Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
by Betty Cracker| 118 Comments
This post is in: Media, Politics, Republican Stupidity, Assholes
Ruh-roh:
I still say Mittens takes the GOP nomination. But it’s unseemly to say the least to have Mr. Private Sector shaking his tin cup so aggressively at the feds. Not that his fellow plutocrats don’t all do it, of course. But it spoils the narrative.
[H/T: The Raw Story; X-POSTED at Rumproast]Comments are closed.
[…] believe I have. More than once. Via Betty Cracker at Balloon-Juice, he’s at it again. This video would be devastating if any of the other candidates […]
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[…] advertisers on the stations that carry his show. Commenter “Jager” at Balloon Juice provides instructions on how to go about this [I've added a few clarifications in brackets], and as a former radio guy I can say he’s more […]
[…] recent video that’s turned up from his 2002 campaign for governor, where he talks about the mountains of federal money he’ll get because he knows all the loopholes, Mittens has a another problem with one of his […]
[…] LINK […]
Zifnab
Romney is merely the exception that proves the rule, Betty. This will only be good news…
Chris
His last line, “I’m the only candidate who hasn’t spent time in Washington.”
Newt Gingrich may suck, but damn if he wasn’t spot on when he said this: “The only reason you didn’t become a career politician is because you lost to Ted Kennedy in 1994.”
Schlemizel
this needs to be made into an ad & run in all the right places.
Bludger
Flip-flop overload. We can only take so much.
Anyone paying attention for 2 minutes can figure out that this guy is a self-serving snake. I’m suprised he has made it this far.
cokane
meh, not sure what this tape is going to do exactly. there’s tons of tape already out there of Stimulus critics touting their grabs for those federal funds. this is just more of the same
Culture of Truth
Romney a flip flopper?? Say it ain’t so!
dmsilev
@Bludger: It’s a tribute to the complete lack of seriousness among his competitors. Even Grampa McCain was able to beat Romney last time around.
ploeg
The key is getting government money FOR ME. You have all these folks who rail about earmarks and spending and all that, and then they jet back to their districts and states and brag about all the money that they got for their constituents. The complaint isn’t about earmarks and spending per se, it’s about earmarks and spending for THOSE FOLKS.
I don’t participate in any government programs! I earned that Social Security check by working all these years. Get the government out of my Medicare!
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
Its that kind of creativity that allowed Bain capital to monetize existing businesses and put wads of cash in their own pockets. That’s the kind kind of out of the box thinking we’re talking about, people!
jharp
Off topic but wanted to share. Found this at the The Gateway Dumbshit’s site.
“A Save the Georgetown Sluts page was just created on Facebook.”
http://www.facebook.com/SaveTheGeorgetownSluts
KG
@Chris: I do love that line… though I’d follow it up with “so, really, you’ve just been a career candidate”
As this thing drags on, I become less convinced that Romney will be the nominee. I still think the odds are in his favor, but all it takes is one or two screwy results. Let’s say Santorum’s SuperPAC decides to dump some money in Virginia on behalf of Ron Paul (in the “deny Romney delegates wherever you can” theory) and Paul is able to close the gap a bit there. Or let’s say Romney ends up third in too many states on Super Tuesday (could, theoretically, happen in Georgia, Tennessee, and Oklahoma). Follow that up with third place finishes in Alabama and Mississippi, and you really have to start wondering what’s going to happen.
gnomedad
I’m applying for a job as a surgeon. I’m the only one who’s never done surgery.
amk
@cokane: The difference is that this hypocritical liar is running for prez. So, yes, an ad on this will hurt him.
Chinn Romney
Game over? Uh, no. Mitt’s gazillions still have a sporting chance versus the attention span of the average American voter.
KG
@ploeg: that’s very true… everyone always has a low opinion of Congress as a whole, but they think their particular Congresscritter is doing a bang up job.
