SiubhanDuinne

    August 31, 2011 at 12:05 am

    And why why why didn’t I remember to close the italics? Hope I haven’t fucked the thread for everyone else. Sorry in advance if I did.

    (Slouching off to bed now.)

  6. 6.

    Mark S.

    August 31, 2011 at 12:09 am

    I’m not sure I believe this story (it’s from the goddamn NY Post, so I probably shouldn’t):

    Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is facing a new challenge: He’s having trouble raising money from some Jewish donors who mistakenly believe one of his opponents, Michele Bachmann, is Jewish. Some Jewish donors are telling fund-raisers for Romney, a Mormon, that while they like him, they’d rather open their wallets for the “Jewish candidate,” who they don’t realize is actually a Lutheran, The Post has learned.

    How fucking out of it do you have to be to think Michele Bachmann is Jewish? And are they actually writing checks based on this mistaken information? I’m starting to see how Bernie Madoff was able to steal so much money.

  7. 7.

    MikeJ

    August 31, 2011 at 12:11 am

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Why, WHY, WHY am I being tormented by all these Ron Paul 2012 t-shirt ads?

    Have they done a deal with snorg? I still won’t buy a shirt but I might go looking for the ad.

  8. 8.

    WyldPirate

    August 31, 2011 at 12:11 am

    for the people bitching several threads back earlier today about Darth Cheney and Dubya’s criminality with respect to being admitted torturers (and proud of it), I dredged this upfrom a few months ago:

    One of the little reported details from the latest batch of Wikileaks material are cables showing that the Obama Administration worked hard behind the scenes not only to prevent any investigation of torture in the United States but shutdown efforts abroad to enforce the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture. This includes threatening the Spanish that, if they did not derail a judicial investigation, it would have serious consequences in bilateral relations. I discussed these cables on Countdown.
    ___
    For two years, President Obama has worked to block the investigation of torture under the Bush Administration — even as both Dick Cheney and George Bush publicly admit to ordering waterboarding of suspects.

    But of course to the Cult of Obama buffoons here, President Immaculate Perfection Obama is a big believer in the application of the rule of law…..except when he is aiding and abetting the confessed war criminals in avoiding prosecution….

  9. 9.

    Mike Goetz

    August 31, 2011 at 12:13 am

    And Weird Willard has now reversed field and will attend Jim DeMint’s Hee Haw Jamboree in South Carolina this weekend, after pointedly refusing up until now.

    Running for President for four years and blown off the field in two weeks. That’s gotta hurt.

  10. 10.

    Spaghetti Lee

    August 31, 2011 at 12:16 am

    What does MBA stand for again? “Must Be Asshole”?

  11. 11.

    Cat Lady

    August 31, 2011 at 12:18 am

    @Mark S.:

    Seriously, that’s fucked up. I thought most people knew, but especially Jews, that ___mann with 2 n’s is German, and German means Lutheran, and Minnesota means German also too, sure you betcha. Something’s not right about that story.

  12. 12.

    Yutsano

    August 31, 2011 at 12:33 am

    @Mark S.: I’m gonna call bullpuckey on that one. Sorry but Jews never assume Jewishness by surname alone. They’d never guess my dad is with his very Gallic last name.

  13. 13.

    Origuy

    August 31, 2011 at 12:40 am

    Lagunitas Lucky 13 Red Ale (8.5% ABV) has kicked my butt. That is all.

  14. 14.

    suzanne

    August 31, 2011 at 12:46 am

    I don’t know why, but I’m watching America’s Got Talent, and Piers Morgan is such a homophobe.

    Romney’s campaign is on a downward slide, and he knows it. His only real asset is a veneer of niceness, and going on the offensive shoots that all to shit.

  15. 15.

    The Dangerman

    August 31, 2011 at 12:51 am

    @Mike Goetz:

    Running for President for four years and blown off the field in two weeks. That’s gotta hurt.

    He’s not that old; he could have sat it out until 2016. With the TPers and his Mass Health Care, I don’t see how he had (has) a chance.

    What, he’s Mormon, too? Shit.

  16. 16.

    clayton

    August 31, 2011 at 1:11 am

    VFW — what the fuck? We’ve been fed a load of shit from them for a couple of days now.

    Where are the Vietnam Vets and the Iraq vets and the Afghanistan vets to counter the shit about them being slighted. Don’t give me any of that shit that the elders are in charge.

    How in the hell has the VFW been turned into a wing nut spewing machine?

  17. 17.

    James E. Powell

    August 31, 2011 at 1:26 am

    How in the hell has the VFW been turned into a wing nut spewing machine?

