It’s better than Okay If You’re A Republican, it’s positive, at least to Mistah Kurtz:
“In politics, the flip-flopper label is deemed deadly, the fingering of a candidate with no fixed principles. But I suspect that, with swing voters at least, it helps Romney. If voters believe he was just throwing red meat to voracious primary voters — and that the real Mitt would govern as a sensible man of the center-right — the damage of the last few months could be mitigated.”
PigInZen
Of course, who would have guessed otherwise?
Well and truly fucked we are.
Just Some Fuckhead
Well, of course we’d flipflop on the Flipflop Principle when it was inconvenient for Republicans.
Comrade Dread
Because when I (as one of those heralded independents every pundit seems to have a hard on over) want to decide which man or woman should head my government, my first choice will always be the cynical man who lies whenever it’s convenient to his ambitions, because he would never lie to me when it’s convenient to his ambitions.
Buddha, Vishnu, and Shiva at a poker party, this is amazingly stupid even by the incredibly low standards of punditry that I’ve come to expect from our media.
japa21
Swing voters love liars and people who sell themselves out to the highest bidder and people whom you can never really trust. I didn’t know that.
BGinCHI
You see, in business, it doesn’t pay to hold principles. If you have lots of capital and an advantageous position, you can only win. The question is how much you win.
All of these people trying to tinker with policy, make things incrementally better, have an impact on people’s lives, are just so middle management, or even labor.
Mitt shows the Village the thing it wants most: success and wealth without effort or risk.
rlrr
Romney’s in trouble if the his biggest selling point to swing voters is he is an unprincipled, pathological liar…
Kathy in St. Louis
If voters believe he was just throwing red meat to voracious primary voters—and that the real Mitt would govern as a sensible man of the center-right—the damage of the last few months could be mitigated.”
One question, then. Why have the primary series and all the debates at all? If someone is going to tell one thing to people who will support him in primaries, but doesn’t mean those things, they why bother with the entire process.
All it seems to be is a growth industry from tv stations, political advisors, and advance men. Just do away with it and keep the cash.
Roger Moore
There may be a bit of truth to what he’s saying. If Romney repudiates the crazy he’s been spewing during the primary, it may help him out with low information swing voters who weren’t paying attention. OTOH, it’s likely to cause him some problems with the Republican base, since it will prove they were right to doubt his Conservative bona fides in the first place. The big open question is whether he can successfully court moderates while still keeping the base riled up.
mingo
look, a perfect example of IOKIYAR in the wild!
boss bitch
Swing voters are morons. Do they not see that the House is full of these primary voters? Do they not see that the Senate could flip to full wing nut?– Well most of these are establishment GOP too scared to stand up to the wingnut House. When does the pandering stop? How is Romney going to get votes for his agenda (whatever it is)? Boehner can barely get them to do what he wants. Romney is going to do better? Then there are the mid-terms and special elections.
Surreal American
Not necessarily. Romney can also depend on his smooth, effortless charm and…um, well, er…
Ok, how about unlimited corporate cash???
rlrr
@mingo:
BINGO!
Gary
While I usually have the greatest admiration for the incisive and out-of-the box analysis of Mr. Kurtz, I must say he buried the lead here.
This is obviously good news for John McCain.
dmsilev
“Vote for Mitt, he just spent 4 months lying to his base!”
Inspiring.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Howie should have gotten some kind of honorary mention in the WOTD contest.
Again, how somebody like him keeps his job. Oh yeah, that’s it: constant fellatio of the right in order to keep the corporate masters happy.
Ben Franklin
Mitt-igated—–
I foresee a new synonym for LIAR coming to Websters’
Comrade Dread
Which is why the Obama campaign should make liberal use of Romney’s speeches and quotes during his primary campaign. Make the cyborg own the crazy and remind them that their choices are between a guy who though flawed is doing a decent job given the lunacy of our body politic vs. a guy who will say anything to anyone and sell his soul to satiate his ambitions.
Bob2
“If this election isn’t interesting, who will hire me to write about this election ever again?”
General Stuck
It would be all kinds of cool if dems gave Romney the flip flops treatment at the DNC convention this year like they did Kerry in 2004. And maybe add tiny purple hearts for poor Seamus RIP.
Tone In DC
Wow.
Mistah Kurtz and R. Cohen seem to agree regarding the Romneybot3000.
Jamey
Wow. After reading that, I hope Kurtz at least thought to himself, “Did I actually write that, or did I just think it.”
Mickey
lol…could this be the 2012 version of “This is good news for John McCain”?
“Rmoneys flip flopping will help him get more votes”.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Jamey:
I hope Kurtz at least thought to himself, “Did I actually write that, or did I just think it.”
He would have to have a shred of self-awareness for that to happen.
And the Villagers all share one thing in common: a total lack of self-awareness.
Peter
Keep whistling past that graveyard, Howard.
runt
I expect someone will soon discover a video clip where Romney complains that the trees in Michigan are the wrong height. Which will obviously be good news for Romney.
piratedan
its simply amazing isn’t it, if you’re part of the tribe, there is no transgression that can’t be forgiven or explained away as having some intrinsic benefit for the tribe. If you’re outside of the tribe, they question whether or not you’re even human or if you have any rights to existence at all.
JCT
These schmucks will achieve liftoff very soon with all of this spin.
Fucking embarrassing. And at least from all the crazy wing nuts in my part of the country — I foresee lots of trouble for Mittens if they try to spin flip-flopping as some sort of good thing. A few good DNC ads in the right places wondering whether Romney might flip-flop right back to his “lieberal” views on GUN CONTROL, will not play well…..
handsmile
@General Stuck: (#18)
Flip-flops, Etch-a-Sketches, inflatable dogs, $10,000 betting chips…there’s no end to the merchandise that Democrats could choose to display.