Mike Goetz
I don’t see how this is any different from all the other inconsistencies that haven’t hurt him so far. You have to have people who can use this stuff effectively, and the other dead candidates walking can’t, because they have no talent.
gogol's wife
@gnomedad:
So, so true. They make me so sick.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chinn Romney:
Alas, this is all too true. Romney, in any rational society, would have been eliminated long ago from any consideration for high office, seeing as he’s a pathological liar and flip-flopper.
But this is not a rational society.
Martin
@ploeg:
Yep. Taxpayers are just a slush fund for the wealthy.
Chris
@dmsilev:
@Mike Goetz:
It’s a tribute to something, I’m just not sure what. What is it about the other candidates? Is it the crazy? The base lives and breathes crazy. Is it that they don’t have the money to complete with Romney? Is it that there’s just to many to choose from?
Or has the base finally woken up to the fact that no real-world candidate can fulfill all their fantasies? I kind of like that last theory…
chopper
@Bludger:
yeah, but there’s something even creepier about this clip than the usual mittster shenanigans. it’s like he’s talking directly about bilking the us taxpayer with a shit-eating grin on his face.
maybe that’s just me.
Paul (@princejvstin)
everyone always has a low opinion of Congress as a whole, but they think their particular Congresscritter is doing a bang up job.
I used to live in MN-6, the district of Michele Bachmann.
I bemoaned my representation in Congress. Daily.
With redistricting, I was afraid I was going to be represented by her again, but fortunately that won’t be the case.
amk
@Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937: Bingo.
MattF
Everybody already knows that Mitt’s a liar. Truth to tell, I think that calling him a liar is a kind of category error. In fact, Mitt merely emits whatever verbal production appears to be appropriate in a particular environment, true, false, whatever.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris:
Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.
Betty Cracker
@chopper: It’s not just you — that’s what struck me about it too.
Culture of Truth
This Week in Congress: “DICKS TO RETIRE”
Poopyman
@Chris:
I think that by definition “the base” will never wake up to that fact. That’s why they’re “the base” – in any party.
gogol's wife
@chopper:
Yes, this feels like the “real” Willard, and it’s not pretty.
Marc
@MattF:
It’s like the Nixon administration. Honesty is a policy, and it may or may not be the best policy.
Poopyman
@gogol’s wife:
I dunno. It seems to me that as his real “strength” he could have campaigned on it from the get-go and could have been a much stronger candidate.
And yes, admittedly it’s not pretty. To us. But again, I’m thinking it would have resonated with a wider swath of Republicans than he now has.
jl
@Poopyman: Interesting point. In the old clip of Romney as governor, he is a human political and money wheeling dealing machine we can understand, and as far as human political and money wheeling dealing machines go, trust a littler farther than you could throw a house on fire.
If he could have run as that and survive the GOP primary, he would have been a much stronger candidate in the general election.
Not saying much, though. Maybe better than Bush II, which is more than I can say about the current version of Romney, or the other GOP candidates.
Gee
This video makes me feel bad for Romney. I sense a basic competence here of being creative in using Federal money to make the Olympics a success. He did his job. But he can no longer use this as evidence of his competence, in fact he has to hide it because the people he has to appeal to have turned unhinged. Sometimes I feel that it isn’t Romney who has flip-flopped but the base that has done so.
I’m not at all a Romney supporter, would never vote for him in the general, but I feel real sadness at the way he has to contort himself into a pretzel to reason with people who have turned unreasonable. And there is no way he can unpretzel himself to win the presidency.
Cap'n Swag
If Mitt didn’t have to run as a Randian nutjob, he could just turn around and say “we went to the government for help, and in return we brought in even more than they had given us.” Not saying that’s true, but when do factual statements mean anything?
jibeaux
@Gee: He doesn’t have to do anything. If I had a gabillionty dollars, I wouldn’t do shit.
Villago Delenda Est
@Culture of Truth:
I assume that’s Rep. Norm Dicks, D-WA, the guy who basically represents Fort Lewis and the Bremerton Naval Base. Oh, and Tacoma, by the bye.
