I double dare you, motherfucker:
Indeed, facing what the candidate and his aides believe to be a series of surprisingly ruthless, unfounded, and unfair attacks from the Obama campaign on Romney’s finances and business record, the Republican’s campaign is now prepared to go eye for an eye in an intense, no-holds-barred act of political reprisal, said two Romney advisers who spoke on condition of anonymity. In the next chapter of Boston’s pushback — which began last week when they began labeling Obama a “liar” — very little will be off-limits, from the president’s youthful drug habit, to his ties to disgraced Chicago politicians.
[….]The reference to Obama’s past drug use seems to suggest that former New Hampshire Governor John Sununu wasn’t going off-script after all when he dinged the president for spending “his early years in Hawaii smoking something” during a Tuesday morning Fox News appearance.
The Fox crowd will eat it up and Politifact will rate the claims as “mostly true” but it’s a terrible strategy. Mitt’s not running to be the president of Powerline and Red State.
I meant to start my blogging vacation today but I love the smell of Republican panic in the morning.
Rafer Janders
Oh no! This is what caused us to lose the election in 2008, so imagine how effective it will be four years later!
This is really a “meh, we got nothin'” admission. This, this is the best they can come up with? Are they really in such a bubble that they imagine anyone will care?
DonBoy
I assure you, the streets of Boston aren’t fans of the Mittster.
Mike Goetz
How many times will we hear the word “cocaine” in the next three months? Over/under 1000.
When was the last time a campaign lost its shit so quickly?
Ben Cisco
Drink up, everybody!
Desperation – oh, the smell of it!
shortstop
“The incumbent president hasn’t been vetted!” = “Why don’t the things that obsess the loony teabagging right matter to anyone else?! Why?! Why?!” The impotent frustration is palpable.
Rafer Janders
Um, doesn’t this imply that there were once things that were off-limits? But this was all stuff that they’ve tried for years. It wasn’t as if they were keeping anythin off-limits previously out of their gentlemanly sense of fair play.
Roger Moore
IOW, same old, same old.
shortstop
@Rafer Janders: Speak for yourself. You may want a job, health insurance, home equity and access to decent education for your children more than you want the president to pay for getting high as an undergraduate, but I assure you most Americans have different values, sir.
slag
If President Obama were running on his weed-smoking track record, and then the Rmoney campaign decided to look more closely into that track record, then maybe this would be a rational response to the Obama campaign’s tactics.
Rafer Janders
@shortstop:
Look, besides an almost four year public record as president, filled with detailed policy proposals and actions, what do we really know about how this Obama guy will govern if we re-elect him?
newtons.third
Just went to Rmoney’s website and left this message:
Futile, I know, but worth a shot. Who knows, if the left blogosphere starts sending in those comments, maybe they feel the heat? (Then I will wake up from my dream).
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@DonBoy: I was wondering about that. Can he carry any of his home states in the general?
JPL
Of course Mitt isn’t going to run a blog, he wants to be first man… That was obvious when he brought up Teresa Kerry.
David Fud
Love the trash talk in the article. If they had anything of substance, they would flop it instead of dripping flop sweat.
shortstop
@Rafer Janders: Exactly! And the guy’s never been in charge of anything!
Todd
It’ll be fun to hear Jabba triple down on Obama and drug use.
Dave
Jesus…that’s fucking political suicide.
All that stuff came out in 08. Resko, Ayers, Wright, dope…and he won. How is doubling-down on what was proven to be useless going to win an election?
I thought Martha Coakley’s abysmal run against Scott Brown was the worst political campaign I had ever seen. I stand corrected…
MattF
Looking ahead a little, one wonders what the Republican convention will be like. Remember ol’ Pat Buchanan at the 1992 convention? It ain’t gonna be pretty, I predict.
Trinity
@Ben Cisco: Delicious!
shortstop
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Just Utah.
EconWatcher
Obama not only smoked pot in college, I have it on good authority that he regularly uses caffeine and even has an occasional dram of the demon rum. So obviously these new revelations will clinch the Mormon vote for Romney.
Villago Delenda Est
These people are absolute cretins.
As noted above, this worked SO WELL in 2008, that President McCain signed the “First Night” legislation that allows local Galtian Overlords to demand a new bride spend her wedding night with the Galtian Overlord.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
This is my favorite line from the anonymous advisor that Charlie Pierce, who has known Eric Fernstrom for a very long time, thinks is Eric Fernstrom:
Pointing out that Our Willard’s financial genius consists in large part of vulture capitalism and the opportunistic (but I’m sure perfectly legal, that’s the problem) exploitation of really disgusting tax loopholes is “destroying” The Lady Anne? As for “decent man”, would a decent man pal around with the Birther With A Dyed Dead Possum On His Head? Would George Romney?
Best line from Pierce:
beltane
The secret of Obama’s “luck” in electoral politics is that he has the ability to calmly goad his opponents into committing frantic acts self-destruction. No matter who he runs against, they all end up sounding like Allan Keyes before long.
If Barack Obama was able to turn Bill Clinton into a sputtering loon by the end of the primaries, the thin-skinned and brittle Mitt Romney really doesn’t stand a chance.
rlrr
@Mike Goetz:
From the party that never questioned the previous President’s cocaine use…
Valdivia
My favorite was the way they referred to Stephanie Cutter. It is really burning them. I love too how they incorporate Anne Romney in this, as if Obama is going around insulting her. They really are running on rage now. I hope it continues even if that means non stop billions of dollars of ads in wingnut memes.
rlrr
@shortstop:
“The incumbent president hasn’t been vetted!”
Winning an election counts as vetting in a democracy…
Villago Delenda Est
@newtons.third:
Someone is a dumbass, and it’s not you, newtons.third.
General Stuck
It’s worse than terrible, it likely won’t work on a well liked incumbent president as a practical matter. They are falling into Obama’s trap of making this about two candidates, instead of the economy which is the only way they can win.
Bring it on motherfuckers. They are going for the tribal method, after Obama just drove a stake through Romney’s centerpiece for qualification to be president. They don’t really have anything but turning themselves into Atomic Heathers and roll the dice.
Xecky Gilchrist
The most pathetic campaign moment I can remember – at least on the Republican side, since the Democrats have fielded any number of pathetic campaigners in the Stockholm Syndrome era – had to be Poppy Bush bug-eyedly screeching about “ozone, man, ozone!”
I have a feeling we’re heading for a new record by a long shot.
Redshift
How this comes across: “Not fair!” Romney whined, “he shouldn’t be allowed to do that!” and couldn’t understand why the teacher wouldn’t make him stop.
jwb
@Rafer Janders: Hey, but they got $2 billion this time to brand the President a dope-smokin’ Kenyan mooslim soshulist. It’s sure to work with Herr genius CEO in charge; POW guy just marketed it badly because he wasn’t genius CEO.
hitchhiker
And, as a side benefit to the flail parade, we get to witness yet another surefire R way to alienate young voters.
My kids are in their 20s. This is eye-rolling stuff for them, who both know LOTS of extremely competent people who have smoked dope. It’s just a complete non-issue . . . as if Romney had just decided to campaign on Obama’s youthful fondness for mangoes or something.
Party of GET OFF MY LAWN guys. You go with that, Mr. Sununu.