But they’d have to endure the slings and arrows of the Village for being petty/divisive/gimmicky…lacking gravitas during a time of war and economic crisis.
Yutsano
Will no one think of the Crocs?
Kurtz is welcome to find an example anywhere in political history where constantly changing positions by audience or even the hour (as Willard has done) is a political winner. Get started Howie. I’ll wait.
@JCT:
Hell most of his record as governor of Massachusetts will cover that. And it hasn’t totally been delved into yet.
chopper
this sounds like excellent news for
mccainromney.Roger Moore
@Comrade Dread:
I never said it would be easy to repudiate the crazy. I think his biggest problem is that he’s lacked subtlety in adopting the crazy in the first place.
The best approach to tacking to the wing for the primary and back to the center for the general is to use a different set of issues in the two campaigns. For example, a Republican can campaign for the nomination on extremist social issues like abortion and teh ghey and then switch to economic populism for the general. That way they’re only changing the emphasis of the campaign rather than the actual platform, and they can still throw some red meat to the base during the general campaign without directly contradicting their message to the center. But to win the nomination, Romney has been forced to go the full monty on the crazy, so he can only tack back to the center by changing his positions. Not subtle, and much harder to do without angering somebody.
Bago
@PigInZen: If you’re a mermaid…
Linda Featheringill
I think this may be another case of the Right Wing depending so much on the Citizens United cash bombs in the future that they don’t bother to try to make good sense in the here and now.
How effective? We’ll see.
Shrillhouse
Dear God, does Kurtz actually believe that swing voters (or any voters) make these kind of calculations? Do ordinary Americans go through this kind of thought process that he imagines?
“Well, he said he was against the DREAM act, and wanted to get rid of Planned Parenthood, but that was clearly a strategic move to out-flank Perry and Santorum on the right, and bolster his credibility with the tri-corner hat constituency. So, I can cast my ballot for Romney secure in the knowledge that he is in fact a pragmatic and reasonable centrist that will build consensus and lead America’s radically polarized citizenry into a new golden age.”
Is that how it works Howie??
kay
I don’t think the policy matters. I think flip flopper means “liar”. It’s an attack on character.
Pundits are hoping people get past that, to the policy; rabid Republicans will believe he was lying then (past) but isn’t now, and more moderate Republicans will think he was lying then (primary) but isn’t now, but that isn’t really what flip flopper is about, the important word there is not then or now, it’s “lie”. It’s about trust. It says: “This person is untrustworthy. He’s not credible. He’s hiding something from you”.
That’s what the Obama campaign are focusing on. They have to use his ever-changing policy positions and general, slippery, too-smart-by-half machinations on taxes, etc. to do that because they can’t just keep screaming “liar, liar, liar” but what they mean is “not credible. Not to be trusted”. Policy doesn’t matter in a character attack.
Incidentally, I think it’s a completely fair and accurate character concern. Romney lies constantly, even proudly, to the point where it’s weird and noticeable. I think they should hit him every day on it.
gaz
This is excellent news for John McCain
Satanicpanic
There are liberal voters and conservative voters and elections are won and lost depending on the percentage of each group who get up and go vote. Swing voters are rare.
gnomedad
Hmm, “Mittigation”. Doesn’t have the “yuck” factor of “Santorum”, but I like it.
Wag
@Tone In DC:
Mr Cohen was snarking about Romney yesterday. I thought the column was excellent.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
“Mistah Kurtz, he stupid.”
meander
It’s fitting that the first line in the Talking Heads Making Flippy Floppy is “Wait a minute…everybody get in line.” Get in line with the punditocracy/plutocracy, that is.
(BTW, I recently rediscovered Stop Making Sense after years of not hearing it and it is a masterwork, full of energy and interesting music.)
Odie Hugh Manatee
I’m thinking of a new Romney campaign jingle:
Shake Shake Shake…
Shake Shake Shake!
Shake your Romney…
Shake your RomNEY!
If that’s not good enough for Rmoney then the Dems can use it in a commercial where they present the Mittster talking out of one side of his mouth, then cut to the jingle above (with video of an Etch-A-Sketch being shaken vigorously) and then back to Mitt talking out of the other side of his face.
Works for me. :)
jurassicpork
Ann Romney, Please Shut the Fuck Up (not for the faint of heart).
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Ask Bush 1 about “No new taxes” and how that worked out for him.
Face
No, b/c that would be the apex of incivility, an affront to decency, an attack on those with amputated feet, and shut up, that’s why.
Yutsano
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): That would be uncivil. Dare I say…shrill?
catclub
No mention of the advantage that flip-flops gave to John Kerry. This was NOT like Cohen’s article yesterday.
Jamie
well, there are some words used here I disagree with. Mitt is a highly-principaled pathological liar. He’ll lie whenever he thinks that it’ll work to his advantage.
Culture of Truth
Even assuming this is true, Kurtz doesn not seem to consider the possibility that such perception could damage him with the base, or other functioning humans hoping to trust their President.
In any case, (serious question) what expactly is meant by the “damage of the last few months”? That Mitt is now perceived as too far to the right? Or that he is seen as an untrustworthy, pandering, out-of-touch rich guy?
OzoneR
@Shrillhouse:
Is that how it works Howie??
Actually, yeah, except
“Well, he said he was against the DREAM act, and wanted to get rid of Planned Parenthood, but that was clearly a strategic move to out-flank Perry and Santorum on the right, and bolster his credibility with the tri-corner hat constituency. So, I can cast my ballot for Romney secure in the knowledge that he is in fact a pragmatic and reasonable centrist that will build consensus and lead America’s radically polarized citizenry into a new golden age. Also, he’s white“
catclub
@kay: Well, “Pass the damn bill!” bubbled up from the blogs to the rest of the world.