Villago Delenda Est
@jibeaux:
That’s the thing. This guy has what, 10 million plus flowing into his coffers every year, and he’s putting up with this shit? What the fuck is wrong with him? I’d be sipping absinthe on the Champs Elysee if I were him.
schrodinger's cat
Have the comments been messed up for anyone else? I keep getting the mobile version of the site. I am using Windows 7 Professional and Firefox.
Tractarian
@Gee:
Uh, “real sadness”? I hope you’re being sarcastic. Because, here’s the thing: no one forced Mitt to run for president!
Hell, even if he was forced to run for president (maybe his dad’s ghost visited him one night and ordered him to run)… no one forced him to run as a right-wing ideologue.
amk
@jibeaux: This. It’s an ego trip for him. And no, he doesn’t deserve any sorry. His is the case of greedy corporatism at its extreme.
trollhattan
Loved the pantsing of Mittens (was it on tDS? I can’t recall) comparing his hissy fit of Michigan crossover vote shenanigans and his bragging about doing that very thing, repeatedly in Mass.
He’s really got the bloodless, soulless plutocrat thing down.
Jeffraham Prestonian
Is anyone else randomly getting the mobile phone version of the site (like I am, now)?
.
amk
@schrodinger’s cat: yup, story of the day. cleaning cookies seem to help.
Poopyman
@schrodinger’s cat: @Jeffraham Prestonian:
Check the previous thread. You might start at Catclub’s solution here and work backward.
WaterGirl
I was shocked to see how animated Romney was in this video. It’s like he used to be an actual human being.
Now, he can’t brag about a single thing he’s accomplished – not for the olympics, not as a mormon bishop, not as governor. He has to try to say as little as possible so no one finds out who he really is.
Here’s his platform:
“Don’t notice me, don’t pay any attention to anything I previously said or did. Just vote for me, please.”
deep
This won’t affect anything. The GOP voting public knows he’s a flip flopper, and clearly 40ish percent don’t care.
Comrade Mary
While watching the Mittbot perform at sub-Eliza levels was amusing, I’m also a little sad.
I had thought from the post title that this would be the much-anticipated Obama in College: More Blackitty Black-Black Mooslimocity: The Fecklessing. But it wasn’t. How long do I have to wait for this? How loooooong?
jl
@trollhattan:
” He’s really got the
bloodless, soulless plutocratself entitled whining doofus thing down. ”Santorum asking for Democratic votes in an open primary where cross over votes are OK, is a dirty trick?
Maybe that is their next step, denouncing other candidates who suggest that Democrats might want to consider voting for them.
After all, this is an epic title fight between American and Satan. And who are Satan’s minions, hmmmm? I think we all know the answer to that one. What kind of depraved vile person would ask for their votes?
Let’s hope they keep up the nonsense.
Poopyman
OT at this point, but Think Progress has the text of Judge Cebull’s apology to the prez:
Yeah, I can think of a few suggestions as to what else to do.
PeakVT
64 year-old multi-multi-millionaires should be spending time with their grandchildren, not running for president.
Chris
@Comrade Mary:
I think Mitt’s entire problem with his base is that he doesn’t do things like that.
Villago Delenda Est
@Poopyman:
Well, at least he didn’t say “sorry if you were offended”, which is the usual non-apology apology we get from racist asshats.
The guy has some awareness of how badly he fucked up.
trollhattan
@PeakVT:
Good point! Still time to become the billyunaire he deserves to be, why waste his precious waning years on the nation’s crappiest job?
gogol's wife
@jibeaux:
Just what I was thinking. He doesn’t have to do any of this, and I don’t feel sad about him at all. Except when I think he might become president.
Culture of Truth
well whatever he’s doing wrong, he’s winning the nomination.
trollhattan
@Villago Delenda Est:
Why do I get the feeling what he really wants is to track down the commie who ratted him out, and run him over with his eff three-fiddy?
The guy has some awareness of how badly he fucked up.
Poopyman
@Villago Delenda Est: Yeah, it was quite uncharacteristically contrite. -But how do you tell the POTUS “I’m sorry I said your mama fucked a dog” and not be?-
Yeah, asking that question after seeing the last 10 years of non-apologies would be stupid.
trollhattan
@Culture of Truth:
Which is essentially winning the grand Republican prize: a brakeless, engineless, burning car hurtling down a gravel mountain road.