Dork
I suspect we’ll soon find out he’s gay, married to Jeremiah Wright, and kills 14 children every Tuesday morning with a survival knife and Thermos bottle.
shortstop
@rlrr: Yes, you’d think so, if you weren’t the victim of blunt head trauma, a Republican…or both.
waynski
It all sounds desperate and ridiculous to us, but we should be killing him and we’re not. Obama’s lead is still narrow and this is still going to be close. Fun to watch, but no Mission Accomplished yet for me.
beltane
@Valdivia: The Romney campaign must still consider the utterly vapid and unlikable Ann to be Mitt’s secret weapon. All this does is reveal that the Romney campaign only has a set of highly inferior weapons at their disposal.
FlipYrWhig
Mitt Romney isn’t “a decent man.” He’s a rich phony who nobody has ever liked. It’s like he never really had to realize it before, and it’s eating at him, because he’s so _sure_ he’s “a decent man.” Well, there’s more to being “decent” than white teeth and a lack of profanity. It may even have a little to do with how you treat people, or how you run your business. Suck it.
gene108
@Mike Goetz:
Over 1000.
Everybody’s smoked pot or known someone whose smoked pot, at least once, so smoking pot isn’t a big deal.
Fewer people have snorted some blow.
Though with the prevalence of cocaine in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, there are a lot of people President Obama’s age, who did try some cocaine and folks like me, who are a few years younger have met the adult versions of those guys and aren’t weirded out by it.
shortstop
@hitchhiker: I think it’s eye-rolling stuff for everyone under 80, and a goodly portion of those who are 80-plus.
Rafer Janders
OK, sure, but what’s Obama going to do about Mitt Romney? Can we get back on topic here?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@waynski: True, it’s still close and I think it’s gonna stay that way. People are stupid and the VSPs still think Romney is mostly what Romney thinks he is. But given the state of the economy, the media and the country (by which I mean, overt and subconscious racism), you could argue that Our Willard “should” be ten points ahead.
FlipYrWhig
@beltane: Yes, but Ann Romney is both a mom _and_ a member of the horsey set. People love mommies and horsies, right?
Slamhole
My wingnut brother linked an article from the NY Daily News about the convention arena being renamed and how Obama hates banks and America!!!! I answered him with, “Yeah, I wish the pres would act more BankofAmerican. Now he’s spamming my wall with Daily Caller, Breitbart, and Chuck Norris speeches. I think I hurt his feefees
qwerty42
@shortstop:
hahahahahahahaha
good one. Yes. Crazy things are what we should be looking at. Like counter tops and such. Because that’s what Americans really decide the presidency on.
More seriously, I expect a much more solid campaign to emerge from the Republicans once summer is over, but they sure seem to be running in circles right now. And taking advice from the nutty right-wing blogosphere isn’t going to help, since that is a font of paranoia.
vheidi
OT, Pete Seeger is on Brian Lehrer’s show now, wnyc.org
JPL
@Rafer Janders: Romney’s lily white.. all he did was abuse some hippies.
Randy
“Mitt’s not running to be the president of Powerline and Red State.”
Sure he is. He may not know it, but he is.
Does RMoney really want to open this can of worms? With his background of “youthful indiscretions” (cop dress-up, Mormans and their relationship with African Americans)?
Rafer Janders
@hitchhiker:
OK, that made me laugh.
shortstop
@waynski: His lead is going to stay very narrow through the end. Nationally. The swing states and the electoral vote are the real story.
Five bucks says Mitt, Inc. dredges up that mentally ill guy who says he blew Obama in the back of a car. Larry something?
beltane
@waynski: It could be revealed that Mitt Romney is a serial killer of children and the election would still be close. This has nothing to do with the candidates and everything to do with the fact that the Republican party has become some kind of racial pride movement for white people suffering from unfulfilled feelings of entitlement.
JR
You really want to take the gloves off, Mitt?
ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-721268
You sure about that?
Redshift
I also love how the shift from top Romney surrogates making vile accusations against the president to Romney himself making vile accusations against the president is described as “taking the gloves off.” It’s not like there’s anything here we haven’t already heard Sununu and TPaw saying.
Also, further evidence of the basic incompetence of the Romney campaign — they don’t seem to grasp that the reason the candidate doesn’t personally get down in the sewer isn’t because he’s the big gun you’re keeping in reserve, it’s because people are less likely to vote for a presidential candidate who has shit all over him.
Roger Moore
@FlipYrWhig:
Of course he’s never realized it before. He’s spent his whole adult life surrounded by craven yes men who know they’ll be fired if they ever point out one of his flaws. He’s like one of these teenagers whose parents have always told them how wonderful they are in an attempt to build up their self-esteem, except he was allowed to keep it up into his 60’s. It’s not a good way to build up an accurate self image.
shortstop
@beltane: Bing-fucking-o.
Jay C
So IOW, the “attacks” are effective, damaging, and likely to be true….
NCSteve
@MattF:
It’ll be just like the last three. A floor full of angry old white men with a crazed gleam in their eyes, fat white middle aged women with smug, superior looks in theirs, listening to spittle-flecked speeches, all, glowingly portrayed by fawning cable anchors.
The only differences will be the lack of a prominent Democratic senator quisling to give the keynote and that the angry old white men won’t be sprouting their first Viaga/Cialas free wood in years over Sarah Palin.
shortstop
@FlipYrWhig: @Roger Moore: As disgusting as his lack of self-awareness is, though, I am enjoying the spectacle of his unfolding confusion and rage as he begins to realize (and he must on some limited level) that America does not share his high rating of his own decency. America, even the large portion of it voting for him, does not like him. At all.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@DonBoy:
Drive about 20 miles north or west, and it’s a different story.
(Luckily, Boston-proper has more people in it).
Valdivia
@beltane:
If they had kept their cool and gone on with their plan it would have been better, but now they are panicking and it’s clear by the over the top inclusion of the ‘secret weapon’ Anne in the hyperbole.
Culture of Truth
of surprisingly ruthless, unfounded, and unfair attacks from the Obama campaign
what happens Mittens has to go up against al-qaeda? They don’t offer apologies either.
gene108
@Randy:
Yeah! Romney drank caffeinated Coca-Cola! What’s next in his youthful hellraising back ground? Maybe he had shots of espresso, while proselytizing in France?
muddy
@gene108:
Back then no one thought it was bad because everyone said it wasn’t addictive. I knew many people who would not touch pot or even a cigarette, but thought that coke was just a sidecar for their drinks, no big deal. It wasn’t until later in the 80’s when crack exploded that it became common knowledge about the addictive qualities of cocaine.
I’m the same age as the President, and I had this experience in both urban and rural areas at that time.
El Cid
The DNC goes full-metal dressage on Romney’s ass. (Intended.)
muddy
@Rafer Janders: Delightful, thank you!
SFAW
@Dave:
It was. No need to think you were wrong.
Mitt IS doing his damnedest, but the Coakley bar is set so high/low that there’s almost no way he can get over/under it.
Now, if the country had a non-compliant MSM, I might agree with you. But you fuck-up a campaign with the Press Corps you have, not the Press Corps you want.
Redshift
Hoo-boy, Fehrnstrom (or whoever) is really smoking the high-grade stuff now:
I was going to pick out more quotes, but the whole thing is really hilarious.
Brachiator
@Rafer Janders:
This seems to spring from the delusion that Granpa McCain did not properly vett Obama the first time around, and it takes a rich, uptight, squeaky clean Real White American White Guy (that hair! those smiling teeth) to highlight all of Obama’s ghastly non-Amurrikin flaws.
It is as delusional as the audio clip that Rachel Maddow highlighted on her show last night, of Rush Limbaugh claiming that Hollywood was deliberately trying to slam Romney by having a villain named … Bane … in The Dark Knight Rises. Even Limbaugh appears to understand how nutty this is, but then again, anything for the rubes.