Maybe the lie(s) of the week from Benen will also.
Culture of Truth
Also adding, the White House cobra has not yet begun to toy with Mitt Romeny. When Team O can see the whites of his eyes, they are going to open fire and very likely destroy him.
Morbo
Well good, even if the Wings lose in 5 I’ll still have Calvinball to watch through November.
Brachiator
This is beyond stupid. Mittens isn’t just a flip flopper. He actively denies and runs away from his own past record. And lies shamelessly about it.
He’s not doint a pivot toward the center, he’s doing a wild St Vitus Day dance in every direction. And no matter how much Mittens tries to dance away from wingnuttia, the obvious question to keep in his face is whether he will support ultra right policies coming from the states.
And Republicans are not stupid. They will likely push a VP candidate that will shore up Mittens’ perceived lack of wingnut authenticity.
rlrr
@jurassicpork:
Sweet Jesus, because all struggling students make ends meet by selling stocks…
Clime Acts
Oh please.
If there any attempt here, even a token one, to be the least bit balanced in your perception of the political world, your writing would carry so much more weight.
If you’ll recall, Mr. Obama also threw a ton of red meat to progressive/liberals during the 2008 campaign, which he promptly disavowed upon election.
And his sycophants here have been telling us ever since to get over it, that he didn’t really mean it, that we imagined it, that that’s just the way it is…
Both sides really DO do it.
kay
@catclub:
I think Benen is on to something. I think the proof that he’s on to something is how we’ve now had two pundits writing whole columns about (essentially, in my view) Romney’s incessant lying.
I don’t care what they write: “Lying is bad”. “Lying is GOOD!”. Why are they writing it?
The fact that they’re mentioning it at all is an admission that it matters. As I said, I think Benen is just pointing out the obvious, but he did do it waaaay earlier and more consistently than anyone else, so good for him.
Nemesis
@Bob2: Bob2 winz twattertoobz today.
redshirt
It’s not lying when a Republican does it.
It’s called “Leadership”.
And to be fair, leading a collection of brain dead zombies does require lots of shiny distractions.
eemom
Yes, by ALL means let us add fuckwit Howard Kurtz to the list of emmessemm bobblebots whose every drekulous utterance we obsess over.
Nemesis
55 Cline Acts says:
No. You are conflating.
Saying one thing to get the nomination (mittbot) and doing things differently after being elected (Obama). Very different situation.
Clime Acts
@Nemesis:
Again I say, mockingly: OH PLEASE. could you elaborate please?
Roger Moore
@kay:
Absolutely. The key thing to remember is elections are fundamentally about buying a pig in a poke. You can never be sure exactly what you’re going to get, so some degree of trustworthiness is essential for any candidate. I think that’s part of the advantage of incumbency; you can judge an incumbent by past performance rather than just promises. Even if you’re mildly dissatisfied by the incumbent’s record, it may still look better than unverifiable promises from the challenger.
BC
Simply by running, participating in the debates and doing respectably in the polls . .
Somehow, I had a flashback to Rick Perry, who was also supposed to move the dialogue by participating in the debates. I really don’t think shrimpy Mike Bloomberg will come off well, with both Romney and Obama towering over him. Optics, baby, optics, are very important in debates. Mike Bloomberg’s short stature and whiny voice just can’t compete.
Brachiator
@Clime Acts:
Really? What red meat was this?
Obama always ran as a centrist. Progressives deliberately misread most everything that Obama said, and convinced themselves that he owed them something.
But since progressives are politically impotent, why should anyone give a shit about what they think or want?
Tone In DC
@Wag:
I see your point.
The Kaplan Post may have to alter the masthead… just call the paper Prevaricators R Us.
jibeaux
Here’s a tidbit of polling from Democracy Corps, reported by Political Wire. On 56 currently Republican but competitive districts:
Only 34% support when using Ryan’s own language to describe it. What do you guess it would be using accurate language to describe it? Dare I suggest…..27?!?!
Clime Acts
@Brachiator:
Speaking of BJ Obama Sycophants…
and yet you bothered to respond to me, a politically impotend progressive. Interesting.
Mike Lamb
@Clime Acts: You mean like having to deal with Congress that won’t allow you to pass the ideal legislation? A president is a liar for having to adjust to the political realities of Congress? Like, for example, closing down Gitmo?
Yes, that is a far cry from saying something different in the primary season depending on which city you happen to be in or whether Rush Limbaugh had gas in the morning.
Betsy
@BGinCHI: That is the God’s honest truth.
Tonal Crow
Logic fail. America’s “center-right” is crazy, not “sensible”.
pragmatism
what i wonder is how well paul/noot can capitalize on Rmoney abandoning the base. paul and his tards have been laying the groundwork for Tampa. noot is just gonna show up and play it on the fly. can either one/both make abandoning teh base/conservative principles a hill to die on or will the base accept their fate and fight for real conservative (whatever that means by then) in 2016?
ETA: re title, i’d love to see a remake of “i’m on a boat” featuring noot and his helmet headed soon to be swapped out wife on their greek island boat trip instead of campaigning.
OzoneR
@Clime Acts:
Whether this is true or not is irrelevant since the entire story re: Mitt is that he would disavow said red meat BEFORE the election.
Clime Acts
@Mike Lamb:
No, not what I’m talking about AT ALL.
I am talking about red meat rhetoric, in public speeches and every other venue. Obama’s language and demeanor changed completely after he assimilated himself into the White House.
We went from aggressive calls to action and change to constant mewling about bipartisanship…it was all bullshit.
