Newt has finally exited the Republican primary stage right, but not before leaving 4 million dollars in debt and campaign staffers wondering if they’re ever going to get paid. (Don’t hold your breath.)
Fox News’s Shep Smith (who usually cracks me up, and whom I actually like for the most part) reacted to Romney’s reaction to the news in a way that is already an instant classic, and sums up the stupidfest that is the Republican primary:
Politics is weird. And creepy.
You said it, Shep!
Jay B.
Unlike the reality Fox News enjoys creating so very much.
Christ, I’m surprised he didn’t take out a gun and shoot himself in the head.
Scott
So Awesome! I wish Shep worked for a real news organization.
Scott
So Awesome! I wish Shep worked for a real news organization.
BGinCHI
Fox News is weird, and creepy, and lacks even the loosest attachment to anything like reality.
Letter perfect.
lamh35
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
You wonder how many people work for Fox and say “I dreamed of being like Walter Cronkite, and here I am, working for Ayers reality show”
Cato
Get ready, liberals:
THE SWIFT BOATS ARE COMING OUT!.
They’re baaaaaaaaack….
beltane
TACO is weird, and creepy, and lacks even the loosest attachment to anything like reality.
bemused
That was great. His delivery was perfect. Definitely a classic.
Xecky Gilchrist
Precis for the non-video-capable?
Napoleon
@Cato:
Fox and Freinds was on at the gym yesterday morning and they were already pushing this meme.
Cato
@Napoleon:
Yup yup, you got it.
The Siwtboats are out and looking for blood…
JPL
That was awesome.
Cliff in NH
This goes perfectly with that new Obama ad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Z1jMaeoBrCs
TooManyJens
Hilarious. Though if Shep Smith is just now discovering that politics (especially as practiced by the GOP) lacks even the loosest attachment to reality, he really hasn’t been paying attention.
Cato
And that particular ad is going to have the backing of lots of anonymous corporate cash, you can bank on that one.
BGinCHI
@Cato:
VICTORY!
No One of Consequence
Dood, Shep, *YOU* are weird and creepy. /shiver
– NOoC
hells littlest angel
I’ve never been able to figure out whether I should loathe Shep Smith or feel sorry for him. But I lean toward loathing.
joeyess
I have no idea why, but that made me laugh out loud.
TooManyJens
@hells littlest angel: I don’t know, I’ll always treasure the time Shep hollered “We are America! We do not fucking torture!” on the air. (Not in the “it wasn’t really torture” sense, but in the “this shit is WRONG” sense.)
4tehlulz
@Cato: Click here to discover how many fucks I give.
Chyron HR
@Cato:
Oh, I get it now. The reason the other phony scandals you keep threatening us with always disappear after 24 hours is becuase they weren’t “looking for blood”.
Mark S.
ANONYMOUS UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH
Tonal Crow
Republicans are weird. And creepy. And lack even the loosest attachment to reality. Plus, they spread dangerous, highly-contagious thought-viruses wherever they go. They are perverted, dishonest bullshitters and con-men who want to make you — and your children — their serfs.
Republicans will say anything — anything — to get power. And when they get it, they’ll abuse it from A to Z. They’ll send your kids off to die in some forsaken sand-hole if they think it’ll make them a buck. They’ll pull your grandma’s plug so that Mitt Romney can buy another house. And they’ll put you on the street just to enjoy your suffering.
Yes, Republicans are often attractive and well-spoken. That’s no coincidence. Con men aren’t stupid. But they sure as shit think you are.
joeyess
@Cato: I wish them all the luck in the world with this adventure.
They’re not dealing with John Kerry this year.
pk
Have not seen this guy for a long time. He looks as if he is ill.
TooManyJens
@pk: He looks a lot more like Leland Palmer than he used to, which I can’t take as a good sign.
Mickey
@Cato: lol…you do realize that all this does is remind people that Obama got Bin Laden rrright? Big difference to the Kerry thing which questioned his war time service. Not even in the same ball park.