@FlipYrWhig:
Actually, they do. Ann Romney may be “vapid and unlikable,” but there is simply no point in trying to slam her just because she doesn’t make some people feel warm and fuzzy.
Cris (without an H)
I, for one, hope to never again have a US President who hasn’t smoked pot.
Silver
@Dork: A Chinese made Thermos. Mitt approves!
Rita R.
This is what happens when your entire party is taken over by wingnuts, and therefore you only associate with wingnuts — you become one too and start believing their skewed view of the world.
So bring back all of 2008’s greatest hits — America will yawn. And if he goes back to the Jeremiah Wright well, the Obamamans better hit back hard with Mormons and their, let’s say, unsavory history with black people, who were kept out of the priesthood until 1978, when Romney was a 31-year-old man and moving up in church hierarchy, and whose theology holds them as the cursed descendants of Cain.
Villago Delenda Est
@gene108:
Perhaps he sampled the filles du joye and some nice claret while on his mission to France, in lieu of putting his ass on the line in the shit of the Mekong?
EconWatcher
@El Cid:
I gotta say, that’s not a smart move on our side, and I’m surprised by it. The dressage horse is more associated with Ann than Mitt, and his wife should be left out of it, unless they make her a more than occasional spokesperson. We have a ton of great material here on Mitt. Let’s stick to that.
maya
@El Cid: Yeah, Rafalca better bring home the gold, [will it be deposited in the Rmoney Swiss Bank blind trust?] for there to be a real horse race in the 2012 election.
Nemesis
Why would anyone assume Sununununu was going off script? Oh, yeah, the media wont just say what is happening like the gop had lost its fucking mind. Tut-tut. Cant say that, so we are told Sununununu is off script.
If we listen to the words of the perp himself, he TELLS US that he was reading the words that were there. He read what Jiggles McOxyblob told him to read. Now Sununununu is pissed that he is catching shit for doing what he was told to do.
Is Sunununu that stupid? The campaign need someone that was expendable to deliver the initial “Obama is other” salvo (this “otherness” issue has long been a gop strateregy, but its been absent from the discourse thus far).
Keep on yer toes, BJers. The lies will be fast and furious from the mittbot campaign. Gotta change the discussion from Bain Pain.
ChrisNYC
Watch that freaking PA speech Romney gave yesterday. Shameful. He twice calls Obama’s way/governing “foreign to us.” And says that Obama is different (hint hint) from both Republicans and Democrats. For real, he says Obama is outside of both Dems and GOPers. Slimeball. Total slimeball. Same weird giddiness in delivery and he still does that weird clicking sound when he speaks.
Also, they are planting someone in his crowds (same voice in different states) who bellows encouragement. Yesterday it was “Give em hell Mitt.” Couple of days ago it was “We need you Mitt.”
But ultimately good that he seems reduced to taking campaign strategy from the commenters at Redstate. Cause that’s a loser.
Violet
@El Cid: Oh….that’s brutal. Very good.
Villago Delenda Est
@Brachiator:
Her problem is pretty much the same problem as her husband; when she injects herself into the campaign (remember the entire idiotic “rock star” meme that the asshats at Politico were trying to sell?) her unlikeablity is highlighted and becomes fair game. Kids are off limits, but wives get into it and become part of the team.
Well, except when you toss them around at the convention like a damn balloon, which is what the Palin bint did with her special needs baby. Then foisting her pregnant unmarried teen at the country as a spokesbimbo for abstinence.
jwb
@El Cid: Funny, but it should have been punchier.
Valdivia
@EconWatcher:
it’s not on the air, it’s a web ad.
Rita R.
@Roger Moore:
So very, very true.
The coddled Mittster who’s always had the way paved for him alternately whines and lashes out in anger when challenged. He thinks it’s all his due and can’t deal with someone blocking him from what he wants — remember what Anne said that reveals the mentality: “It’s Mitt’s turn.”
Another Halocene Human
@beltane: This has nothing to do with the candidates and everything to do with the fact that the Republican party has become some kind of racial pride movement for white people suffering from unfulfilled feelings of entitlement.
Dingdingding!
I almost posted as such on my facebook this morning but thought better of it.
The white supremacists have been masters of camoflage but now they show their ugly face. They’re losing and they’re angry, oh, so angry, like hornets.
Kane
When your candidate is Mitt Romney, you get angry. When you get angry, you go blow off steam. When you go blow off steam, accidents happen. When accidents happen, you get an eye patch. When you get an eye patch, people think you’re tough. When people think you’re tough, people wanna see how tough. And when people wanna see how tough, you wake up in a roadside ditch. Don’t wake up in a roadside ditch! Get rid of Mitt Romney and upgrade to Barack Obama.
Walker
@ChrisNYC:
Do we have actual proof of that? Because that would be awesome.
Roger Moore
@shortstop:
I don’t think his lack of self awareness is disgusting; I think it’s sad. I see Mitt as a guy who believes deeply in his own morality, and I think in some aspects he’s a decent and even praiseworthy man. My impression is that he’s been a good, if overly traditional, husband and father who has provided for his family, stayed faithful to his wife, raised his sons well, and stayed rigidly faithful to his personal religious obligations. It’s easy to see how somebody who did that can see himself as a beacon of righteousness.
The problem is with the contrast between his private and public life. The same man who has been such a good guy in private has destroyed lives in the pursuit of profit, bent our laws into pretzels to protect it from taxes, and pursued public office for crass reasons rather than a real desire to serve. What his yes men do is to give him a pass for all that public stuff so he can keep his self image despite all the evil he’s done. Now he’s actually being forced to confront his real self, and he’s in deep, deep denial about what a shit he is.
Jay C
@NCSteve:
I disagree about this year’s RNC: I think the Team Romney (and/or its overlap with [what’s left of] the GOP Establishment) is going to be desperate to keep the thing as decorous as possible – and probably shove as many Republicans Of Color as they can muster in front of the cameras in primetime. I’m just not sure it will work.
Fawning GOP lickspittles as the national Media tend to be, if the Republican PTB can’t keep the wingnuts in check, and let this Convention turn into a toxic mix of snake-handlers’ revival, Klan rally and Two Minutes Hate (for days), they will probably fall all over themselves to put a stake in Romney’s campaign and spend the rest of the fall angling for prime tickets to Obama’s Re-Inaugural Ball.
The Press love a horse-race, to be sure: but they hate missing out on calling a sure winner even more…
Violet
@Rita R.: When did Ann say “It’s Mitt’s turn”? I keep hearing about this, but I missed when and where she said it.
Tom the First
This strikes me as a dumb strategy because Obama already has 3+ years in office. People know him. Or at least they know he’s not a drugged-up Chicago henchman named Moose. And they know he’s not a radical socialist (despite the wingnuteri’s best attempts). And they tend to like him.
Dregging up a sitting president’s past just seems dumb. That’s stuff you attack on when a person is trying to gain office, especially if he’s somewhat of an unknown. But once he’s been in office, people are going to judge him on what they’ve seen with their own eyes… and there’s a big disconnect between how these attacks will portray Obama and how he actually is. And people will see that. And it will backfire.
ChrisNYC
@Walker: No, sorry for giving that impression. It’s just this bellow that sounds really distinctive (getting a little freeper here, sorry). But, realistically, no one is so into Mitt that they are going to scream “we need you Mitt.” They are trying like mad to get some sense of excitement around his events and I personally am convinced that this is part of it.