OzoneR
@Clime Acts:
Bold face lie, Obama campaigned on being postpartisan, Hillary supports slammed it for him, she even did a rather hysterical mocking of it in Rhode Island about the light coming down and shit.
Mike in NC
Howard Kurtz had to leave the Washington Post because he was considered an embarrassment. That’s a pretty low bar.
eemom
Speaking of flipflopping, check out this pic and the quote from Goehmert about Romney — it’s hilarious. Like Teatard as LOLCAT.
Mike Lamb
@Clime Acts: Given that the internet never forgets, I’d assume that you can find this “red meat rhetoric” that forms the basis of your position.
pragmatism
@Clime Acts: when you’re playing the “didn’t meet my subjective expectations game”, you at least need to be able to fathom that your expectations may be misplaced/unrealistic.
Clime Acts
@OzoneR:
You’re the liar, Ozone. Hope and CHANGE is not about things staying the same through close bipartisan cooperation with repulican pigs who had to that point been complete liars, you sycophant.
eemom
@Mike in NC:
Also too, Howie was the subject of the one semi-witty headline Glenn Greenwald ever produced: “Is Howard Kurtz A Software Program?”
[lovingly closes GG scrapbook and pats cover]
Oh — hi, Timmy.
Villago Delenda Est
Mistah Kurtz’s head would look much better on a pike than on his shoulders.
Brachiator
@Clime Acts: RE: But since progressives are politically impotent, why should anyone give a shit about what they think or want?
You don’t get it do you? When I said that progressives are politically impotent, I meant that they are under-represented in the Congress, and have little ability to shape or affect policy. This makes it laughable when they whine about Obama not giving them what they want.
Worse, as others note here, progressives seem to live in a fantasy land in which there are no Republicans.
Aside from this, I have no problem in responding to you or anyone else.
And I am hardly blindly pro Obama. I don’t think that he has been ruthless enough. I think, for example, that he should have let the Bush tax cuts expire at the earliest opportunity, even if it meant that Congress would not have extended unemployment benefits. I think his economic policies suck. Progressive prescriptions suck even worse, though.
JWL
“.. that the real Mitt would govern as a sensible man of the center-right..”.
Nazi Reference Alert
As late as August, 1939, the British ambassador to Germany referred to the “wild men around Hitler” in official dispatches, the inference being Hitler wasn’t one of them. That ambassador was one of a mere handful of contemporaries who (after WW2) was treated roughly by Winston Churchill in written and spoken word.
Romney is precisely as he appears to be, and God help this country and planet if he is elected to the presidency.
Satanicpanic
Oh goodey, a chance to bring out my favorite Thomas Friedman MoU Wod, et al. quote: The first rule of holes is when you’re in one, stop digging.When you’re in three, bring a lot of shovels. Climey has brought shovels!
jonas
Forget “flip-flopping” — nobody’s going to be voting “for” Romney anyway, so who gives a shit about his record or what he has said or hasn’t said? I think his campaign intuits this (the Etch-a-Sketch remark was a classic gaffe in that regard). It’s a question of how many people want to vote against Obama. Romney could unload Ann for a 17 year-old male escort and snort cocaine on live TV, and *then* come out against drug use, and will still get 45% of the vote this November because he’s Not That One.
liberal
@eemom:
It wasn’t a headline, I think it was a tweet, but he also said “Politico needs a gossip page as much as the Washington Post needs a neocon page,” or something like that. Perhaps not witty, but very funny.
Though perhaps not so funny to a quasi-neocon like yourself.
Splitting Image
@Clime Acts:
It’s important to call out a lie when you see one. It’s a particularly good habit to get into when you’re trying to defeat a candidate named Mitt Romney.
Ben Cisco
Pandermonium | My Ready Room
BONUS: Someone has helpfully compiled a vid of Mitt’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=W_pgfWK3sxw
The Dangerman
Knobs must be polished (there’s a trailer hitch without it’s chrome someplace).
Clime Acts
@liberal:
Oh my. Uncivil.
Martin
Or as my mom wonders: what if the red-meat throwing is the real Mitt and the sensible centrist was the lie in order to win in Massachusetts as a Republican? He lies so well, it’s impossible to tell which is real.
Mike Lamb
@Clime Acts: But your comment that things are staying the “same” is entirely subjective. You don’t like Obama’s policy choices, from which you conclude that things are status quo. For a lot of other people, there has been significant change since he took office.
Splitting Image
@Clime Acts:
Actually, Obama’s rhetoric in his campaign was always about what millions of voters could do if they pressured politicians to listen to them, not so much about “how I’ll fight for you if I’m elected”.
The “change” Obama’s campaign was gunning for from day one was making the political parties move their focus away from the ageing racists and other mouth-breathers that make up the tea party. At this point, the Republicans are still terrified to death of them and a lot of Democrats are more afraid of crossing them than they are of crossing progressives.
Obama cannot force that change himself. Only progressive voters can, and a lot of them are too busy sucking their thumbs and complaining about how Obama has failed them to have a constructive argument about how to get more progressive leadership in Congress and the state houses.
eemom
@liberal:
Aw…..does him have butthurt cuz he doesn’t know shit about judicial appointments? Poor lil librul.
Mickey
Everyone should read this post on peoples view and internalize it. Especially people like Cole who seem content to sit on the sidelines and bitch about things they are partly responsible for as voters (especially past Bush voters like him).
He’s a Game of Thrones fan so I am sure he will understand this geek analogy.
“Do you want elections won based on Iron or Gold?”
Mickey
Everyone should read this post on peoples view and internalize it. Especially people like Cole who seem content to sit on the sidelines and bitch about things they are partly responsible for as voters (especially past Bush voters like him).