But carry on being all hair on fire about it if it makes you happy…or are you just trolling?
gaz
Stupid troll is stupid.
/yawn
dmsilev
@BGinCHI: You gotta admit, seeing that line really brings back feelings of nostalgia.
Or indigestion.
BGinCHI
@dmsilev: The troll has that combination of stupidity and self-assurance that I can only describe as the conservative version of a winning personality.
lamh35
Wow, Tweety might be on a roll today. In the first segment, he totally put MC Steele on the spot by asking what foreign policy writing, ideas, speeches, etc has he read by Mitt Romney that made him sit up and notice that Romney had anything substantial to say about Foreign Policy…MC Steele said nothing for a few seconds
then on his 2nd segment he had the leader of the Log Cabin Republicans on and from the start, he would not let the LCR guy use his cop-out of trying to defend the Romney campaign while trying to show outrage over Grenell’s firing. Seems to me like the LCR dude was more worried about trying not to burn his bridges with the Romney campaign than trying to “defend his friends” honor.
Tweety did good, but it won’t last.
Cato
“MC Steele”? Dog whistle much?
Cato
@Mark S.:
Damn straight. BIG, FAT STACKS of corporate cash and Super PAC ads hitting this message again and again and again and again.
redshirt
@TooManyJens: Ha! Great reference, and spot on. BOB!
pseudonymous in nc
Paid troll Biggus Dickus isn’t very smart, is he?
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/221173/march-10-2009/conservative-rap-battle—droppin–science-on-michael-steele
WJS
Somewhere, a grifter just got his grift on, and Newt Gingrich put a dollar in his pants and wondered where his soul went.
If they do end up destroying News Corp, I would hope that Shep Smith would end up with gainful employment somewhere watchable.
FlipYrWhig
So if Obama doesn’t deserve credit for authorizing the mission to kill bin Laden because he didn’t do it personally with his bare hands or something, how is it that Mitt Romney deserves credit for, well, anything? How many people did he personally hire? How many Olympic venues did he personally construct? How did Ronald Reagan “win the Cold War” by this standard? How did any politician or business person in a leadership position ever deserve credit for anything before? This is just stupid.
bemused
@TooManyJens:
Randi Rhodes just commented on Shep looking ill.
Mark S.
@lamh35:
The only foreign policy writing I can remember from Romney is that we should junk all our treaties with Russia and start Cold War II. I can see why Steele had a hard time coming up with anything.
GregB
@Cato:
The Obama campaign should do a rework and superimpose every one of those slogans over George W. Bush’s mission accomplished sign.
I think the right wing’s message machine is broken all to hell.
TooManyJens
@bemused: I hope not. I always think he looks kind of heartsick when I see him.
chopper
@Cato:
OH NOOOOES! this, plus unlimited corporate cash? we’re done for! that’s why obama’s so far ahead! he’s done for!
Cato
@GregB:
It doesn’t matter. The Super PACs are flush with so much cash that our message will be DRILLED THE FUCK IN to every single American by November. Repeat something often enough, and people believe it.
beltane
@FlipYrWhig: Yes, it’s not like George Washington personally bitch-slapped George III or that Julius Caesar personally cut the throats of every Gaulish warrior. Leaders lead, that is their job. Mitt Romney is neither a leader nor a doer. He is a shirker and a check writer but that’s about it.
Cato
@chopper:
No, the race is all tied up. And that’s before the Super PACs really get going.
And I can’t fucking wait until tomorrow’s job report. Word is its going to be piss-poor at best.
The economy ALWAYS chokes this time of year. There will be no Recovery Summer.
chopper
@Cato:
jesus, i can see the flop sweat from here.
Cato
Sorry, I mean Friday’s job report.