And he deserves every minute he gets with his shiny prize.
Poopyman
@Culture of Truth: Just barely. These clowns should all be getting steamrolled.
ETA: … by a brakeless, engineless, burning car hurtling down a gravel mountain road.
Soonergrunt
@Poopyman: The word “retire” comes to mind as a start.
Culture of Truth
@trollhattan: “When you forward an e-mail, your’re not only sending it to that person, but to every person that person forwards to.”
Poopyman
@Soonergrunt: Yeah, you’d think his lifetime appointment was about up after that.
Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity
@Poopyman: A rope and a chair are the only two items he needs to make this right.
Punchy
@PeakVT: Wait….WHAT? Mitt’s 64 years old? Seriously? I thought he was 52-ish…
Villago Delenda Est
@Culture of Truth:
As Anthony Weiner discovered with his package pics.
Once it’s out of your control, it’s potentially everywhere.
Davis X. Machina
Wake me up when it’s revealed that Romney’s not white, or doesn’t have a Y chromosome, or an R after his name.
That’s all he needs to keep it close. The rest is up to God, or Angela Merkel, or Bibi Netanyahu, or some captain in the Iranian navy…
schrodinger's cat
@Poopyman: Commenting seems to have solved the problem. Is Tunch fed? that will stop him messing with the blog.
trollhattan
Speaking of “Oopsie” moments, Mormon institutional racism not quite dead yet, may go for walk.
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/faithbased/2012/03/mormon_church_and_racism_a_new_controversy_about_old_teachings_.html
PeakVT
@Punchy: Yep. 14 years older than that young upstart in the WH.
Amir Khalid
@Culture of Truth:
Remember, Mitt’s only ahead of the other candidates because he seems the least bad of the lot. As politicians’ failings go, being a two-faced git is still not as bad as being a 68-year-old with the Terrible Twos, a creepy wowser, or a racist old coot.
Palli
Why is this a flip flop?
Either he has no memory or he lied while speaking then about the financial facts of the Olympic games in Utah or he lied recently about the financial facts of the Olympic games in Utah.
Isn’t flip-flopping changing your mind or position?
Poopyman
@schrodinger’s cat:
Well, we haven’t heard from Cole in a while….
(The other white meat.)
JayJohnstone
@Gee:
Not sure how you could feel sad for Romney. Part of his argument is he can “fix” the us gov as “fixed” the Olympics. If his main fix to the Olympics was grabbing money from the government, I don’t think that is going to help at all as the president.
Jay C
@Palli:
OK, so this meant that, what? The Mittster is either a liar, a flip-flopper, or has severe (and selective) memory problems. Or some combination thereof.
Still not a great list of reasons to vote for him for President… even giving him the benefit of the IOKIYAR pass.
Tonal Crow
I hope Obama’s campaign is logging all this stuff.
jl
@Poopyman: Once he’s finished off Cole, Tunch will eat the blog. Nice while it lasted.
Villago Delenda Est
@trollhattan:
As one of the commenters over at Slate points out, the issue here is that their dogma apparently is fallible. They can’t admit that that was then, this is now, and you’re supposed to doublethink around the the entire issue.
They’ve got this dogma that worked just fine back in the 19th century but is out of place in the 21st.
pseudonymous in nc
@Poopyman:
Honestly, I think that’ll suffice. And if you get wingnut acquaintances or family forwarding that kind of shit to you, reply with a “Really? Aren’t you a better person than that?” and a link to the judge’s apology. Perhaps it’s soft to think that he’s shocked at himself, and not just covering for his fuckup, but I also think there’s a bubble around wingnut chain emails that can be popped.
MikeBoyScout
A grifter’s gotta grift.
Rmoney/Palin!