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2012/04/people-power-in-age-of-obama.html
Cole’s a Game of Thrones fan so I am sure he will understand this geek analogy.
“Do you want elections won based on Iron or Gold?”
rea
“Vote for me–I’m a shameless liar.”
Roger Moore
@Martin:
And that’s the obvious way to exploit this. Rather than necessarily picking and choosing which Mitt utterance you want to be true, you just play pairs of opposite quotes and ask “Which is the real Romney? Can you trust any of his promises?” That way you can play on both moderates’ fear that he’s going to swing hard to the right the moment he’s elected and wingnuts’ fear he’s just been playing them to win the nomination. Win over the undecided and demoralize your opponents in one fell swoop.
Anton Sirius
@Clime Acts:
That’s right. It’s about the rank and file getting off their asses and doing something to affect that hope and change rather than being lazy do-nothings who expect the new daddy in the White House to simply hand them their ponies.
So what have you done to help move that change forward, Clime? Other then whine about Obama on the innerwebz, that is.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Clime Acts: Name some things Obama said during the primaries that he tried to disavow during the general election, because that’s what Romney’s trying to do.
Clime Acts
@Splitting Image:
Oh dear god…we see him not even fucking TRYING…how many times must it be said? And forever bending to the right wing. And thus we feel this man in the most powerful position in the world, into which he was voted, is not who he said he was and is not living up to his own rhetoric.
He cannot FORCE the change himself, but he can certainly strive to ENABLE it.
And don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. It is not up to US to do his job, and part of that job is to keep libs and progressives and the democratic wing of the democratic party who voted for him motivated and stirred up and hopeful. He has utterly failed on that count, among others.
If you would acknowledge some of these things, your position would carry more credibility. But expressions of disappointment in Obama’s post election performance are usually met with insults such as yours, which don’t really help your cause.
To sum up: Obama is just too glorious for us to see clearly how glorious he is. Ergo, we fail him, not vice versa.
Well, good luck getting him re elected with that campaign philosophy.
jibeaux
@Martin: Here’s the question I have about Mitt, though, and I guess Ann too…are they actually good at it? In terms of Will the real slim shady please stand up, yes, there’s a crazy scattered record there with every possible position having been taken. But his politicking and explanations on this are, to me, just badly done and unconvincing. Like Ann saying that those comments from Hilary Rosen were a birthday present. That’s the response of someone who knows how the game is played but then goes out and makes the mistake of admitting she’s playing the game instead of professing, say, yes, it wounded her to be criticized as a mother because what fine boys they turned out to be and boy howdy motherhood sure is important, but the really important thing is that moms and all women come together this November and blah de blah blah (I admit I cannot contrive a reason for women to vote for Mitt Romney but maybe the campaign can.) I know that I’m biased because I don’t like the man, but his whole raison d’etre is to be a shape shifter designed for maximum electability and he’s BAD at it.
Clime Acts
@Anton Sirius:
Such tired horse shit.
Obama wants to be elected. Obama gets elected, after millions of people work their asses off to make that happen.
then Obama tells the millions of people that despite their full time jobs, and raising their kids and everything else, they have to do HIS job too while he takes it easy in the white house.
thanks, but no.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Mickey: As has been pointed out before, Cole did not sit on the sidelines during 2008.
Clime Acts
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Here’s a good, non-hysterical, non-Obama bashing, summary from the July 2008 New Yorker.
Brachiator
@Martin:
Good points. The problem is that Mittens doesn’t come across as a sensible centrist. He comes across as a man without a center.
Not only is Mittens a liar, but he is also a coward hiding behind a bully’s facade.
The person he most reminds me of is Johnny Tyler, the cowardly blowhard played so well by Billy Bob Thornton in Tombstone.
wasabi gasp
You Just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don’t need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don’t need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free
bemused
@eemom:
Too funny. He not only haz a sad but those blank eyes must reflect what’s upstairs….zilch.
Chyron HR
@Clime Acts:
Luckily the things Sarah Palin says don’t count as “right wing memes”, or people might start to think you’re “bending” to them.
jibeaux
@Chyron HR: Best reply I heard to that one was
“Great, thanks! How’s that Hooked on Phonics thing working out for ya?”
some guy
@liberal:
brutally honest and accurate assessments of eeMoron’s ideological position is very very uncivil.
Clime Acts
what are you babbling about?
DFH no.6
You know, fuck the mendacious Clime Acts asshole (but I repeat myself) jacking this thread, so back to the point:
Romney will not need to repudiate anything he’s said in the primary – most of the media will carry his water for him, as Kurtz so egregiously and obviously did here.
The media will make any and all excuses for him and present him in as favorable a light as they can, right on up to election day.
With the fascist primary over now, it’s just starting.
Romney will of course make a few “tweaks” to his messaging for the general, but with the Villagers there will be no need for anything like an “Etch-A-Sketch” reset.
Despite someone’s claim above that there are very few swing voters, in a presidential election there are actually many millions of such people, and they are usually the most important deciding factor on who wins (they are mostly the registered Independents who don’t always happen to vote Republican, and conservadems).
Those are the people for whom the media will be polishing the Romney turd.
Base turnout and swing votes – that’s how it’s won or lost.
noodler
How appropriate, that Mitt, can simply MITT-igate the flip-floppery, so now his positions can simply be MITT-I-GATED. (not really true because the red meat crowd is not nearly sated enough, they are looking for mitigations, aka flip flops)
Brachiator
@Clime Acts:
Wow. Based on some weak shit from July, 2008, I guess we should conclude that Obama should never have been elected president.
