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Now laughing friends deride

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Fox News fembot on Cain’s smoking commercial:

“Were you trying to appeal to, you know, folks who are out there, you know, living real lives, working the farm, working in Detroit — you know, that kind of thing, as opposed to the East and West Coast elite, people in media circles who shun smoking? And you know, sort of real American things?”

Bonus: the smoking guy refers to himself in the third person.

Reader Interactions

88Comments

  1. 1.

    Martin

    Who’s keeping tabs on the wayback machine? Smoking is ‘real living’. People in Detroit have ‘jobs’ and, well, presumably are no longer inner city black gangbangers. People broadly still work the farm.

    We should soon be approaching the point when Perry releases a commercial which supports our brave boys fighting the Japanese and calling for the widespread electrification of America.

    Let’s not go too far, though, or we’ll be right back in the banks blowing shit up and everyone standing on bread lines.

  2. 2.

    jacy

    Herman Cain just wants everyone to experience how character-building cancer is! And if you get cancer and you can’t overcome it, it just proves that a) you didn’t work hard enough, and b) god didn’t really like you in the first place.

  3. 3.

    Steve

    Megyn Kelly, of course, is as distant from the East and West Coast elite as one can imagine. And I’m sure she totally chain-smokes a couple packs a day.

  5. 5.

    McWaffle

    Really, I think the main question should be: What the hell is up with that look Cain gives the camera at the end? It reminds me of that sun-baby from teletubbies or something. It weirds me out.

  6. 6.

    Catsy

    “Were you trying to appeal to, you know, folks who are out there, you know, living real lives, working the farm, working in Detroit — you know, that kind of thing, as opposed to the East and West Coast elite, people in media circles who shun lung cancer, emphysema, COPD, and agonizingly slow deaths?”

    There seems to have been a transcription error.

  7. 7.

    Martin

    @Steve: Yes, well, she went to Syracuse and got her JD in Albany. You know how long it takes a hot, blonde lawyer to drive to Greenwich from Albany in her convertible BMW? Like, two and a half hours. And that assumes you can take the time away from rustling buffalo and repairing the combine.

  8. 8.

    kindness

    We here on the West Coast don’t shun smoking. We’ve just learned that using a Volcano Vaporizor is way better for our lungs.

  10. 10.

    Hoodie

    Does she me people working in Detroit at the auto factories that Obama kept open so they don’t have to work delivering shitty pizza?

  11. 11.

    Mino

    I’ve been laughing too hard today. Bad, bad, me.

    And I still think Cain must be punking everyone.

  15. 15.

    Mark B.

    Ok, they sampled the 10 seconds of the commercial where Block’s head wasn’t jerking back and forth like the hit of crack he just took in was just starting to take effect. They ought to have played the whole thing.

  16. 16.

    schrodinger's cat

    Why does Fox hire these interchangeable blondes? Do men really find blondes more attractive?

  17. 17.

    gnomedad

    as opposed to the East and West Coast elite, people in media circles who shun smoking?

    Fortunately, it didn’t take too long for the other shoe to drop. I can relax now.

    @The Other Chuck:

    Cain’s pick for Surgeon General, I’m guessing.

    I burst out laughing. Perfect.

  18. 18.

    JWL

    My initial reaction was that the guy doesn’t look healthy. It may have been the lighting. But I tend to think it’s the tobacco intake. Habitual smokers often have a sickly look to them. You know what I mean?

    A dear friend of my mom’s died just last week of emphysema. The poor thing was a heavy smoker all her life.

  19. 19.

    Mino

    The snark is strong in this thread. Martin for the win at the moment. Who’s keeping tabs on the wayback machine?

  20. 20.

    Brachiator

    @Mino:

    And I still think Cain must be punking everyone.

    As long as he keeps taking the Koch suckers money, it’s OK by me. And even though I think Cain stands a chance in hell of getting the GOP nomination, I want him to do well in primaries and split the GOP vote. Make Romney and the GOP powers that be sweat for it.

  21. 21.

    opie jeanne

    What the hell is a veterans’ bar? Is this something unique to Iowa?

    Just because Iowa hasn’t outlawed smoking in bars doesn’t mean … oh hell. I give up.

  22. 22.

    Mark B.

    I’m also disappointed that they cut out the bit where Block threw the still lit butt out his car window into a national forest. Good thing that Smokey the Socialist Bear wasn’t anywhere around.

  25. 25.

    opie jeanne

    @JWL: I thought the same thing when I saw the ad, that he looked sickly, kind of yellowish, and it looked like it was shot outside where the lighting would be pretty good.

  26. 26.