    I’m 56 years old. I do not remember a time when the VFW was not a wing-nut spewing machine. They are the kind of assholes who spurned decorated combat veteran John Kerry in favor of a draft dodger who did not finish is service, then hired people to disappear his service records.

  18. 18.

    Jenny

    August 31, 2011 at 1:38 am

    Watching Mittens push the panic button is hilarious.

  19. 19.

    Jenny

    August 31, 2011 at 1:40 am

    @The Dangerman:

    He’s not that old;

    He’s turning 65.

  20. 20.

    Steeplejack

    August 31, 2011 at 1:41 am

    @James E. Powell:

    I do not remember a time when the VFW was not a wing-nut spewing machine.

    Amen. I remember in the ’70s there were VFW posts that made young Vietnam vets unwelcome because they were “losers” and not sufficiently “America, fuck yeah!”

    And all that coming from old coots who sat in a motor pool in Korea for a year.

  21. 21.

    Dennis SGMM

    August 31, 2011 at 1:46 am

    @clayton:

    When I returned from Vietnam in ’72 I made the mistake of sticking my head inside the local VFW. It was by the grace of being sick and tired of interpersonal violence that I didn’t pick up the nearest one of the denizens there and club the rest of them down with him. According to them, we who had fought in Vietnam were all losers because we smoked pot and thereby lost the war. The VFW is a refuge for REMFs (Rear Echelon MotherFuckers) who like to get patriotically drunk.

  22. 22.

    Jenny

    August 31, 2011 at 1:51 am

    “As a stickler for accuracy, I must point out that Willard started his vulture-capitalist career with a mere multi-million-dollar trust fund, and his daddy’s rolodex”.

    /fix’d

  23. 23.

    PeakVT

    August 31, 2011 at 1:53 am

    Ok, this is weird. I’m sure soçialized medicine is to blame somehow.

  24. 24.

    Ruckus

    August 31, 2011 at 1:58 am

    @Spaghetti Lee:
    That’s what I’ve always thought.

  25. 25.

    Yutsano

    August 31, 2011 at 1:58 am

    @PeakVT: I’m really starting to wonder if isn’t some bizarre serial killer marking or something. We do tend to grow those up this way.

  26. 26.

    Ruckus

    August 31, 2011 at 2:00 am

    @Dennis SGMM:
    That’s always been my impression as well.

  27. 27.

    The Dangerman

    August 31, 2011 at 2:14 am

    @Jenny:

    He’s turning 65.

    I stand corrected; I would have been off by almost a decade if I had guessed.

  28. 28.

    Calouste

    August 31, 2011 at 2:20 am

    Romney might not call himself a career politician, but he is in politics because his daddy was as well. So shall we call him a dynasty politician? Maybe he’d prefer that.

  29. 29.

    BillinGlendaleCA (aka 10amla)

    August 31, 2011 at 3:10 am

    @Yutsano:

    Yup, IIRC Ted Bundy got his start at UW and then there was the Green River Killer while I was up there and the Pig farmer across the border. Maybe it’s the weather.

  30. 30.

    Yutsano

    August 31, 2011 at 3:27 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA (aka 10amla): There’s the guy who killed a bunch of folks and buried them on his farm outside Vancouver too. But as a Cougar I can never resist rubbing in the salt of the wound that is Ted Bundy. We got Edward R. Murrow. :)

  31. 31.

    Kane

    August 31, 2011 at 3:35 am

    On Tuesday, when President Obama was addressing the American Legion, one of the biggest applause lines was when he said, “Most of all, we have to break the gridlock in Washington that’s been preventing us from taking the action we need to get this economy moving.”

    Remember, this wasn’t a progressive organization that he was speaking to, but the American Legion. A lot of gray hairs in that audience. Not exactly Obama’s base in 2008. But they get it. They understand what is going on in Washington, and they know who is preventing us from taking action to get the economy moving. The majority of the audience may very well be republican, but to a man, they consider themselves Americans first and foremost. They don’t like what the Republican congress is doing to the country, and it shows in the polls. And it shows in their applause. They get it.

  32. 32.

    BillinGlendaleCA (aka 10amla)

    August 31, 2011 at 3:37 am

    @Yutsano:

    Yup, that’s the pig farm I was talking about. Hmmm, a Wazzu guy? Both me and my dad are UW grads(though dad’s been gone a while).

    ETA: We’ve also had our share of serial killers here in SoCal: Charlie, the Hillside Strangler(killed his victims about a mile from here), the Nightstalker…

  33. 33.

