<a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/7461775248/” title=”Craven by dengre.bj, on Flickr”><img src=”http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8015/7461775248_0645eef526.jpg” width=”292″ height=”431″ alt=”Craven”></a>
Mitt Romney is a CRAVEN. It really is all you need to know about him.
If you wish to know what Mitt will say or do in any situation or when faced with any challenge, all you have to do is ask WWACD (What Would A Craven Do) and you’ll have your answer.
A woman calls President Obama a “monster” and Mitt is unable to confront her. The best he can manage is to meekly comment that “That’s Not The Term I Would Use…” though his weird nervous laugh. He is afraid of her. He let’s her talk over him and leaves folks watching the clip with the impression that he saw nothing wrong with her comment. His response is a straight up craven move. No surprise. It is the same response he has for all Birthers, racists and crazies attracted to his campaign because they HATE President Obama. There is nothing any of these folks can say that Mitt would clearly condemn. The best he might do is like he did with the “Monster” comment and hope that his deflection accompanied by nervous laughter will be spun as “courage” by a lazy press hoping to keep the horse race competative.
The WWACD standard will accurately predict Romney’s behavior every time something like this comes up.
The same is true with his reaction to his tax returns. Of course he wants to keep them hidden and will not release them. WWACD.
The same is true with selectively editing the words of President Obama to make him appear to say something he never actually said. No honesty in that, but WWACD.
The same is true with his inability to sit down and be interviewed by journalists and/or folks who might put him to the question. Barack Obama sat down with Bill O’Reilly, but do you think Mitt would sit down with Rachel Maddow? Ask yourself WWACD and you’ll know the answer.
Romney is a Craven. His bluster about his retroactive retirement daze is like the Cowardly Lion just before Dorothy slaps him. And his reaction to the Obama Campaign slapping him over Bain is quite similar to the way the CL acted post the little girl’s slap.
Domestically Mitt will do whatever the crazies tell him to do and on the global stage Putin (or any world leader) will have Mitt in a fitted collar and on his back in minutes.
What could possibly go wrong if such a Craven was President…
Cheers
Violet
I prefer to use the word coward. I think it’s more universally understood and a bit stronger. Same meaning.
His latest cowardly act is to hide behind his wife by sending her out to explain why they aren’t releasing their tax returns.
Maude
We saw what could go wrong, with Bush.
Tonal Crow
I thought the “that’s not a term I would use” link would be to The Onion. I’ll be damned. He’s indeed a coward. Even McCain was better than this.
Davis X. Machina
He’s white.
He’s male.
He’s got more money than God.
What’s wrong with this country?
Why isn’t that good enough any more?
You want something, and you can pay for it. You get it.
That’s how it’s supposed to work.
Greed Is God
I refer to him as Cowardly Lyin’.
gussie
I read that as Willard, What a Craven Douche.
James E. Powell
The question “What is Mitt Romney afraid of?” should be repeated over and over, whenever the context allows it. He is, among other things, a political coward. He won’t even really take a stand for policies his supporters insist upon.
gussie
I read that as Willard, What a Craven Douche.
Dennis G.
@Violet: Coward would work and that was my earlier choice as a one word descriptor for Mitt. But the more I thought about it, I decided that Craven was the better word. Perhaps it was reading those Song of Ice and Fire books…
Still, ‘coward’ will always work as a one-word descriptor of Mitt and he will always do what a coward would do in any given situation. It is at the core of his being.
Cheers
Violet
@James E. Powell: As should “What is Mitt Romney hiding?” Repeat, repeat, repeat.
jl
I think craven means a self acknowledged coward. Or a fighting cock that can’t fight. So, maybe something along the lines of the second definition is promising. I would give it a shot, but am feeling pensive and civil today.
I’m sure some one will come up with something. PWCP, maybe.
Edit: problem with first definition is that I don’t think Mitt would ever admit that he is a PWCP.
JPL
What’s wrong with the words bully and wimp. He can only win by lying.
General Stuck
I’m not sure what the big deal is about this, but Colonel Mustard has gotten up off his fainting couch over the Bain debacle, to declare the election over because Obama is a ‘collectivist’ which is wingnut for card carrying commie. And it is Elizabeth Warren’s fault for losing the election for Obama. Swear to gawd. I don’t know if my delicate neural net can withstand this assault on reason for another 4 months.
edit – does anyone with a brain really believe the right wing can get mileage out of red baiting with Obama having been president for four years, at least outside the nutter echo chamber?
Raven
Punk ass motherfucker where I come from.
bemused
@Dennis G.:
Coward works better when talking to your wingnut relatives or FB commenters. If you use craven, their suspicions are confirmed that you are a snooty liberal using fancy words.
JPL
@Raven: Well that would have been my next comment. Welcome home.
Greed Is God
Then there’s WWND?
via KOS:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/19/1111808/-WWND-What-would-Noah-do
Did you catch this bit of crazy?