Elizabelle
@Amir Khalid:
Laughing here. Because it’s so true.
wrb
@trollhattan:
This part should result in some liveliness:
Catsy
@wrb:
FTFY
Poopyman
@jl: We still have time. That’s a lot o’ meat, even for Tunch.
Elizabelle
OT: President Obama has telephoned Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke.
NYTimes: “The president thanked Sandra Fluke for her support after she was subjected to a blistering attack by Rush Limbaugh.”
I think this story has legs, following on the Bishops’ hysteria over contraception.
WaterGirl
@Villago Delenda Est: Yeah, maybe, but I think not. I think he’s probably hoping that our very gracious President Obama, who has graciously accepted every apology I have seen offered to him, will publicly accept his apology, which this racist prick thinks will help him retain his position as a federal judge.
MCA1
@Gee: F that. If he had ever actually stood for anything throughout his career, he could fall back on sanity and be the bulwark of a counterinsurgency of rational, real-world conservatism within the Republican Party. There wouldn’t be tepid support from the GOP establishment, or whatever’s left of it – it would be full-throated, and the contrast between himself and the nutjobs thrown up by the Tea Party wing would stand out that much more as the crazy-ass morans they are. He could run as a candidate united with the basic philosophy, but not the never compromise even one teeny tiny bit obstructionist tactics, of his do-nothing colleagues in Congress, taking a lot of sting out of that inevitable line of attack by our guy.
Instead, Mitt’s been so unprincipled for so long, and so cravenly desperate for the ego validation of the GOP nomination, that instead of being confident in his own strength and staking out a clear place as the voice of reason within the party, he’s had to spend the last four years floating further and further to the Right to appease and pander to the growing monster of insanity within it.
If there’s any reason to feel sorry for him, it will be after the general election, when he loses and doesn’t get enough thanks from us over here, for being such a tool and never amounting to anything more than “generic Republican” in a race against an incumbent facing a still-awful economy.
Palli
@Jay C:
My point exactly.
Don’t you think calling this a lie is more powerful than flip-flop?
And remember, memory loss in republican terms is not such a bad thing! In fact, it is a condition of Sainthood and innocent (“I don’t recall”).
wrb
@Villago Delenda Est:
I suspect that they consider it infallible, and are faking it until they have they have enough power to re-write the rules.
At least that would be consistent with Harold Bloom’s claim that their renunciation of polygamy must be insincere, since according to his reading of their theology, polygamy is required if a man is to achieve godhood, which is the goal.
Scamp Dog
@Poopyman: Hey, that was an actual apology apology. I’m kind of astounded to hear something like that from a public figure.
WaterGirl
@Palli: You are correct. I believe you can flip-flop on a position, but not on a fact.
Thor Heyerdahl
@Elizabelle:
Nice choice of noun if intended. Fantastic irony if not.
wrb
@Catsy:
brilliant
Elizabelle
@Gee:
I agree with Gee. Watching Mitt, he seems like a nice and competent man.
Until he opens his mouth and starts lying about Obama’s record and how big business Republicans hold the secret to righting our economy.
Particularly when they’re the ones that tanked it.
Romney’s biggest judgment error might have been not realizing how deep down the crevasse the GOP base has sunk.
Can you imagine the sadder but wiser joking that goes on between him and Ann?
Dog catching the car.
Villago Delenda Est
@wrb:
Yeah, that’s a serious problem for them. They set up these absolutes at the beginning that get in the way of pragmatic solutions to problems that Smith and Young never had any foresight of.
Are they sincere? As Bloom points out, it seems unlikely, because they haven’t bothered to renounce the dogmatic basis for those policies.
It’s a serious dilemma, because if they do modify the dogma, it’s a tacit admission that it was, after all, the creation of man all along, and it wasn’t handed down on high.
The whole thing has always been a scam, anyways.