MikeJ
From William Gibson’s twitter account: Come on Scrabble. If “CHOADY” isn’t a word, how do I write this article about Gingrich suspending his campaign?
dmsilev
@beltane: Romney is a moral coward. When has he ever done anything that entailed personal risk, even risk to reputation?
chopper
@TooManyJens:
if the sprinklers go off and it starts raining in the studio while he’s talking to the camera i’m going to fuckin freak out.
Amir Khalid
@Cato:
I remember following the 2004 US presidential campaign. The Swiftboat thing was all about spreading lies and insinuations about John Kerry. That came out well before the election proper. It may or may not have dissuaded people from voting for Kerry, but he lost only narrowly to George Walker Bush.
2012 is very different. The incumbent Democratic President Barack Obama (it must burn you, poor fellow, to see that phrase) is at this stage a far better known quantity than Kerry. Obama’s role in the killing of Osama bin Laden is widely known. Indeed, it’s the subject of this week’s TIME cover story, which I commend to your attention. TIME is as tiresome an example of America’s corporate news media as any. But even it acknowledges that Obama put as much care and thought into ordering this operation as he could, and that he called it exactly right. However you want to spin what he said about it afterwards (unlike you, I believe he continues not to gloat about it) it’s hard to argue against that assessment as providing a good reason to keep him in office.
People will ask, what would Mitt Romney have done in Obama’s shoes? It is appropriate, even necessary to a Romney vs. Obama assessment, to put that question to Mitt and watch his response.
chopper
@Cato:
like “obama gave the order to shoot osama bin laden in the face”?
beltane
@Cato: Wow, that little bit of fascist confessional calls for a special Rmoney Salute.
chopper
@Cato:
it’s okay. you’re so ginned up trying to put a veneer of bullshit on reality you can’t tell what day it is. it happens.
xian
@Amir Khalid: You can’t talk sense to a zealot, especially one lacking integrity and intellectual honesty.
pseudonymous in nc
Paid troll Biggus Dickus is so dumb, he’ll gush about unlimited corporate cash while receiving $0.78/hr.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Cato: You really have lost your shock value.
Say these words out loud “The dynamic and bold leadership of President Romney” and not laugh. That’s why Obama is going to win. He’s running again Mittens the etcho sketch, not the generic republican candidate.
beltane
@dmsilev: It is an ugly phrase, but Romney is the consummate “girlie man”, lacking all semblance of honor or courage. He strikes me as nothing more than an American of convenience, the type of rick f*cker who would gladly give up his US citizenship in exchange for citizenship in some offshore tax haven.
beltane
@pseudonymous in nc: In all fairness, the quality of his trolling isn’t worth more than $0.78 an hour.
ant
LOL. why yes, let’s repeat that, over and over again.
Svensker
@pk:
I was thinking the same thing.
Svensker
@Cato:
And the truth? What about telling people the truth? Perhaps that’s not the point.
Nethead Jay
@TooManyJens: You win one of them there internets for that reference. Anyplace in particular you’d like it delivered :)
Mike in NC
NC has a “semi-closed” primary, meaning if you’re not a registered Democrat or Republican, you can vote for either party’s candidates. I grabbed the GOP ballot today since the assholes running for the US House in my district are (1) a war criminal and psychopath, (2) some cracker who brags on TV about working for Jesse Fucking Helms, and (3) some nobody with a $10 campaign budget. I needed to do my part in taking out the war criminal, as the Blue Dog incumbent will most likely get re-elected running against Jesse’s scumbag pal.
Would have loved to have voted for Newt, too, just an hour before he dropped out, but in the end I had to go with Ron Paul.
GregB
The troll battalions are taking on a whiff of desperation.
Sort of reminds me of the Sarah Palin has changed the game, this is good news for John McCain…suck it libs! posts that were ubiquitous in the run up to 2008.
If dumping money into a campaign were the only factor for the win then we’d have Senator Carly Fiorna, Senator Linda McMahon and President H. Ross Perot.
hells littlest angel
@TooManyJens: Yeah, but on the following Friday, he cashed his paycheck. I guess I lean toward loathing him because my supply of compassion is limited.