    Mino

    @Brachiator: Amen. Let him keep it up to the convention. He’s in the wrong profession, though. He should be script writing for Mel Brooks if he’s the one doing these ads.

  28. 28.

    Mark B.

    I’m also disappointed that they cut out the bit where Block threw the still lit butt out his car window into a national forest. Good thing that Smokey the Bear wasn’t anywhere around.

    [edited to remove word that kicked off moderation …]

  29. 29.

    CaptainFwiffo

    The video is one of the most surreal things I’ve seen this cycle. I am tempted to say “ever”, but I’m sure some past thing was even stranger and I’ve blocked it out.

  31. 31.

    cathyx

    Someone needs to tell him that the majority of those people out there in middle america, living real lives, working the farm, and working in Detroit don’t smoke. The smoking rate in the US is under 20%.

  32. 32.

    handsmile

    Boy howdy, quite a day for song lyrics as post titles!

    Two Elvis Costello tunes this morning and now “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes.” And if I’m not mistaken “Kthug Gets It” was a track on the latest release from Godspeed You Black Emperor. (Dougerhead’s earlier post “Bleed on Me” should be a lyric, but I don’t know it.)

    Must be some kinda contest among front-pagers.

  41. 41.

    Jim C.

    Megyn Kelly is a brainless, ignorant, bitch. Maybe not the nicest word choice in the world, but damnit, it fits women like her and Sarah Palin.

  44. 44.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @pragmatism:

    mistress ayn did declare smoking a moral obligation.

    Im fact, a cigarette with a $ as its only branding was one of the Big Clues to the John Galt Mystery.

  45. 45.

    cursorial

    Cain’s message: We only have enough money for about two ad spots, and being weird enough to get free airtime (Thanks, Megyn!) is our only hope of staying in this thing. It’s the Mike Gravel strategy – hopeless, yes, but still unforgettable. (Edit: I see CaptainFwiffo beat me to the Gravel connection)

  46. 46.

    Jager

    I just looked out of my office window and a couple of West Coast Elites were out smoking in the parking lot next to a BMW 740! Do they qualify as “real Americans”?

  47. 47.

    jl

    I may have missed a mention of it comments above, but I read someplace that Cain did some work, or political favors, for the tobacco industry in the past.

    So… maybe a little promise of things to come for that industry group if he is elected? Beside appealing to the smoker vote, though most regular daily smokers want to quit or at least cut down, so not sure if a drag on a coffin nail is a sure fire winner with that group.

    As for Kelly, she is Fox news actor, so the sense of what she says is of no importance. Just as long as a dog whistle to listener prejudices is embedded in the word salad.

    As far as I can tell, what she said had no obvious connection to reality. But will look through comments in detail latter to see if some one has figured it out.

  49. 49.

    Mino

    I think Cain is a sure thing for the Polli(best) and the Daisy(worst) awards for political advertising.

  50. 50.

    JPL

    @Jim C.: Give her some credit. It took a lot of courage to tell the Cain campaign went the ad signified. Think about how she would describe the Obama ads.

  51. 51.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @pragmatism:

    Thanks for that photo! I just printed it out and shared with an Indian colleague. He’s off to buy sweets at a local South Asian grocery for his Diwali feast tomorrow.

  56. 56.

    pragmatism

    @gnomedad: basically to justify her nicotine addiction.

    from http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard23.html

    “The official justification for making smoking a moral obligation was a sentence in Atlas where the heroine refers to a lit cigarette as symbolizing a fire in the mind, the fire of creative ideas. (One would think that simply holding up a lit match could do just as readily for this symbolic function.) One suspects that the actual reason, as in so many other parts of Randian theory, from Rachmaninoff to Victor Hugo to tap dancing, was that Rand simply liked smoking and had the need to cast about for a philosophical system that would make her personal whims not only moral but also a moral obligation incumbent upon everyone who desires to be rational.”

  57. 57.

    Citizen_X

    @gnomedad:

    Why, exactly?

    So that they get emphysema, and thus end up burdening the welfare state, maybe? Didn’t Rand herself end up doing that?

  62. 62.

    gogol's wife

    @jl:

    He was a lobbyist for the national restaurant association or something, and pushed against no-smoking laws. He also pushed against attempts to curtail drunk driving. He’s a real prize.

  63. 63.

    Suffern ACE

    Mormons are non-smokers and non-drinkers. We’ll know Romney takes this affront seriously when we see Mitt cut an ad with with a cigar and a Rolling Rock.

  64. 64.

    Linnaeus

    “Were you trying to appeal to, you know, folks who are out there, you know, living real lives, working the farm, working in Detroit — you know, that kind of thing, as opposed to the East and West Coast elite, people in media circles who shun smoking? And you know, sort of real American things?”