Poopyman
To absolutely no one’s surprise, Palin has opened her trap again:
Jager
This is OT, but I have seen numerous petitions on the web calling on people to contact El Rushbo’s advertisers to cancel their schedules and hit him and Premire (Clear Channel) where it hurts and that’s in the wallet. As a retired radio group VP with years of station management on my resume, here is a better suggestion. Go after the local advertisers on his show. There are very few local advertising availabilities on Rush’s show and they sell at a premium. Monitor the Rush station, make a list of the local advertisers and do the following:
1. Call the advertiser, be polite.
2. Write a letter to the advertiser, be polite.
3. Copy the station and the FCC with the advertiser letter.
4. Politely call the General Manager of the station,tell the GM what you are doing and why, tell them you have contacted the advertiser and copied the FCC.
5. If the local advertiser uses an agency, contact the agency, as well.Just ask the local business, if they use an agency.
It won’t take many letters and phone calls to get their attention and remind the station that the letters need to be placed in the station’s public file. (the public file is an FCC requirement)
Local stations don’t get many local avails in Rush’s show and many pay a huge fee to Premire to run the show.If they start losing business because of that asshole, they will raise hell with Premire.
If KFI in LA got a hundred letters with follow up phone calls it would get their attention very quickly. The key is to put on the pressure through the local advertisers.
Rush isn’t going anywhere, he isn’t going to apologize. The local station will blink and get very nervous, very quickly.
Poopyman
@WaterGirl: The usual Republican MO is to deny the fact exists. If confronted with evidence such as videotape, simply double down on your assertions.
It’s still working for them.
schrodinger's cat
@Poopyman: I had a human, but I eated him
Elizabelle
@Jager:
Excellent advice.
Catsy
@Villago Delenda Est:
This, in a nutshell, is why the Catholic Church and Mormonism could be doomed in the long run in a way that other varieties of Christianity are not necessarily.
Most other faith-based belief systems are at least flexible enough to accommodate new information and keep pace with social change. But these two have painted themselves into an ugly corner on various different issues that are changing with the times, and the only way out of it is to admit that they were wrong all along about being infallible and effectively repudiating one of their primary claims to authority.
Tonal Crow
@MattF:
And that, fellow commenter, is basically the formal definition of “bullshit”, as in On Bullshit.
catclub
@wrb: Interesting…
I view the way that God of the old Testament grows up into the God of the new testament as a reflection of the understanding that people have of God (I.e. actually assuming that God does not change, a la Augustine).
Similarly, the ‘blacks becoming spiritually mature in 1972’
is actually the Mormons becoming spiritually mature then.
Tonal Crow
@Poopyman:
Security! Get this person to the DeBrooksification Unit — stat!
WaterGirl
@Poopyman: Lying bastards. I loathe them all.
bemused
@Jager:
I’m sure that is the best advice but it would require actually listening to Rush on my local channels. No way can I do that. I’ll have to rely on others with much stronger stomachs and on blood pressure meds to do that. Randi Rhodes is playing his latest filth now and I am alternating between feeling like my head is exploding and vomiting.
trollhattan
@Elizabelle:
IC what you did there.
MikeJ
@Tonal Crow:
Nah. I don’t think it’s brooksian to point out that the Dems have their fair share of would be unicorn farmers. We just throw ours under the bus instead of letting them drive it.
Tonal Crow
@MikeJ:
Which means that the Democratic base is not composed entirely of unicorn farmers, unlike the Republican base. The original comment held that any party’s base is, by definition, composed entirely of unicorn farmers. Hence my reference to Bobo.
Jager
@bemused: You can go on most radio station websites and they will have a list of local sponsors…write and contact them all. Rush paints a station with a very broad brush.
I hate to say this, when Rush first went into syndication,I had a business relationship with Ed McLaughlin,who was syndicating Rush. Ed talked me into putting him on the air on one of our AM stations. For about a year he was an “entertainer” then he started to believe his own bullshit.
rikyrah
era of youtube, bytches.
oh Willard
LOL
eyelessgame
@chopper:
He’s talking about taking money from people. He’s passionate. We never see that from him any other time.
chopper
@eyelessgame:
it’s his ‘tell’. when you see him get animated about something, you know it’s C.R.E.A.M.
bemused
@Jager:
I think it’s the money, the possibility of lots of money, that changed his course.