Another Halocene Human
@El Cid: oh, SNAP!
certainly not as polished as OfA’s ads, really gives off that ‘run for the house’ vibe, but hey, those are some cringe-inducing moments for Mitt.
Rob in CT
They ran the “scary other” campaign in 2008. It didn’t work.
Granted, this time they have a pathetic economic recovery to help them and Obama’s no long a novelty. But I still can’t see it working.
Violet
@Roger Moore: I completely agree. In some way I almost feel sorry for him. He’s so in denial about who he really is that he’s blind. It’s sad in a way. But when I start to feel sorry for him, I remember all his billions and that goes away pretty fast. With all that money he could have hired a therapist if he’d wanted.
I will say that Mitt is a coward and a bully. The stories about his school years where he cut off the hair off a student he didn’t approve of seem utterly in line with how he’s behaved on the campaign trail, and probably in other parts of his life. He’s a coward at heart. That’s why he can’t release the returns and take the hits. He’s afraid.
Culture of Truth
@Kane: I like it
Brian R.
So they want to make this an election in which the candidates’ likeability is the determining factor?
OK, twist my arm.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@ChrisNYC: Give’em hell, Mitt, I can see coming from your average Fox viewer. “We need you, MItt!”…? if that’s not a plant, it’s someone who reads their Mormon newsletter every morning.
Rita R.
@Violet:
It’s from an ABC News interview back in April. She said: “I believe it’s Mitt’s time. I believe the country needs the kind of leadership he’s going to offer… So I think it’s our turn now.”
Here’s a link to a story in which it’s reported:
thehill.com/video/campaign/221783-romney-tells-obama-to-start-packing
Culture of Truth
Margaret Carlson is making the point that with stories of staying at Howard Johnson’s and playing with the ice maker the guy with the middle name Hussein is connecting with average Americans more than the white guy with big shoulders.
El Cid
@EconWatcher: Horseshit. The nitwit brigades can moan and weep about Ann all they want. This is a clear representation of Romney’s elitist cultural surroundings.
Another Halocene Human
@Violet: On April 16th, Ann Romney said “It’s Mitt’s time.”
The headlines the next morning state “Ann Romney: It’s Mitt’s Turn”
To be fair, in the context of the interview that is what she meant.
Jim C
Does anyone else remember the days when John would put up something like this (“Busy day, don’t expect much from me”), only to follow with 50 posts in an afternoon? That’s really how I read DougJ’s statement from yesterday, too.
The Thin Black Duke
@Culture of Truth: Link, please?
Violet
@Rita R.: Thank you. I knew I remembered it, I just couldn’t place it.
El Cid
@Another Halocene Human: Republican runs for President are now to be about publicizing the Lost Cause myth.
japa21
Notice the word that is not used…”false”. Unfounded is not the same thing.
Valdivia
@Kane:
lol. thank you for that, very funny.
Violet
This is really funny–from the link at the top, quoting one of Romney’s advisers:
Uh…dude, that answers your question. Politics got that way with Nixon. Your own party’s guy.
I swear I don’t think Romney’s crew has a clue about what they say or how they sound.
JPL
Ann Romney uses the horse as medical therapy and will get the sympathy vote so hopefully they don’t go over board with the ad.
mzrad
Say, didn’t W do a lot of blow before getting a-borned again?
Valdivia
@JPL:
She uses horses as therapy. The Rafalca horse is NOT therapy it’s an investment (they deducted 77K for it in their taxes) and it will participate in the Olympics. She doesn’t ride it. These horses are very specifically trained for this, totally different from her equine therapy.
ploeg
@Violet: And to be more precise, Obama’s political adviser did not call Romney a felon or even allow for that possibility. Her point was that Romney can’t possibly have lied on the SEC filing, so he’s not being straight with the American people. It’s Karl Rove and all these other idiots who are yelling FELON FELON FELON.
Yutsano
@JPL:
Not the dressage horse. That is her personal toy she pays someone else to ride for her. Way different than hippotherapy.
@Valdivia: Or wot you said. :)
4tehlulz
Oh dear. That’s not civil.
Click here for the uncivil graphic.
JPL
@mzrad: When I lived in Dallas many decades ago, it was a well known rumor. He came into a restaurant when I was having lunch and visited with the owner who supposedly like to snort, sniff or whatever you do.
The Other Bob
From the article at BuzzFeed:
When did our politics get to that point? Please. Maybe when Lee Atwater drafted the first “southern strategy”. Maybe when Reagan ran against “Welfare Queens”. Maybe when Bush I ran against Willie Horton. Maybe when Bush II ran to save marriage against those awful queers and branded a war hero (or two) a coward. Maybe when the Tea Party took over your effin’ party and accused the President of being a traitor, muslim, and infused racism and lies into every political arguement.
When did our politics get to that point? Screw off whoever you are. A Democrat just brought a gun to a gunfight and for once you are at the losing end. If you had an ounce of integrity you’d look into the mirror and realize that this is politics, but at least it isn’t racially driven politics.
El Cid
@Violet: Also, Nixon didn’t do anything wrong, right? Those were just unfair attacks by Demoncraps and the librul medja. How dare Mitt Romney criticize Nixon?
JPL
@Yutsano: They will use her illness anyway.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JPL: My understanding is she uses a horse, not Rafalca the Dancing Horse, as therapy, which led to her interest in dressage and RTDH. But I agree, it’s best to leave all the horse jokes to Letterman and Colbert. The Villagers will pounce on any excuse to scold the Obama campaign. Howard Fineman is already lamenting the tone of Bothsides, and I’m sure the Sabbath Gasbags are rehearsing their sad faces in the mirror to do the same.
Valdivia
@Yutsano:
:) mindmeld.
Nutella
@Roger Moore:
That’s what Mitt thinks of himself but the stories we’ve heard about his ‘pranks’ and his insistence in having and winning athletic contests in the family make it sound like he’s a sanctimonious jerk around the house(s), too.
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
RE: Actually, they do. Ann Romney may be “vapid and unlikable,” but there is simply no point in trying to slam her just because she doesn’t make some people feel warm and fuzzy.
Simply knocking Ann Romney because she is a rich mother or likes horses is lame, and gets you nowhere. I agree that she can be taken to task about campaign related issues, even though here it can still be a waste of time.
Likable or unlikable, the fetish we have over First Ladies is sad, but has a long history.
Palin was the VP candidate, not a political wife. Quite a difference, wouldn’t you say?
@Valdivia:
I don’t like Mitt, not at all, but the plain, complicated fact is that the Romneys did not deduct $77K in horse expenses on their taxes. The deductible amount was only $49. On the other hand, Romney invites confusion over his tax issues.
El Cid
@The Other Bob: They’re very angry because the law* clearly states that Republicans get to make up and present whatever sneering, fraudulent, racist, ethnonationalist, chauvinist, propagandistic hateful attacks they want and Democrats are to shut up and take it and at most politely suggest it’s unfair to be so mean to them, and it’s the media’s job to repeat these themes endlessly as real news and to adopt them as important topics in and of themselves.
The law* forbids Democrats from being mean to and attacking Republicans no matter how plainly and simply and obviously and previously established in the public record as true they are.
Republicans get to lie about Democrats in the most insulting attacks, and Democrats do not get to say mean true things about Republicans.
And it was for this cause that George Washington died on the cross. That, and the 2nd Amendment, which is of course the real title of the document which libruls call the Constitution.
* — I.e., reality as they know it
beltane
@Yutsano: Rafalca is not Ann’s equine therapy so much as he is Ann’s “retail therapy”, a very expensive toy a very rich woman pays other people to play with.