    Megyn, please don’t try to drag my hometown into this “heartland vs. the coasts” bullshit. Because if you knew anything about the Detroit area, you’d know that it contains a whole lot of people who are regularly excluded from the “heartland” model.

    I also happen to think that the “heartland” concept doesn’t even accurately describe the areas that are considered to be “the heartland”.

  65. 65.

    Joe L.

    Maybe this has something to do with the fact that I quit cold-turkey eighteen days ago (after a pack-and-a-half a day habit) *AND* I live in Detroit, but this makes me want to punch Megyn (wtf?) Kelly in the enormous paycheck she cashes every other week for spewing this bullsh!t and carrying the water of people who could give f*ck all about us Detroiters.

    GRRRRRR.

  66. 66.

    phoebes-in-santa fe

    Oh dear god. Are we resurrecting that “real American” shit from the Palin 2008 campaign? You know, the non-elites, salt-of-the-earth meth-smokers of Small Town America”.

    The problem with the “pundit” Republicans is that they SAY they’re not “elitists”, but I’ll bet they’d choose the smartest doctor for an operation or the smartest lawyer for legal help. And don’t tell me they don’t want their OWN kids not to go to Harvard.

  68. 68.

    different-church-lady

    @pragmatism:

    “The official justification for making smoking a moral obligation was a sentence in Atlas where the heroine refers to a lit cigarette as symbolizing a fire in the mind, the fire of creative ideas.

    I know it’s almost impossible to tell with Rand, but perhaps we weren’t really supposed to take that one seriously.

  69. 69.

    Chet

    There are plenty of fundy Xians out there who regard nicotine as immoral as sex, rock music, weed, booze, card-playing, moving-picture shows, etc. I take it they’re coastal elitists, too?

  71. 71.

    Joe L.

    Maybe this has something to do with the fact that I quit cold-turkey eighteen days ago (after a pack-and-a-half a day habit) AND I live in Detroit, but this makes me want to punch Megyn (wtf?) Kelly in the enormous paycheck she cashes every other week for spewing this bullsh!t and carrying the water of people who could give f*ck all about us Detroiters.

    GRRRRRR.

  72. 72.

    shortstop

    @schrodinger’s cat: Peripherally. Walk toward the lights, Carol Ann!

    As for the smoking thing, there are no adults (other than tea partiers and militia members) who can be more bovinely belligerent about their right to do stupid shit than a certain type of smoker. And yeah, there’s plenty of crossover between the groups.

  73. 73.

    HyperIon

    @CaptainFwiffo wrote:

    The video is one of the most surreal things I’ve seen this cycle. I am tempted to say “ever”, but I’m sure some past thing was even stranger and I’ve blocked it out.

    yes, peak wingnut IS a LIE.

  78. 78.

    Vodkamuppet

    Ok, all the obvious jokes about anyone in my city still having a job have already been made but what I would really like to know is, when the hell did Detroit become part of “real America” again? We sure as shit weren’t considered real Americans in ’08 or ’09 when all of our jobs were evaporating and the GOP was busy calling us all deadbeats and Marxists for wanting the terms of our contracts, negotiated in good faith, to actually be delivered on. Wall street got golden parachutes from these fuckers while we got golden showers and now these assholes at FOX actually have the gall to call me one of them? Everytime I think the disingenuousness can’t possibly get anymore obvious a little story like this pops up and reaffirms my absolute hatred for the GOP and FOX News.

  79. 79.

    The Other Chuck

    @CaptainFwiffo:

    The video is one of the most surreal things I’ve seen this cycle. I am tempted to say “ever”, but I’m sure some past thing was even stranger and I’ve blocked it out.

    Carly Fiorina’s Demon Sheep Ad ring any bells?

  80. 80.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    Those smoke-filled rooms where tough political decisions are made aren’t going to fill themselves with smoke.

    Vote Cain, he comes with a smoke machine!

    Maybe the guy was trying to quietly message everyone that Cain is blowing smoke up their asses?

  81. 81.

    Linda

    Cathyx:

    I don’t think conservatives love real America, just Real America, the one playing on tape inside their heads. How real people live is altogether not their concern, just as David Brooks can read the drop in credit card use to increasing moral fiber, rather than decreasing money. When conservatives want to make fun of my hometown, they use Detroit as a template for failure. When they want to project their fantasies about everyone between the Sierra Nevada range and the Allegheny Mountains, Detroit becomes Real America again.

  86. 86.

    PIGL

    @Joe L.: Good Luck, Joe L. I quit cold turkey last Christmas, after a 30yr pack a day habit. If I can do it, you can. The next couple weeks may still be a little touch, but if you can make it to three weeks, you can make it to three months.

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