Imagine if Noah had needed help from the government to build the ark. It might have never been built.
— @ScottKWalker via Twitter for BlackBerry®
As some have pointed out, given that the ark only saved eight people, the whole project might’ve had better success with full-scale government intervention. Not to mention Noah had a bunch of Biblical regulations to deal with, like: “Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch” and “The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.” Not very libertarian-y of god.
But that was then, and this is now.
Operators of the popular Creation Museum in Northern Kentucky are seeking state tax incentives to build a creationism theme park at a nearby site — a project that Gov. Steve Beshear officially will announce today .
Mike Zovath, senior vice president of the non-profit group Answers in Genesis, one of the partners in developing the park, said Kentucky officials have told him the proposal for state tourism-development incentives “looks good.”
He said the park — to be called Ark Encounter — would include a massive wooden ark that would offer educational attractions. …
They got $43 million in government tax money for their version of the ark (plus $11 million to improve roads around the park).
They should’ve learned their lesson from Noah. And really, they better be using gopher wood.
WaterGirl
@James E. Powell: They are laying the groundwork with “what is he hiding?” Asking “What is Mitt Romney afraid of?” is, in my opinion, much more damning than asking what he is hiding. I think that’s the next step, but I don’t think they will bring it out just yet.
I saw the video today of luke russet asking some Romney person about what his policies will be related to the war, and she had total panic on her face. She didn’t start to look less scared until she made her way back to the jobs, economy, blah blah blah bullshit she was pedaling. It was very illuminating.
I think Mitt is terrified. But I don’t think Obama’s campaign will start asking that out loud until they are just putting words to what everyone else is thinking.
Violet
@bemused: Yes, exactly. Coward works better. People know what coward means and don’t think you’re either snooty or talking down to them or both like they would if you use craven.
JPL
@Greed Is God: Just recently I heard that the government could not build the ark.
Greed Is God
@General Stuck:
I nominate Michele Bachmann to lead the charge.
jl
@JPL:
It’s because of those meddlesome government gopher wood regulations.
And our atheist government has abandoned the cubit system.
SteveinSC
I would like to throw out for discussion an alternative view of Romney’s financials. What if his reluctance to release his tax returns has more to do with the Mormon Church than Romney? What if this clearly simple-minded, low intelligence man has actually served as a conduit for Mormon Church investments and not had enough sense to prosper on his own hook? Wikipedia notes that the Mormon Church has global investments and there is the description
Maybe it is not Romney who is covering up, but the Mormon Church, which has used him as a conduit for their financial dealings and he, as a Mormon Bishop, maybe an elder, is Pontifex Maximus, guardian of the bridge. And yes, I understand that they are tax-exempt. Just wondering.
cathyx
I know this word isn’t used much anymore, but what he really is, is a sissy.
Raven
@JPL: Thx, I’m walking dead.
anthrosciguy
Even McCain was better than this.
Just what I was thinking. And boy, that’s a low bar to be unable to step over.
Baud
Yeah, you won’t think he’s so craven when President Romney submits to neocon demands and invades Iran and then lands a jet onto an aircraft carrier to declare Mission Accomplished in the third year of the war.
cathyx
@Baud: You forgot the codpiece.
Brian R.
@JPL:
Just recently I heard that the government could not build the ark.
Of course it couldn’t.
Sure, the government built the Golden Gate Bridge, the Hoover Dam, the Lincoln Tunnel, an army that destroyed Hitler and a bunch of rockets that landed people on the fucking moon, but an ark? Heavens no.
Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
Yeah, but after Dorothy slapped the Lion, he owned up to being a coward. Romney would never do that.
JPL
@jl: I figure the religious playground folk just want to take the money and run.
It’s the American way.
Death Panel Truck
@gussie: Speaking of Willards, I see that Fred Willard was caught with his pants down in a porno theater.
He’s in pre-production for a movie called…
…The Yank.
geg6
@Greed Is God:
Isn’t she already doing that, sorta on a volunteer basis?
Baud
@cathyx:
It’s a defense mechanism.
Wag
@SteveinSC:
Interesting thought. I bet it’s both the Church and Romney.
Greed Is God
Mitt finds his inspiration from Daffy Duck:
“I may be a craven little coward, but I’m a greedy craven little coward.”
Good thing for us that Obama is more like Bugs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e1hZGDaqIw
cathyx
@Baud: I agree, even as a female it grosses me out.
Litlebritdifrnt
My local RWNJ radio host this evening compared people on food stamps to wild animals. He read a story about food stamp usage being on the up and then he read a story about the National Park Service asking people “not to feed the animals as it makes them dependent” and then he laughed, he actually laughed about his own joke. I shot off an e-mail to him that included (among other things) that his Lord and Savior would probably have a pretty dim view of him when he got to the Pearly Gates seeing as he had totally abandoned the teachings of his Savior. It probably won’t make a difference but I could not help but shove his Savior’s teachings up and in his face.