El Cid
@Brachiator: I say we run an empirical test of this hypothesis, that mocking the snotty rich guy for his fancy horse dancing pastime as part of a general ad ‘gets us nowhere’. That’s how to settle such a hypothesis. Let’s see.
jwb
@JPL: I doubt it even comes up. I don’t think the ad is good enough to get much attention.
Violet
@ploeg:
That’s not strictly true:
She didn’t call him a felon, but she did suggest that if he misrepresented his position at Bain to the SEC, that that was a felony. She did use the word.
El Cid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Because if the Village doesn’t like something, it means it loses with the American people, because The American People always behaves as the Villagers believe.
GregB
So now Nixon is a bad guy that the GOP points to and mocks and bemoans after they moved heaven and earth to defend him, claim that everyone did what he did and demanded that beyond suffering public reproach, he never suffer legal consequences for his actions.
Unreal.
rikyrah
dougj
you crack me up.
but, NOBODY is playing with Willard at the Prudential Building in Chicago
shortstop
@Roger Moore: I understand what you’re saying, but I’m having a hard time drawing a line between personal and public morality when we’re dealing with what in essence is a compulsive liar. There is literally nothing Romney won’t lie about, no position he won’t change, if it seems to benefit him at that particular moment; he goes, far, far beyond any stereotypical notions of political shading and flip-flopping. So when you say this:
The same man who has been such a good guy in private has destroyed lives in the pursuit of profit, bent our laws into pretzels to protect it from taxes, and pursued public office for crass reasons rather than a real desire to serve.
…I wonder if he has been such a good guy in private — is someone capable of so much self-obsession and dishonesty in public really likely to be such a Jekyll and Hyde? Insofar as it relates to his family, I couldn’t care less; that’s not our business. But when you look at other aspects of his “private” life, like the school bullying incidents to which Violet refers, I don’t see so much character — I see flaws that clearly have spilled over into the way he conducts his public life, the way he would govern if given the power.
Rather than try to separate his public and private lives, I think Flip gets closer when he says there’s more to decency than white teeth and profanity. Romney may have gone deep on some aspects of private morality — religiosity, marital fidelity, etc. — but he clearly has a superficial understanding of others. The dividing line seems to be the “us vs. them” mentality that unfortunately informs so much modern Republican thinking; he will protect and deport himself honorably around people he sees as members of his particular tribes, but will not hesitate to behave with great dishonor and lack of ethics toward the rest of us. I can’t think of a scarier quality in a president than that.
Frankensteinbeck
This time they’re TOTALLY going to strike back hard! They mean it!
shortstop
@Violet: And Mitt is free to tell us which one of those things is true, as soon as he stops wailing about someone even raising the possibility that he may have behaved without integrity. We’re still waiting.
wrb
@waynski:
It is pretty damn astonishing. I just looked at TPM poll of polls looking to gloat over how Romney was being stomped and he’s still slightly ahead in the popular vote.
Hope the electoral vote calcs are accurate.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@El Cid: we’re not talking about the American electorate, we’re talking about that 5-7% who range from people who watch Meet The Press and think they’re sophisticated to people who only turn on the news to hear the weather and sports and this kind of stuff seeps through to them. How many people said they voted for Republicans in 2010 not because they supported gutting entitlements and tax cuts for the rich, but because they had some vague sense that Obama had “over reached”.
wasabi gasp
Let the dogs out, Luke. Woof woof, Luke.
shortstop
@Brachiator:
VDE wasn’t comparing a candidate to a candidate’s spouse. He explicitly said that the children of candidates (presidential, VP or otherwise) were off limits, unless used as props by the candidates themselves.
Violet
@shortstop: Oh, I totally agree. I think Mitt’s going to have to release the returns. It’s going to dog him if he doesn’t and make him seem like he has something to hide.
Jay C
I would really love to see the Dems and the Obama campaign get one last shot in about Romney’s tax returns before moving on to more pressing issues: I would like to see either the President (or VP Biden, if Obama is off busy Presidenting) make the simple point in a speech:
“The candidates from one party have offered the voters complete transparency about their finances: the other has offered mainly secrecy and evasion. Why is this?”
And watch the Republicans zip into hair-on-fire mode ASAP…
Oh, and some free advice to the Obama campaign folks: I think you should lay off – completely – any and all mentions of Ann Romney and/or her horse(s): there are plenty of other issues to flog, and the last thing you should want to do is give the GOP any more opportunities to whinge and wail about “attacking decent families”. They will anyway, of course, but it will help if their shrilling is based on utter BS: outside of Wingnutistan, the public will be able to tell the difference.
chopper
i can see the commercial now:
Barack Obama admits that he smoked pot in college. Mitt Romney, on the other hand, has never drank or smoked anything, including anything caffeinated, in his entire life. Who do you identify with, America?
Jay C
I would really love to see the Dems and the Obama campaign get one last shot in about Romney’s tax returns before moving on to more pressing issues: I would like to see either the President (or VP Biden, if Obama is off busy Presidenting) make the simple point in a speech:
“The candidates from one party have offered the voters complete transparency about their finances: the other has offered mainly secrecy and evasion. Why is this?”
And watch the Republicans zip into hair-on-fire mode ASAP…
Oh, and some free advice to the Obama campaign folks: I think you should lay off – completely – any and all mentions of Ann Romney and/or her horse(s): there are plenty of other issues to flog, and the last thing you should want to do is give the GOP any more opportunities to whinge and wail about “attacking decent families”. They will anyway, of course, but it will help if their shrilling is based on utter BS: outside of Wingnutistan, the public will be able to tell the difference.
shortstop
@Violet: I admit I’m kind of rooting for him to double down on stubbornness, at least for a few more weeks. He is so damned if he does and so damned if he doesn’t.
Linda Featheringill
@Violet: #86
Our turn:
nypost.com/p/news/national/outta_my_house_E18WZXIicMJEpoPxHeDscN
Violet
@shortstop: I think he’s hoping that if he stubbornly refuses to release his returns that the subject will eventually go away. I don’t know how successful that strategy will be. The story will get stale if there isn’t new info, though.
@Jay C:
The Obama campaign has released this graphic. Pretty punchy. livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/obama-camp-hits-romney-on-tax-returns-transparency
jwb
@wrb: Those polls have been fairly stable for a long time (they move around within a point or two), and we go into this election with a fairly low number of undecideds, so that also means that polls are likely to change very slowly. But, no, so far Romney’s implosion does not seem to be be having an effect on his numbers, which may confirm in his mind that he doesn’t need to release his tax returns.
Rita R.
@El Cid:
You’ve summed it up well.
Adding that Republican first ladies and wives of GOP presidential candidates are pure paragons of patriotic American womanhood and if you dare suggest their hair was out of place or hemline too long you are an evil Marxist, terrorist, soshulist, etc. impugning motherhood, Apple pie and baseball. Meanwhile, all Democratic first ladies and wives of candidates are shrewish, Machiavellian harpies mooching off the American taxpayers who don’t know when to keep their mouths shut, hate this country and are ugly to boot.
Yutsano
@shortstop: I’m hoping for after the conventions right when everyone is starting to pay attention. Or a meltdown on camera where he yells at everyone to stop asking because he’s going to disclose only what he has and stop talking about it or no more press nom-noms for you prole!
Violet
@jwb: I think the polls are just behind. It’s going to take time for Romney’s lack of transparency to sink in. It will eventually.
Rita R.
@El Cid:
You’ve summed it up well.