Tractarian
“Classic” is a word that’s too lightly thrown around. But this definitely qualifies.
Jon Stewart could only dream of pulling off this kind of deadpan brilliance.
danimal
@GregB: You forgot California’s governor: Billionaire businesswoman Meg Whitman, who vastly outspent the outmatched Democrat, Jerry Brown. Oh, wait…
It still makes me smile that Gov. Moonbeam trounced ’em. Only a Jimmy Carter/Michael Dukakis presidential victory would be more soul-crushing for Republicans. Cato-taco is laughable these days. VICTORY!!!!
The Sailor
@Cato: It doesn’t matter. The Super PACs are flush with so much cash that our message will be DRILLED THE FUCK IN to every single American by November. Repeat something often enough, and people believe it.
You, republicans, and Goebbels all say that. You are known by the company you keep.
WJS
@Amir Khalid:
Yes, and why did it work?
Because they started up with it in August, and Kerry was on vacation, and his campaign was slow to respond (please correct me if I’m wrong).
So much of what happened with the SBV happened because Kerry’s campaign was too slow to respond and defend his record. When the wingnuts went after Elizabeth Warren this week, her campaign found proof she had Native American heritage.
Fast, concise responses are necessary to beat back the bullcrap.
Xecky Gilchrist
@WJS: So much of what happened with the SBV happened because Kerry’s campaign was too slow to respond and defend his record.
True. Kerry was the poster child for bringing a knife to a gun fight, and his campaign should be studied for generations as an example of what not to do (in a different way than McCain’s will also be studied as that.)
TenguPhule
Name and shame time then.
TenguPhule
Yes, Vote against Republicans and their crappy annoying campaign ads. America F**K YEAH!
Patricia Kayden
Cato,
Please post a picture of your face after President Obama is re-elected. On Election Night 2008, I made sure I turned to Fox News just to see their reaction to Obama’s election. It was sweet to hear Karl Rove announce when Obama won Ohio. He was so disappointed, which made me so happy. Good times!
gaz
Cato/Taco has been instructed to avoid using the word “Romney” in his posts.
ETA: VICTORY!
Davis X. Machina
@gaz:
And “chlamydia”. Coincidence? I don’t think so…
gaz
@Davis X. Machina: lol
karen
I heard that the Obama campaign has been studying the Kerry campaign so they know what NOT to do.
gaz
@karen: It sure doesn’t hurt at all that as far as stumping goes, Obama makes Kerry look like Mondale.
Brian R.
@Cato:
Wow, when America stumbles, it really gets you hard, doesn’t it?
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Cato: Keep fucking that chicken. You’ve been waiting four years for Obama to turn into John Kerry, I’m sure it’ll happen aaaaaaaaany day now.
gaz
@Brian R.: I saw that disgusting shit too. Unfortunately the only appropriate response to such risible bullshit is to smack the bitch.
Anti-American, partisan little snot that he is, nothing else would really have the necessary effect.
Hawes
I always had hoped that Shep Smith was the mole in Fox. And by always, I mean the fifteen minutes that we knew there was a mole in Fox News.
I also remember he was one of the people who lost his shit during Katrina.
VividBlueDotty
@danimal:
Glad I am not the only one who wanted to chime in about this. Meg Whitman is my favorite flavor of schadenfreude!
Jebediah
@Cato:
I just saw this on Bob Cesca’s blog:
So sorry, Verisad, but your incredibly lame candidate is running against a smart, sharp candidate with a smart, sharp campaign during a time when things are actually starting to look up.
So, um, VICTORY?
gaz
@Jebediah: Thanks for the post, I just hit up Cesca cuz of that right there. =)
cheers
rikyrah
that was frigging HILARIOUS
Jebediah
@gaz:
cool!
Comrade Mary
@Cato: Oops.
keestadoll
Way to go Shep.