This is the essence of the stubborn delusion of some progressives. You love being stuck in the past. But let’s take a look at one item:
Last time I checked, US troops had been pulled from Iraq. And yet Climes wants to offer this as part of some odd indictment of Obama.
The other crap that Hendrik Hertzberg writes about is not only stale, but reveals the emptiness of most contemporary progressive vision. It is not that progressives are simply wrong, but it is that they consistently misunderstand the nature of the opposition.
So, Hertzberg looks like a fool writing about Obama’s apparent flip flops over gun control, given the present insanity over conservatives’ embrace of “stand your ground laws.” The GOP has seduced much of the nation into moving further to the right, and yet progressives have this fantasy that all their deeply held beliefs could be turned into law and policy tomorrow if only the president believed hard enough.
Or if progressives had a time machine and could go back to the year 2000 and elect Nader. Or something equally stupid.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Yutsano:
__
The ghost of Richard Nixon says hi, remember me!
__
Obviously to us political junkies, being called the most devious, unprincipled liar in American politics since Richard Nixon does not bode well for the Mittbots’ chances in the general election. On the other hand Nixon is so long ago that for most voters, if they remember him at all, it is probably as some past president with a big nose who looks a lot like the black-ops character Dick Richart from the movie The Incredibles who managed the relocation/identity scrubbing program for The Supers. And he seemed like a nice man who meant well.
Clime Acts
@DFH no.6:
so typical. You see, we are only supposed to talk about MITTENS’ flip flops and no one else’s, and if someone replies to a comment you don’t like, they are a mendacious asshole “jacking” a pristine and wholly uncorrupted thread.
hahahahahaha
you are pathetic.
Clime Acts
@DFH no.6:
thank you for your pristine and uncorruptible comment. It stands alone as a model of adherence to the pristine thread tradition of BJ.
Quaker in a Basement
OK, yesterday several of us were willing to allow for the possibility that Cohen was pumping the snark and not actually endorsing the practice of lying.
I don’t see any wiggle room on this one.
DFH no.6
@Clime Acts:
You’re a one-note, lying, braying ass.
Go fuck yourself.
Roger Moore
@Martin:
FTFY. The really weird thing about Mitt is that he doesn’t lie the way most politicians do, which is to make strategic lies about their actions and policy beliefs that they think will be unpopular. He lies all the time about even the dumbest, most trivial things. For most politicians, you can eventually figure out what their positions are in spite of the lies. For Mitt there’s a serious question if he actually has any underlying positions or if he’s just making shit up all the time.
Clime Acts
@Brachiator:
my god, you are a hyperpartisan, blind idiot.
the article clearly referred, in 2008, to flip flops perpetrated in 2008, not to imaginary circumstances yet to happen in any other time.
You’re not only an Obot but a dishonest one.
I know you fondle and treasure your Precious fantasy that the U.S. has “withdrawn” from Iraq. Let’s all pretend not to know about the contractors who remain or the thousands of u.s. troops in the countries all around Iraq, especially Kuwait.
catclub
@Clime Acts: I assume you hoped no one would read the link.
Almost all the so-called flips were rated inconsequential.
The two that were not such were: Public Campaign financing and FISA.
But the last paragraph of the article was spent excoriating McCain for multiple and highly consequential flip-flops.
So if your point is that everyone is accused of flip-flops, then true. If your point is that Obama is known for multiple consequential flip-flops — both sides do it —
then not so much.
catclub
@Roger Moore: This.
He lied about what his first name is. It is just automatic.
Clime Acts
@catclub:
You assume incorrectly.
hahahaha, so says you, an unbiased observer. Not by me. You see, I have standards above those of a jaded beltway watcher at the New Yorker. You should try raising yours.
So says you, an Obot. Your hyperpartisan, ever changing, and therefore irrelevant standards are duly noted. You are part of the problem: This country has gone to shit largely because of this kind of thinking.
Brachiator
@Clime Acts:
And I said
So, the question is why do you bring up shit from 2008? Last time I looked at the calendar, it said 2012.
What is the point of your incessant griping about Obama? He’s the president, and he’s running for re-election. There is no progressive third party candidate running against him. There is no magic progressive hiding in the wings among the Democrats to challenge him.
Your little weak diversion about Obama’s flip flops seems pointless, except to showcase your misdirected anger and disappointment.
And I began my comments in this thread with this:
That point still stands.
It’s about Mittens vs Obama. And in this contest, the only one that really matters, Obama is the clear best choice.
There may be some other electoral contest going on in your head. But you are the only one voting in that contest.
Nobody else is even remotely interested.
Oh, yes.
I clearly said that US troops had been withdrawn from Iraq. You respond with lame shit about contractors and troops around Iraq.
And then you call me dishonest.
Do you understand how silly this makes you look?
eemom
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
do you think it is fair to Nixon to compare Rombot to him? I was just a kid when he was president and I’ve never made it through Nixonland, so I’m not an expert…..but hell, at least Nixon was a human being, and a guy who really did claw his way up from nothing.
Clime Acts
@Brachiator:
No, I don’t look silly in the least.
You Brachiator, once again expose yourself as a fierce Obama apologist with no standards.
I referenced flip flops from teh 2008 campaign, then provided a link to an article about them. An article written in 2008 about flops in 2008, which was what I was talking about. Who cares about 2012 when talking about 2008? Are you on drugs?
By way of pointing out that while you all are bitching about Mitt Romney, your candidate did the same thing Mitt does and which you now claim to be so outraged about. But apparently you are unconcerned about anything that happened more than one second ago.
Mitt flip flopped in the past, as did Obama…let it go, let’s look forward, not back. After all, that is what your supremely cynical Mr. Obama does when it comes to Bush administration war crimes. At least you are consistent there. With Mitt not so much.