Adding that Republican first ladies and wives of GOP presidential candidates are pure paragons of patriotic American womanhood and if you dare suggest their hair was out of place or hemline too long you are an evil Marxist, terrorist, soshulist, etc. impugning motherhood, Apple pie and baseball. Meanwhile, all Democratic first ladies and wives of candidates are shrewish, Machiavellian harpies mooching off the American taxpayers who don’t know when to keep their mouths shut, hate this country and are ugly to boot.
jwb
@wrb: Those polls have been fairly stable for a long time (they move around within a point or two), and we go into this election with a fairly low number of undecideds, so that also means that polls are likely to change very slowly. But, no, so far Romney’s implosion does not seem to be be having an effect on his numbers, which may confirm in his mind that he doesn’t need to release his tax returns.
Yutsano
@shortstop: I’m hoping for after the conventions right when everyone is starting to pay attention. Or a meltdown on camera where he yells at everyone to stop asking because he’s going to disclose only what he has and stop talking about it or no more press nom-noms for you prole!
EDIT: And blog goes wonky. It’s gonna be that kind of day I can tell.
Rita R.
triple posted. sorry
hitchhiker
The horse ad isn’t about Ann, it’s about foppery. It looks European and silly. This is the Ds way to say that Romney is the one who’s not a real American; he’s the sort of guy who rides a horse in a fancy suit instead of cowboy chaps. His horse will dance around unnaturally instead of racing across the great plains, etc.
It’s actually kind of brilliant, in the demented, dispiriting landscape of what passes for political argument around here.
shortstop
@Yutsano: It’s times like this that I wish Romney abused caffeine to the extent that I do.
Roger Moore
@shortstop:
I’ve probably expressed myself badly. From everything I’ve seen, he has lived up to his religion’s view of morality in his private life, and I don’t see any particular reason to doubt that public image is correct*. It’s that solid, justified belief in his personal rectitude that lets him be such an evil person in his public life. He can rationalize doing terrible things in his public life because he knows in his heart that his private life proves what a good guy he is. I think this is how lots of religious nuts justify the evil they do. Being surrounded by coreligionist yes men only enhances that belief.
*I don’t necessarily accept that he’s moral in his private life, but that’s because I don’t accept his religion or its view of morality.
SatanicPanic
People, this is a dancing horse we’re talking about. I know tons of people who own horses, never met anyone who rides a horse like that. It’s goofy. Run the ads, they make Romney look like a clown.
shortstop
@Roger Moore: Okay, I’ll buy that. And I do think that protecting one’s own circles (familial, religious, class, business, etc.) while working to hurt others is often a hideous by-product of certain religious views or morality, even more than it is a rather general human trait.
Roger Moore
@Jay C:
Besides, Stewart and Colbert will do a better job of it anyway.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@wrb: Makes you wonder what’s up with the panic in Romneyland. If this hasn’t hurt him in the polls, then just blow it off. Instead it sounds like Romney Campaign knows it’s going to die if doesn’t do something quick.
jwb
@Violet: I don’t think the polls are behind. I just think it takes a long time for an implosion like this to register in the polls because the only people who are following it closely are those who aren’t going to change their vote under almost any circumstance. You also have a fairly low number of undecideds at this point, so any strong movement in the polls will take consider time.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
another doug j patented brietbartian shitscape.
shortstop
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I gotta run and don’t have time to look for links right now, but my understanding is that the polls in key swing states are showing definite movement against Romney based on Obama’s ads about Bain’s shenanigans.
El Cid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Considering that the 2010 elections appeared to turn out exactly as predicted in advance given the demographics of who does and does not tend to turnout in mid-term elections, I don’t find any of it shocking nor the fault of independents or Obama or Democrat themes — except to the degree that Democratic politicians and organizations perhaps could have worked to turn out more of the Democratic and likely Democratic voters.
(Hey, you know who was really good and useful at registering and voter turnout efforts in poor communities and communities of color, who overwhelmingly vote Democratic? ACORN. Good thing we killed them off, because of some fake pimp video.)
Turnout is larger among likely Democratic voters (lower income, African American, etc) during Presidential election years. So 2012 would be vastly different than 2010 in that sense alone. Not that this is the only predictor, just that it’s a huge matter to be accounted for.
jwb
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I heard a couple of conservative pundits say that if Romney doesn’t fix the messaging in 48 hours he’s toast. It wasn’t clear to me why that would be the case, but the desperation today suggests that they think it is.
Jay C
@Violet:
Punchy indeed: but I think it would be better disseminated in a (reportable) speech or ad rather than a graph on a blog. The “MSM” tends to ignore uncomfortable (i.e. Democrat-friendly) material emanating from campaigns: public pronouncements – not so much.
Valdivia
Just one more thing about the dancing horse ad: some random person who knows nothing will see a dancing horse with rider in black tails with visuals of Romney looking ridiculous answering the tax question. This is not going to play as a hit on Anne Romney.
jwb
@Jay C: It was first distributed by the campaign on Twitter. I think the idea is to get it into social network feeds. It’s the kind of graphic that you can read in thumbnail.
quannlace
Hey Romney, why don’t we have a little ‘greatest hits’ clip tape of all your negative ads during the primaries!
Brachiator
@El Cid:
Mock the rich guy, Romney, all day long. Again, some of the mocking of his wife is a waste of time.
@shortstop:
We all agree on kids being off limits. Mentioning Palin the VP candidate, in any context with Ann Romney, a non-candidate, unnecessarily confuses things.
Violet
Well this is interesting:
He’s probably just pimping his book, but I did hear some suggestion of him as a VP candidate. That would just make my day.
Soonergrunt
@Jay C:
But they aren’t attacking decent families. They’re attacking Mitt Romney’s family.
shortstop
@Brachiator:
He mentioned Palin not in any connection to Ann Romney, but ONLY as an example of a candidate who used her children extensively as policy props on the campaign trail. I don’t think anyone else reading his comment was confused.
Soonergrunt
@Violet: Especially since we can then demand that he resign from SCOTUS. Doesn’t matter that one can be a candidate for office in one branch while occupying a seat in another. We can make it about conservative justices mendacity. Also, if he runs for VP, he permanently destroys whatever reputation he had left as a Justice of the Supreme Court.
Therefore it will never happen.
WJS
@Jay C:
And I suppose the Republicans are going to lay off mentioning Michelle Obama’s rear end as well? Is that what we’re supposed to believe here?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@jwb: One thing that I noticed was Obama did some fun raisers in Texas as the wingnuts weren’t out in mass to protest The Other. Almost like they view Lying Mormons as bad as Sekret Muslims.
shortstop
Here’s a little info on those polls from swing states suggesting that Obama’s Bain attacks are working there.
catclub
@The Other Bob: Of course, you could just note: Nixon won his last two elections. One by a landslide.
Nixonian indeed.
Original Lee
@japa21: Unfounded is how they want it to be (un-found). And they’re implying that Team Obama didn’t find the basis for these accusations themselves. So it’s really a lovely pormanteau word for saying that Team Obama plagiarized some stuff that should really have stayed lost.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
So the Romney campaign is taking the mittens off?
Violet
@shortstop: Public opinion on Romney is going to take awhile to turn. It’s like a big tanker. It’ll eventually be going in another direction, but not right away. The drip-drip-drip effect of the tax returns and lack of transparency, plus Romney’s incompetence are going to affect his standing with undecideds and maybe even some Republicans. They may stay home or vote Libertarian or something.
Romney is not a good candidate, especially not for the economic situation we have at the moment, mostly caused by filthy rich 1%ers like Romney. Obama’s campaign is defining Mitt as Part of The Problem, instead of the solution Romney thinks he is. It’ll work. It’s just going to take time.