    Yutsano

    August 31, 2011 at 3:41 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA (aka 10amla): If you look on my Book of Faces you’ll see a ton of Cougs and also a few Huskies. Band geeks tend to not petty considerations like school affiliation get in the way of getting to know folks.

  34. 34.

    BillinGlendaleCA (aka 10amla)

    August 31, 2011 at 4:02 am

    @Yutsano:

    I’m not sure my undergrad(UCLA) band feels quite the same about their band “friends” from across town. I seem to remember a bit of hostility. During my 3 years at UW I never quite got the same level of hostility directed towards Wazu as the Bruins have towards the Trojans*.

    * Note that you can’t spell Trojan without OJ. :)

  35. 35.

    balconesfault

    August 31, 2011 at 6:21 am

    Best I can tell, George W Bush is the singlemost person responsible for getting us into this mess … and he was hardly a career politician.

    Granted, he was a much worse businessman than Romney, also.

  36. 36.

    JR

    August 31, 2011 at 7:28 am

    While I will admit that I have been very disappointed by many positions President Obama has taken, including not prosecuting torturers and banker-thiefs, one must compare him to the alternative: President McCain.

    What else do you have to say?

    And this election season… the competition against another Obama term is Williard “Mitt” Romney, proud wearer of magic underware, Rick Perry, proud executioner of innocent prisoners, Michelle Bachmann, I mean, really?

    Gotta vote for Obama.

    And another thing, when will spell checkers finally learn how to spell the President of the United States of America’s name?

    that is ‘most all

    j.r.

  37. 37.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 31, 2011 at 7:35 am

    @clayton: One of my grandfathers, a WWII vet, wouldn’t join the VFW because they were right-wing jackasses. As he said, he was eligible to to join and that was enough for him.

  38. 38.

    Boudica

    August 31, 2011 at 7:39 am

    No comments or posts on the Gawker news about Billo’s big marital break up? The schadenfreude alone has been keeping me going for the past 16 hours.

  39. 39.

    Nemesis

    August 31, 2011 at 8:32 am

    Much has been said about Perry’s entrance into the race and how an eventual Paylin run would help Willards chances at the WH. Apparently, the Villagers believe gop establishment types are soiling themselves at the possibility of a bagger-infested field where the crazy eat one another, leaving the only truly electable candidate standing and relatively unscathed (Willard).

    My take is a bit different. With Perry’s soaring poll numbers (which I feel will eventually sag. He will not be the nominee), Willard has already begun his tack to the far right. If Willard has to appeal to the bagger crazies, he will damage his position with moderates. Hence, he will be unelectable himself.

    And Paylin gets into the race during September. Bye bye Willard.

  40. 40.

    Skepticat

    August 31, 2011 at 9:04 am

    Willard did more than run for governor; he served as governor for what seemed to be a verrrry long time. Believe me, I had to suffer through it.

  41. 41.

    Cacti

    August 31, 2011 at 10:13 am

    Mittster has been running for political office in some form for the past two decades.

    His claim that he is not a career politician rests only on the fact that he loses most of the time.

    I guess you could call him an aspiring career politician.

  42. 42.

    kindness

    August 31, 2011 at 11:14 am

    No ipod? Really?!? I won’t get into the constant state of war of those here who feel Macs are great and those here who think Macs are overpriced pieces of junk (even though those people are wrong, Macs are great) but to not have an ipod in this day and age? Why not? I no longer need to take a case of CD’s with me when I go on long trips that go areas where there are no decent radio stations. I take my ipod and plug it into my car stereo or my battery operated dock.

    OK, I lied. Apparently I did get into the Macs are great/Macs suck regularly scheduled food fight. Oh well.

    @Origuy: Give North Coast Brewing Company’s Old Stock Ale a go. You won’t get up off the floor after a few.

  43. 43.

    Steeplejack

    August 31, 2011 at 11:30 am

    @kindness:

    I have a gigantic MicroSD card in my Droid phone and use it as my MP3 player. One less gadget to carry.

  44. 44.

    feebog

    August 31, 2011 at 12:08 pm

    Perry is still in the honeymoon period. It is only a matter of time until Rove and the rest of the headhunters on Faux Noose go after him. The question is whether those attacks will merely dent his numbers or send him into a tail spin. The other point I have seen debated on other sites is Perry’s ability, or lack thereof to debate. A couple of poor debate appearances would take the shine off pretty quickly.

  45. 45.

    rikryah

    August 31, 2011 at 2:54 pm

    the only thing people like about Mittens is that his checks clear

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