Clime Acts
Shorter Brachiator:
As long as I perceive Obama to be one milimeter less evil than I pretend to believe Mitt Romney to be, nothing he has ever done in the past is relevant to this year’s election…except for when I say otherwise.
Because Obama’s pluses are up for discussion, but his negatives must never be mentioned because Mitt Romney is the most evilest person evah!
Again, I really believe it is cynical, standard-less, hyperpartisan freaks like you, on BOTH sides, who are destroying this country. As long as any democrat sucks just a little less than their equally corporate whore equivalent on the republican side, you are sworn to support them.
to laugh or to weep, I know not which, so perhaps both…
Martin
@Clime Acts: Jesus, you’re an idiot.
What’s worse, you don’t even realize you’re an idiot.
Anton Sirius
@Clime Acts:
Wrong. Completely, utterly wrong.
Good job setting yourself up for charges of racism though. Then you’ll really have something to feel martyred about.
You’re part of the problem, Clime. I have little hope that you’ll gain enough self-awareness to ever become part of the solution.
OzoneR
@Clime Acts:
Fucking Civil Societies, How Do They Work?
OzoneR
@Clime Acts:
Maybe not, but that’s exactly what he campaigned on and you know it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Clime Acts: It is completely possible for person to look at the positives and negatives associated with a politician and decide that the positives easily outweigh the negatives. How is this sycophancy? Or must one accept your “analysis” without question?
Clime Acts
@Anton Sirius:
Could you expand on this please? I need a good laugh.
Clime Acts
@OzoneR:
Whatever the answer, I wouldn’t expect you to know it.
It’s apparently your position that working citizens with lives must make it their full time jobs to do their elected officials’ full time jobs. Not just keep tabs on them, mind you, but to DO THEIR JOBS for them.
Cretin.
Anton Sirius
No, you need a good lobotomy.
Clime Acts
@Anton Sirius:
No, really: I want to hear the racism charge. Please?
Clime Acts
@OzoneR:
No, I do NOT know that. Just because you argue dishonestly doesn’t mean everyone else does.
Brachiator
@Clime Acts:
No. Mitt is a liar who actively denies his own past and repudiates his own accomplishments.
People who talk about flip flopping are fools who buy into easily regurgitated tropes.
Ah, at last we have it.
Another pseudo progressive nutcase who lives in that little cornfield of the Twilight Zone where the only thing in the universe are evil corporate whores and the lonely revolutionaries who somehow cannot persuade anyone that their narrow dystopic fantasies are meaningful.
I’m tired of your gas. The only thing that matters is that you and other people vote for Obama. I don’t care how you justify it to yourself and others of your ilk.
Get Obama back into office. And then you can come back after November and accuse me of being an Obot all you like.
OzoneR
@Clime Acts:
No, I never said we should show up in capitals and city halls and vote on bills.
OzoneR
@Clime Acts:
no shit.
DFR
Dude, this doesn’t make any sense. You know another way to “keep tabs on them?”
Clime Acts
@Brachiator:
hahaha…tell it to Jeremiah Wright
Clime Acts
@Brachiator:
“Another pseudo progressive nutcase who lives in that little cornfield of the Twilight Zone where the only thing in the universe are evil corporate whores and the lonely revolutionaries who somehow cannot persuade anyone that their narrow dystopic fantasies are meaningful.
I’m tired of your gas. The only thing that matters is that you and other people vote for Obama. I don’t care how you justify it to yourself and others of your ilk.
Get Obama back into office. And then you can come back after November and accuse me of being an Obot all you like”
Oh…I don’t know…I’ve been told here many times that Obama doesn’t NEED or WANT the votes of people like me.
For all my alleged PURITY, it seems my Obama vote isn’t pure enough to be worth while…
OzoneR
@Clime Acts:
I really don’t care if you write in your mom’s name, just stop wasting this thread’s time with your stupid shit.
Clime Acts
@OzoneR:
I really don’t care if you write in your mom’s name, just stop wasting this thread’s time with your stupid shit.
oh so very typical of the Ozie.
How, I ask, is it possible to waste the time of a “thread?”
Maybe you should just not respond to my comments, you maroon.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Roger Moore:
This. Even with Nixon the lies were just the sugar to make it taste better for the voter. With Mitt it’s all lies all the way down. Really, beyond cutting taxes for the rich at all costs what does he stand for?
OzoneR
@Clime Acts:
already tried that and yet you continue to spread bullshit all over the place
PaulW
Every good politician flip-flops (remember Doonesbury depicting Clinton as a floating waffle). The trick is being able to flip-flop with an aura of competency and deep thought.
Mitt Romney flip-flops on a dime and to fit whatever room he is in. He flip-flops with the aura of desperation and pandering. The fact that his primary political identification is that he flips on every flop – whereas Reagan was known for charm, Bush the Elder experience, Clinton sympathy, Bush the Lesser a clueless ignorance, Obama his coolness – is what’s killing Romney.
Clime Acts
@OzoneR:
giggle
And it is only the brave and true Ozzie who can stop the spread of my entirely irrelevant, firebagging, politically impotent bullshit all over BJ, which of course is YOUR place.
cute.
David Koch
@liberal:
Hilarious. A “liberal” who worships the droppings of a sexist Cato Institute glibertarian who vigorously defends Citizens United. What a bunch of losers.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@eemom:
__
I think comparisons between Romney and Nixon are both interesting and important, because they both strike me as politicians who are only interested in small subsets of the presidential policy portfolio (in Nixon’s case it was Cold War foreign policy, in Romney’s case it is 1%er domestic economic policy) and to them the rest is just noise, stuff they have to lie about constantly to tell other people what they want to hear, merely in order to get the power they want to do the things which really grab their interest.
