One of the things I find surprising about the GOP is just how deep the bench is stacked with douchebags:
Richard Grenell, a former Bush administration official who joined the Romney campaign Thursday as national security and foreign policy spokesman, appears to have deleted more than 800 of his past tweets following scrutiny over numerous swipes aimed at the media, prominent Democratic women and the Gingriches. Grenell also apparently took down his personal site, which featured writing on politics, foreign affairs and the media.
On Friday afternoon, Grenell still featured a link to his personal site (http://www.richardgrenell.com) on his Twitter profile, which then showed that he had tweeted 7,577 times, according to a screenshot taken Friday by The Huffington Post. By Sunday morning, Grenell’s Twitter feed only listed 6,759 tweets and his personal site is no longer available. (Some examples of past writing have been archived on the Internet and can be found here.)
Some of the stuff he erased can be found here, and he seems to have a real problem with women.
Phil Perspective
Does this clown show realize that even if you delete Tweets that they aren’t completely down the memory hole? And that doesn’t even count if someone is able to get screenshots before you delete them? Don’t GOPers understand how the intertoobez work?
Mike E
The douchery is consistent, not surprising.
lamh35
Isn’t this the guy that Sullivan was slobbering over last week cause he’s openly gay? Of course who cares if Romney’s foreign policy platform is totally crazy, this dude is openly gay so hey, so that’ makes him more than ok in Sully’s book I guess
Villago Delenda Est
A Rethug twit has a problem with women?
I’m shocked, shocked!
Xecky Gilchrist
One of the things I find surprising about the GOP is just how deep the bench is stacked with douchebags
Even more surprising to me is how willing they are to scream their d-bagginess in public.
Cassidy
So, standard Republican?
Villago Delenda Est
@Phil Perspective:
No.
This has been today’s simple answer to a straightforward question.
Suffern ACE
Well he’ll be gone quick. Comments about calista will probably ruffle the right feathers. Now if he’d stayed in the boat and only gone after maddow and Malia and Natasha, he’d be golden.
Villago Delenda Est
@lamh35:
Well, Sully himself seems to have a problem with women.
I guess not having to pretend to like them to get sex sort of takes the gloves off for some gay men?
Libby
All GOP douchebags have a problem with wimmen. They’re askeered of us and our lady parts.
patrick II
Do republicans think that humorous is a synonym for being a dick? Because it seems they say “humorous” everytime I see them being a dick.
cathyx
I read the article and he said all that stuff as a joke. You guys just don’t have a sense of humor. In fact, Ari Fleischer stands behind him as an honorable person. So, there you go. Nuff said.
Villago Delenda Est
@patrick II:
Rush Limbaugh: “I’m an entertainer!”
This is always the default when they get caught saying something that causes sponsors to get nervous.
cathyx
@Villago Delenda Est: You have a good point there. When one has no need for the entire opposite sex, I guess it’s easy to dismiss them.
Brian R.
Humor is apparently one of the many things conservatives suck at.
See also: competence, intelligence, leadership.
Litlebritdifrnt
One of the tweets on this that I saw “how does one find a misogynist gay guy, there must be only 6 in the world” I LOL’d
Mike E
@patrick II:
Many wingers find harming others is quite humorous… e.g. the rape scene in Deliverance seems to be a perennial knee-slapper to that crowd
Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
Yes, this is the thing that always puzzes me when I hear about somebody who’s a Republicans because the Democrats aren’t serious enough about the deficit or something. It makes me want to shake them and ask, “Do you see what kind of people you choose to associate with? Are these the kinds of people you really want to stand with? The assholes aren’t the exceptions, they’re the rule! And you still want to be counted among these people?” It befuddles me even more when they’re gay or black or Hispanic or women or earn the minimum wage or have children or have ever been sick or…
MattF
But, now, he says… “Meet the Press is a commercial for the Democratic Party & its radical feminist agenda”? How about ‘not in touch with reality.’ Oh, wait, he’s advising Romney on national security. Now I get it.
Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
@patrick II:
Yes, you’re right. And it’s kind of like how what right-wingers call being “politically correct” is what I call “not being a fucking asshole”.
cathyx
@Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.): Even with all those AKA’s, I never heard of you here before.
brettvk
@MattF: Not too often you see a gay guy who reads from the Men’s Rights playbook (i.e., everything wrong with the world is because of the “feminist agenda”). And does he realize he sounds like a parody of the “gay agenda” blamers?
Scamp Dog
So I looked up the guy on Wikipedia and found this line:
WTF? This has got to be an attempt at some form of humor, but I’m not sure who’d have put it in for what purpose. To slam Grenell? To slam Bolton? (Well, OK, Bolton deserves slamming, but probably not in this fashion)
Usually I think Wikipedia is fairly good, but this tests that belief.