Personally I’m hoping for it to come to a head right around the time of the convention. The Olympics will be first where Romney’s Dancing Horse will get plenty of attention from late night comedians and define the Romneys as rich, entitled others (it’s not like they’ve got a kid competing in swimming or running or something–dancing horses are foreign to most people). Right after that will be the lead up to the convention. I’d look for the Obama campaign to turn up the heat on the tax returns (if Romney hasn’t caved already–he might decide releasing them just before the Olympics would be a good cover) and Bain stuff. The Republicans will see Romney as a weight around their necks and will want to distance themselves or even find a replacement. I think a lot of hilarity and jockeying for position could happen.
El Cid
@hitchhiker: Ha! Lookit that French fag John Kerry, with all his ayleetist windsurfing!
SatanicPanic
@Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937: It’s unzipping
Valdivia
@Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937:
FTW.
RSR
hahaha, second time this week I’ve seen that movie reference:
El Cid
@Valdivia: I actually think that Obama’s being really clever at a number of levels (and yes that includes the DNC which made the horse ad).
One of the things I really, really noticed during the earlier primary months is just how pissy Romney gets at any challenge to his lordly and gold-laden authority.
I think Obama’s sitting a couple of seats behind Romney on the bus and keeps leaning forward and tapping him lightly on the ear with a ruler or other device he then quickly hides when Romney turns around.
And since Romney’s a bully, it never takes long for him to wheel round and get all pointlessly and laughably outraged and demanding that whoever’s doing whatever better stop or he’s going to, he’s going to, well, do something, and all the people riding who aren’t afraid of him just look at him and either laugh or just get that look of smirking distaste.
jwb
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Yes, I noticed that as well, although the Statesman was careful to note that there weren’t many supporters out either. Actually, Texas as been eerily quiet since ACA and even my reliably wingnut neighbor has not posted any new yard signs or bumperstickers since ACA.
YellowDog
So, they’re going rogue. To prove he is a better candidate than Sarah Palin, Romney is going to replay Palin ’08 with a dose of Bachmann ’12? Pallin’ around with Abedin?
shortstop
@Violet: I’m not worried about it. I know the national numbers flummox and concern a lot of people on the left, but I’ve said all along that this will be a very close race nationally in the popular vote. All I’m looking at is swing state numbers, and I’m feeling pretty good.
shortstop
@El Cid:
Love this.
Tom65
Is anyone else getting an irony overload watching the GOP use the term “Nixonian” in a negative context?
FormerSwingVoter
@jwb:
I’ve noticed a decline in overall hysteria since the ACA ruling, actually. People who were fully in the thrall of Fox News et al, are now very quiet, though I’m in a very blue state.
I feel like the extreme right-wing is losing their grip, if only by just a little bit. People are looking around and realizing that if the entire rest of the world does not match their beliefs, maybe – just maybe – something they were told is wrong. Every time the “everyone in America is conservative and all conservative demands are entirely consistent with the law” meme takes a hit, we win. Just a little bit, but these sorts of wins add up.
The Moar You Know
@Jay C: Here’s some free advice for you: pull your head out of your ass.
Here’s a better idea: let’s treat Ann Romney the same way the GOP treats Michelle Obama.
Do you think the GOP will not screech about how the evil Negro is “attacking decent families” anyway? Get real. They’ll screech anyway. Bust out the Photoshop and get to work.
The ad is brilliant and makes Romney look like what he is: a spoiled brat who has nothing in common with the people he wants so much to rule.
Obama brings the gun to the gunfight and we get both Republicans and useful idiots like you complaining because it’s a fair fight for once.
pragmatism
moar genius from Mr. Charles P. Pierce: “I remain convinced that American conservative thought is now not a philosophy but, rather, a book of spells, a series of conjuring words that have meaning only to the initiates.”
some of these words sound like spells that JK Rowling discarded when writing the HP series. Solyndra!
Violet
@FormerSwingVoter: I’ve noticed similar things. The hysteria just seems to have died down a bit, except for the dead-enders, of course. The ACA ruling may have consequences we hadn’t anticipated, in terms of making the wingnuts look more out of touch than they used to.
Add to it that no one likes Romney and it’s a perfect storm for people who usually vote Republican to take a look around and see what’s really going on. This tax/Bain thing is really going to lift the curtain on a lot of how our economic system works and is very tilted toward rich folks.
yopd1
How soon until they go full-tilt birther, seeing it as the only way to win is to try and DQ their opponent.
Joel
Attacking Obama’s teenage drug use could work if:
1) Obama hadn’t been president the past four years.
2) Obama hadn’t “owned” the issue by coming clean about teenage drug use in an autobiography.
3) Bill Clinton hadn’t been popular.
4) It were 1988.
SatanicPanic
@The Moar You Know: We don’t need to go after his wife, all we have to do is point out that Mitt bought his wife a dancing horse, and who the hell does that? It’s like those Lexus ads where people are giving Lexus SUVs as XMas presents. You know anyone who gives a Lexus as a gift? Me neither.
Valdivia
@El Cid:
exactly. they are winding him up. and it’s working. also: because it is only step one in their plan (soften him up to connect to his radical economic plan) things will be simmering all summer long. The Olympics will make it even worse for him.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@ChrisNYC:
Here’s the title from some advice from Erickkk, Son of Erickkk, to Rmoney:
Dear Mitt Romney: Attack!
Media Matters’ Spin Shows Just How Vulerable Barack Obama Is
“Vulerable”? Methinks Erickkk is really excited about this!
It’s more likely that he’s in a panic.
phoebes-in-santa fe
@Villago Delenda Est: My favorite article about Mitt Romney – so far, at least – is this:
“As a presidential candidate in 2007, Romney told The Boston Globe he was frustrated, as a Mormon missionary, not to be fighting alongside his countrymen.
“I was supportive of my country,” Romney said. “I longed in many respects to actually be in Vietnam and be representing our country there, and in some ways it was frustrating not to feel like I was there as part of the troops that were fighting in Vietnam.”
Oh, right Mitt, you “longed” to be “representing” our country in Vietnam. What an asshole.
Hypatia's Momma
@The Moar You Know:
It sounds as if they are trying to cast Anne as that most mythical of 1950’s American fantasies: The perfect housewife and mother; dolled up, incapable of independent thought, and white. Very, very white.
And now the scary dark person is threatening her! The sacrosanct core of “family values” is being menaced!
fanshawe
I’m kind of enjoying that the conservativism-cannot-fail-it-can-only-be-failed phase of the Romney experiment is beginning three months before the actual election.
Yutsano
@yopd1: Sheriff Arpaio sez, “O HAI!!”
Violet
@phoebes-in-santa fe:
Not to feel like he was there? What did he want? A sense-around experience? Note he didn’t say “it was frustrating not to be there as part of the troops”. No, he said it was frustrating not to feel like he was there. He never wanted to go, but I bet he wished he could say he did. Just without the fighting and messy stuff.
Jay C
@The Moar You Know:
And thank you for your sage advice, Mr. Moar: my suggestion @ #139 was directed at the Obama campaign organization itself: looking at it carefully, I think most of the invective directed at “Michelle Obama’s rear end” derives from decidedly non-official sources: like right-wing cesspools in the blogosphere, or open message boards: not the Romney campaign itself.