__
And that this lack of interest in large areas of policy is what underpins their world-class mendacity. Nixon back in his day and Romney today stand out head and shoulder above other politicians as folks who lie not just retail but wholesale, because they frankly just don’t give a shit about a very large areas of policy.
__
Having said that, let’s bookmark this topic for another day, because this thread is so troll-jacked that there’s no point trying to hold any sort of discussion in it.
Brachiator
@Clime Acts:
RE: No. Mitt is a liar who actively denies his own past and repudiates his own accomplishments.
You clearly don’t understand the significance of the Jeremiah Wright issue.
I really don’t care what other people have told you to do.
Your vote is worth something. Your purity is worthless.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
Hay guise what’s goin’ on in this thread-
Oh, NAMBLA Timmeh’s just enjoying another date with Rosie Palms. Carry on.
John Hall
Not cool: Voting for a flip-flopping, Northeast US rich elitist who’s out of touch with the average American in 2004. So cool: Voting for a flip-flopping, Northeast US rich elitist who’s out of touch with the average American in 2012.
Wonder what the difference is? Oh…I know…IOKIYAR!
A Humble Lurker
@Clime Acts:
Why was Mnem’s analogy inaccurate?
Clime Acts
@A Humble Lurker:
All my boys say hello, Lurker. We’re taking a shower together after I finish writing this. Care to join us?
pattonbt
@Clime Acts: Jesus, this shit is so tiring.
So if I got this right you believe “I voted, now I’m done. It’s up to a single politician now to make the world into lollipop gumdrop land ASAP! Kthxbai.”.
Then, when world is miraculously only slightly less shitty than before even after bearing straight into hurricane force headwinds for three years all you got is “Fuck this! A politician didn’t fix every God damned thing I wanted, in the time I wanted, in the tone I wanted, and destroying the enemy the way I wanted, so fuck them. They are a piece of shit!”.
I honestly ask “what did you realistically expect”? Seriously?
I sure as hell hoped for more, and I sure as hell wanted more overt, nasty take it to them fighting, but this is the real world and he has done pretty good from a “stemming to turning the tide” perspective. Given where things were and what he has been faced with, thats not too bad in my book.
I’ll always take a lessening of shit (Obama) to active seeking of deeper shit (Republicans). But I guess you want your pony and are going to cry to mama until you get it and fuck incremental gains along the way. Its either everything or nothing.
Maybe you never were aligned with Obama from the get go. Nothing wrong with that. But given your sad clown face trollery, it’s more likely you got swept up in the moment, projected your fantasy land beliefs into things that werent there and now don’t want to accept that you fucked up and had unrealistic and unfounded expectations and want to wash your hands of having made said mistake. Because, as we all know, it’s got to be Obama’s fault, not yours.
So Obama gave pretty speeches and promised lots of things. GASP! A politician made promises he didnt keep??!!? NO! A politician worked with what he had to to get a couple of things done at the expense of perfect ideological policy?!? Say it isn’t so! Traitor!!
You’re act is tired and so is your fantasy land, “I wash my hands of this”, whiner baby belief.
Clime Acts
@pattonbt:
I’ve heard all this lame obama apologist bullshit before.
“It’s YOUR fault! We aren’t worthy of this man! It is HAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRD!”
It’s no more convincing the hundredth time around.
Again: I encourage all of you bots to take this very inspiring and uplifting attitude regarding the prez into your fall campaign. Let’s see how that works out.
pattonbt
@Clime Acts: Pray tell, how do you read Obot into what I said? I like Obama, and I’ll vote for him, but it’s always been lesser of two evils for me. Once we get far enough away from the current right wing evil I will start worrying about getting my own progressive dreamboat candidate. Until then, I have to make my choices based on the real world, not the made up fantasy world in my head.
So to sum – he’s better than marginal and when compared to the realistic (repeat after me one last time – realistic) competition for the job he’s Jesus Christ on steroids.
My point for you is “thou doth protest too much”. I don’t understand your bitching.
My question to you was “what were your expectations of Obama?”. And I think the answer will fall into one of a few potential categories: 1) you never were really aligned with Obama and didn’t know yourself well enough to see it at the time (let’s call this one “self ignorance”), 2) you had amazingly unrealistic expectations of Obama (let’s call this one “enthusiasm ignorance”) or 3) you really dont want to have to take the good with the bad and thus you piss and moan from the sidelines and blame everyone else yet you are of course perfect (lets call this one “absolute ignorance”).
But to make Obama to be some sort of sell out is fucking weak and hilarious. The dude is a modern Democrat and he telegraphed his left centrism from the get go, even before he was elected. Hell, you even cited an article from above in 2008 which pointed to that. How can you be surprised or let down?
My larger point on top of that is, how can you be in any way surprised a politician hasnt kept the majority of their promises. Which one ever has? Honestly?
I guess it’s nice to live in a black and white world like yours. Obama has lied – SELLOUT!
Take a mirror out, take a nice long look, do some self awareness then grow up, join the real world, recongnize their ain’t no ponies in policitcs or government and accept it for what it is. You have the insight of a slow two year old, and as much real world understanding as one.
You dont have to like it, but you sure as hell can’t be stupid enough not to understand how it works.
one voice in the desert
Willard’s one-percenter buddies bought him the nomination through massive campaign advertising. Now they will try to buy him the office through even more massive campaign advertising.
Unfortunately, most voters are dumb enough to believe what they hear the most.
“Corporations are people, my friend.”
brantl
We shouldn’t be calling him Etch-a-sketch Mitt, we should be calling him Silly Putty Mitt, he lays down on any desirable background and comes up looking like it. Of course over time, he’s getting greyer and greyer…….