Baud
They view their douchebaggery the same way we might view speaking truth to power. The fact that they are the powerful and they lie is a distinction without a difference.
JGabriel
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Scamp Dog:
Bahahah! That’s fucking hilarious.
Grennell worked as Bolton’s spokesperson at the UN.
.
Ash Can
At this point, I don’t think any Republicans like women. And this applies to the female Republicans too. It’s a freak show.
B
Look at the quote from a retired Reuters’reporter at TPM:
Reuters veteran Irwin Arieff told The Huffington Post that he’s “appalled to hear that the Romney campaign has hired Mr. Grenell in any capacity.” In an email response, Arieff, who worked over two decades at Reuters, including seven years covering the U.N, said he found Grenell “to be the most dishonest and deceptive press person I ever worked with.”
“He often lied, even more frequently offered half answers or withheld information that would weaken his case or reflect poorly on his ideological point of view,” Arieff said. “He was always argumentative with the press, castigating reporters for asking questions he did not like, and calling them to criticize them for writing articles he did not like.”
cathyx
Well, it is a big mustache.
kay
Mitt Romney’s national security advisor has the all diplomatic skill and self-control of a poorly raised 7th grader.
I feel safer already.
Mickey
He’s been very busy shaking the etch-a-sketch.
BGinCHI
Thinking the internets are not going to last. Too great a check on these fucking assholes and their arrogance/ignorance.
SiubhanDuinne
@Scamp Dog: @JGabriel:
Alas, it’s been taken down now ::sob::
Bnut
I’ll never understand people who “have a problem with women” like Sully or whoever. Christ, to be shrill, I can’t wait until people my age get in charge of this shithole and baby boomers are staring at the grave. We will have problems, but most of them won’t be with race, sex, orientation, etc. Even my twentysomething GOP friends are gay friendly. Like MLK said, maybe we can focus on character instead of other stupid things. I need to go to the dog park with the puppy and reset after reading tweets from a conservative gay man about how women suck. What a world, what a world, I’m melting…..
HRA
I read he updates and corrects his Wikipedia. I think he’s trying to establish his “humor” once again.
There is a lot of criticism about him in his UN days.
lacp
@patrick II: Maybe he meant “hung-in-cheek and tumorous.” Or something. Whatevs.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
the republicans are deep at db and offensive line, but they are slow at the skill positions, and may need to upgrade.
patrick II
@Bnut:
Grennell was born in ’66, a little too late to be a boomer. Youth today has its own problems, but until Occupy Wall Street all I thought you were going to do about it was let the right step on your heads.
Evolving Deep Southerner
@cathyx: Oh, for God’s sake, Mumph, you need to leave now. Cathy has never approved of you.
Admonitions for me to “evolve some more before coming back for another helping of cathyx-patented bitchiness” in 3 … 2 …
Mike in NC
Or, in other words, a “moron”.
kay
@HRA:
Really? You mean he wasn’t a great diplomat?
What did people object to, I wonder?
The sneering contempt or the writing
down and disseminating every random
thought that runs thru his head?
Meg
@kay: That will only increase his credential among the neocons since they always criticize Obama for using diplomacy instead of bullying our way around the world.
danielx
What’s surprising is that Cole finds this surprising, since the entire wingnut bench of this era seems to be composed of various iterations of assholes – the only real difference is the degree of intensity. For example: On a scale ranging from Mitch McConnell to Rush Limbaugh, where does Louie Gohmert belong on the level of douchebaggery?
@cathyx:
Also, too – the concept of Ari Fleischer standing behind anyone at all as an honorable person is about the most humorous thing I’ve read or heard all this livelong day. What I want to know is how far behind the gentleman Ari stands.
Evolving Deep Southerner
@Evolving Deep Southerner: Oh, Lord, she’s thinking up the perfect reply. This should be a good one. If eemom doesn’t beat her to it …
Ira-NY
Why do people tweet?
What is the upside?
I do not get it.
quannlace
Ann Coulter: Never mind that my last book was titled ‘Demonic,” inferring that liberals in this country are evil and somehow not really human. No, no. I’m just trying to stimulate and provoke healthy debate! Never mind that my loopy rhetoric could incite violence from various fringe types. Not my fault.
P.S. Joseph McCarthy. Greatest American ever!!
danielx
@kay:
Yes, he sounds like a typical Bushie national security apparatchik whose general philosophy of national security is showing that a Texas-sized dick is bigger than any other dick on earth. Being an offensive dick is the best defense, and so forth and so on. Restraint and self control are not part of the package, to make an excruciating pun.
Do you suppose the Marquis has thinks he too may need the boost of being a wartime preznit in the unlikely event of winning in November? Hey, it worked for the Boy Emperor.
Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
@cathyx:
Sorry. Is that a problem? I was thinking about coming up with a new name fairly soon, as it happens. Maybe “Fordney McCumber Bilmfimble” or “MacBlunch Q.Q. Awltchbawmon”. I don’t know, I’m still mulling…
stickler
@Ira-NY: Ira, wrong question. People “tweet” because 99% of us love to hear ourselves talk and think we’re brilliant.
The real question is, “why does anyone READ this tweetertwitting crap?”
And for that, I have no answer.
Scamp Dog
@JGabriel: So there is some connection there, which is reassuring. I guess.
@SiubhanDuinne: Glad to be of service documenting the internet’s weirdness. :)
@HRA: It starts to make sense as self-deprecating humor, but it was in such an incongruous spot that I totally missed it at first.
MattF
Since the topic here is “lying, right-wing douchebags”:
tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/04/fox-news-fabricate-obama-quote-silver-spoon.php?ref=fpa
lacp
@Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.): I’ve been known to post as Hardcock Rumpryder. Not on this blog, of course.
kay
@danielx:
I don’t think it’s scary or intimidating at all.
Rachel Maddow should wear a necklace! Hillary Clinton looks like Madeline Albright! HAR HAR HAR!
Then he frantically erases 8000 messages? Those are some nerves of steel, lemmee tell you.
I’m supposed to take this person seriously on “national security”?
JWL
“One of the things I find surprising about the GOP is just how deep the bench is stacked with douchebags..”.
They (“the GOP”) conspired to wage the 2003 Iraq War, and were busted doing it.
It did not matter. That’s all anyone really needs to know about the Two Party System in America.
danielx
@kay:
Um, no. Though he may know a great deal about insecurity; goes along with the fixation on being a bigger dick, etc etc.
Mike in NC
@danielx:
Mitt’s neocon brainiacs have a scheme to carpet-bomb Tehran with LDS missionaries as a prelude to the actual invasion, when we’ll be welcomed as liberators with flowers and candy (but no alcohol, since neither Muslims nor Mormons approve).
kay
@danielx:
The Reuters UN reporter says he was “the most deceptive and dishonest press person I have ever worked with”.
That’s over 20 years. Number One Liar.
That’s probably considered a qualification in Romneyland.
“But does he LIE constantly?”
SiubhanDuinne
@kay:
I have to admit, the line about Callista Gingrich’s “snap-on hair” made me chuckle.
kay
@SiubhanDuinne:
Well, that’s funnier than “wear a necklace”
I get why it’s supposed to be funny, Maddow doesn’t wear necklaces, so, ZING devastating, supposedly.
Humor, for me, is always an original take on something I recognize to be true when I hear it.
So, true and original or unique. Maybe that’s why conservatives so rarely make me laugh :)
Jibeaux
The gay men I know adore women non-sexually, not to mention they’re among the first to have
my back on women’s issues. And they’re definitely not without humor. Maybe he’s a dick because he’s so sui generis he can’t find a partner.
Cacti
It’s becoming obvious that Romney is running for Dubya’s third term, much more than McCain ever was.
Every new hire he makes seems to be another Bush Crime Family stooge.
gene108
@Cacti:
Why do you assume there are alternatives?
Nixon stooges made their way into the Bush, Jr. White House.
Foreign policy types tend to recycle through various administrations.
You can’t normally tap a governor as a foreign policy adviser. Governors tend to be focus solely on domestic issues.
General Stuck
@Cacti:
It is looking that way, not only for hard right positions on the issues, where the only strategy that fits that bill, is Rove’s 50 + 1 base only strategy, and getting the troops on the ground to get everyone to vote.
The problem with that is, the wingnuts approval as a party is in the shitter, thanks to George, and Romney is pretty much despised personally by about everyone, including the wingnuts,.
The Other Chuck
I guess Romney was just hoist by his own retard.
redheadedfemme
@B: Well hey. He’ll fit right in with the rest of the R-Liars, won’t he?
mak
To me, the most interesting aspect of this is the fact that the Romney camp either didn’t know about Grenell’s problem with women before they hired him, or didn’t even recognize it in his twits. Way to revive the War on Women meme, Mittens!
bob h
My blood pressure is up this morning after reading of Mitch Daniels’ suggestion that Obama has no excuses because Reagan inherited an even worse economic situation.
Reagan inherited an economy that was being put thru the ringer by Paul Volcker because of inflation. All Volcker had to do to get the economy growing again was take his foot off the brakes, and in time he did.
Daniels is a graduate of Princeton University and among the party’s intellectual elite. Yet he stoops to knowing, deliberate intellectual dishonesty.
shortstop
@Jibeaux: 90 percent of the gay men I know fit your description. The other 10 percent are dismissive misogynists.
shortstop
@mak: More likely they just didn’t care. This won’t get any attention whatsoever outside liberal blogs.