It’s all part of that “freedom of speech” thing: a Presidential campaign/political party can’t really control everything its supporters (or even just random sympathetic citizens) say or do in public fora. What they can do is control their own “official” messaging: I just think laying off Ann and the dressage stuff and concentrating on Mitt’s (non-)disclosure issues, etc. makes the campaign look more “serious”. And as it’s going now, the Dems are opening a major Seriousity Gap in their favor (for a goddamn change!): giving the GOP any openings for deflection is unwise, IMO. Which, of course, is worth exactly what I charge for it…
Brachiator
@Violet:
RE: Justice Antonin Scalia will appear on CNN’s Piers Morgan show on Wednesday night, according to its website.
This would be even better than Condi Rice as VP choice.
Let’s see. Romney goes down to defeat and Obama gets a Supreme Court vacancy to fill.
This would be so kewl.
Roger Moore
@Violet:
As long as there was a hope that the Supreme Court would throw the whole thing out, they could think about a world without ACA. Now that the Court has upheld it, the ones who are still in some kind of touch with reality realize that it’s politically impossible to get rid of it. They can’t overturn the whole thing because there are too many popular parts they’d get murdered for politically for eliminating, but they can’t throw out just the unpopular parts because it would create a moral hazard death spiral that would destroy health care as we know it. So they just want to shut up about the whole thing and go on to the next topic.
Meanwhile, the truly crazy, living in their own universe wingnuts are still dreaming of repeal. They’re upset both because they lost in Court and because their erstwhile allies are refusing to go on a righteous crusade against the ACA.
Thor Heyerdahl
@phoebes-in-santa fe: He would have been fragged by his own troops like Colonel Douglas C. Niedermeyer
Brachiator
@yopd1: RE: How soon until they go full-tilt birther, seeing it as the only way to win is to try and DQ their opponent.
They got Trump and that other fool, Sheriff Arpaio for this.
I want to see Mittens get tied up in this. He can deny it and disappoint the worst wingnuts, or he can ignore or embrace it (same difference) and look even more toolier than usual.
Rafer Janders
@phoebes-in-santa fe:
In some ways it was frustrating. In other, far more important ways, I was pretty happy to be living in a mansion in France, rather than fighting in Vietnam.
Rafer Janders
Oh, if only Romney hadn’t been legally forbidden to enlist! If only his longing, longing to be over there could have been fulfilled in some way!
But, alas, it was a different time, we didn’t understand things like we do now, and back then we still used to forbid healthy young white men in their 20s from enlisting in the armed forces, no matter how much they wanted to.
shortstop
Was it typical for Mormons on missions to get automatic deferments from Vietnam? Or did Mitt “wait in line” the same way Dubya “waited in line,” coincidentally jumping over thousands, to get into the NG?
CardinalRed
“Political Reprisal”
That is the GOPs whole MO in a nutshell…good luck with that.
Fehrnstrom is such a loser I can’t believe he wasn’t shitcanned for the Etch a Sketch comment…
Jay C
@Brachiator:
Not necessarily: while it’s never been done before (a SCOTUS Justice running for office) – and Don Nino hasn’t heretofore shown much respect for precedent when it interferes with his political opinions – Scalia wouldn’t (AFAIK) have to resign to run for office. So President Obama would still have him on the SC in his second term.
More’s the pity…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@phoebes-in-santa fe:
anybody remember the nineties better than I do? Was it Gingrich or DeLay who really wanted to go fight in Vietnam, but couldn’t because of affirmative action? A Negro stole his place.
Also, too, Tagg Romney, explaining his chicken hawkiness on Iraq, couldn’t join the military because of Bill Clinton.
SFAW
@Rafer Janders:
except for some surnamed “Gore”, that is.
Joel
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God: While it is true that the North Shore and the Worchester area are among the more conservative areas of Massachsuetts (setting aside super-rich places like Weston and Wellesley, that don’t have enough population to impact their districts), the Cape is probably the most conservative part of the state (especially the inner arm).
Joel
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God: While it is true that the North Shore and the Worchester area are among the more conservative areas of Massachsuetts (setting aside super-rich places like Weston and Wellesley, that don’t have enough population to impact their districts), the Cape is probably the most conservative part of the state (especially the inner arm).
NCSteve
@Jay C: Every black Republican federal or state office and every black Republican in private business whose net is greater than five million will be a delegate. Which will make the floor look like an egg white omelet whose cook just had one peppercorn left in the grinder.
karen marie
@Brachiator: Romney felt he was entitled to deduct the $77,000 “loss” but it was disallowed except for the $49.
SFAW
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Leave the kid alone, will you?
1) It has been conclusively and undeniably shown that, for anything which might be a problem for Republicans or the country in general, it’s Clinton’s Fault.
2) Tagg was too young to serve during Desert Shield/Storm, he was only 19 or 20, for Pete’s sake!
3) Also, too, Al Gore and Michael Moore are fat.
shortstop
@Joel: @NCSteve: I think the GOP thinks that because black people all look alike to them, the rest of America doesn’t notice that we see the same two or three black faces about 1,200 times each in convention coverage.
VividBlueDotty
@Roger Moore: Don’t forget he also drugged a lame horse to get a higher price out of the buyers.
I like where you are going with the public vs private decency but IMO, he just exempts himself from any rules of decency that don’t benefit him financially.
SFAW
@Joel:
Fixed to reflect proper pronunciation, and because spelling it with a “ch” shows you to be from someplace other than New England.
Brachiator
@Jay C:
I can’t imagine a sitting Supreme Court justice running for VP and remaining on the Court. The idea of a VP candidate Scalia talking about what kind of Justices he would like to see on the Court would create massive auras of conflicts of interest.
But since I don’t think we will see Fat Tony being offered the VP slot, this is all idle speculation.
SFAW
@Brachiator:
But look at the upside: if there’s a replay of FLA 2000, Nino won’t need to sit in for the orals.
VividBlueDotty
@Violet: Interview with Diane Sawyer, week of April 17. One of several links: blog.reidreport.com/2012/04/measuring-the-drapes-ann-and-mitt-romney-say-its-our-turn/
redshirt
@Brachiator: I doubt it would happen, but do you think a little thing like “conflict of interest” can slow Antonio down now?
Rafer Janders
@SFAW:
He used undue influence, his father was a Senator and called in some favors so young Al could enlist. Don’t know how Kerry managed it, though.
Brachiator
@karen marie:
No, the passive activity loss rules prevented any current year loss greater than $49. What Romney might have felt about it doesn’t really matter.
phoebes-in-santa fe
@Rafer Janders: His referral to “represent the United States” makes it sound like the Olympics and not a war. What an asshole.
SFAW
@Rafer Janders:
Yeah, Al (Jr.) was hoping for the intense combat of Paris, but had to settle for SE Asia.
I heard that his father is actually George Soros, and Soros pulled some strings for him, so that he (Kerry) could be a liberal who’s also pretending to be a “war hero.”
El Cid
@Rafer Janders: Plus, at least Mitt Romney really did serve his country in France, I mean, as long as you count the Mormon Church as his country; John Kerry just made up everything about being in Vietnam, and just bought some purple toy from a bubble gum machine and told everyone he was ‘awarded’ this ‘purple heart’ from some sort of ‘army’.
SFAW
@El Cid:
Navy
Catsy
@Jay C:
I can’t envision a scenario where he could get away with ruling on any cases involving the Obama Administration while running in an election against him. As shitty as the corporate and right-wing media is, it’s such a blatant conflict of interest that even if Roberts and/or other Republicans couldn’t/wouldn’t convince him to recuse himself during the campaign, the public perception of corruption and bias would be devastating and help sink Romney’s campaign even further.
El Cid
@SFAW: Whatever, it was all made up.