Greed Is God
@Brian R.:
Besides that, what have the Feds ever done for us? Nothing!
Roger Moore
@Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.):
You’re right. He’d be too afraid to admit it.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Brian R.:
I have a local RWNJ radio host. (See above) who’s mantra is “government does not create jobs”. This he says on a regular basis in an area that is TOTALLY DEPENDENT on the Military Industrial Complex. TOTALLY. If the Federal Government suddenly ceased to exist in this area of Eastern NC there would be tumble weeds rolling through the town. He is part of a group that actively lobbies for the military to remain here, he has groups on his show every evening lobbying and pushing for the military to remain in the area, he spends an inordinate amount of time advocating for the military to spend more and more money in the area. And yet he says on a regular basis, “the government does not create jobs”. The cognitive dissonance is absolutely and utterly astounding.
mclaren
@Violet:
I wholeheartedly agree with Violet. What’s wrong with calling Mitt Romney a cowardly lying bully?
It’s blunt. It’s accurate. It hits hard.
Why pussyfoot around?
Mitt Romney is the kind of cowardly lying bully who doesn’t have the guts to rape a preteen girl, but would eagerly hold her down for someone else to rape, and then he’d explain to the police that he was just a bystander trying to help the victim out.
Anne Laurie
@SteveinSC:
Well, it’s a nice reverse spin on the ‘release Obama’s college transcripts’ blather, but seriously: Mitt’s not stupid. Willfully blind, incurious, incapable of empathy, unused to dealing with others outside his bubble of Rich White Male privilege… but not low-IQ stupid.
Scuttlebutt, going back to his first campaign against Teddy Kennedy in 1994, is that Mitt was smart enough to accept a figurehead role at Bain Capital because those Mormon tithes have to go somewhere for investment, and the plebes in Belmont (and SLC) would hand their sweaty dollars over to a Mormon bishop much more happily than to your standard Gordon Gekko (or worse, Lloyd Blankfein) vulture capitalist. If there’s Mormon ugliness in those tax records, my guess is that it would involve cheating working-class or gated-community co-religionists, not being a puppet for higher authority. Remember, Romney is LDS aristocracy… and we all know what respect aristocracy holds for ‘the little people’ who support them.
Anne Laurie
@Litlebritdifrnt:
He’d tell you that the military is not ‘government’, the military is here to protect us from government. That’s what the Second Amendment really means, in their world. ANd tragically, the guy who first ‘explained’ this to me was a certified MENSA member!
WereBear
Someone on here a few days ago pointed out that they have to have “cognizance” to do “dissonance.”
Which was brilliant and I’m going to bring it up a LOT.
gnomedad
Nice. I’d love to see the Obama campaign throw this at Mittens.
japa21
I could say great minds think alike, but my ego won’t extend quite to that point. But this morning I posted on a different site the following:
mclaren
@japa21:
Start putting up youtube videos pointing out
MITT ROMNEY IS A COWARDLY LYING BULLY
and seguing twixt various clips of Romney lying and newspaper articles pointing out his bullying and cowardice. That’s a start.
WaterGirl
@japa21: You might really enjoy this – someone posted the link yesterday, and it really gets the point across in an undeniable way and it’s really, really fun.
MItt, Venn and Now
Gravenstone
@Baud:
FTFY
Gravenstone
FYWP and your broken blockquote function.
Mnemosyne
@Greed Is God:
We have a pretty cool Noah’s Ark-themed permanent installation here in Los Angeles. Except that it’s at the Skirball Cultural Center so it promotes all kinds of hippie values like environmentalism and helping each other and multiculturalism and stupid shit like that.
I mean, really, what could Jews possibly understand about a story in the Old Testament, amirite? It takes a Christian to really understand the story.
fraught
He let that woman do his dirty work and allowed her to keep talking with the expectation that she’d say more bad stuff. Instead of shutting her up with a word and a gesture and insisting that she treat our president with at least a modicum of respect he stood there grining stupidly. He is man without a shread of generosity in his spirit. And, as poor Sheamus knew, he can be cruel.
Triassic Sands
@Violet:
I agree, coward is a much better choice and grammatically correct, too. There are many other fine alternatives, but “A Craven” is just simply wrong. Craven is an adjective and we don’t need to convert it to a noun when there are so many other words to choose from.
In the end, I don’t know that a single word does Mitt justice. When I think of him, I think “spineless POS,” and the contempt that description conveys is satisfying to me.
Caz
I don’t get this whole tax return indignation from liberals. What do you suspect is in the tax returns? I mean, we already know he’s stinkin’ rich and made a craplod of money for whatever years you want tax returns.
What could possibly be in those returns that you so desperately want to expose??
As far as I know, tax returns simply show how much money a person made in a particular year, and to some extent where the money came from. With Romney, it undoubtedly came from a variety of sources and adds up to a hefty total.
What is this Scooby-Doo investigation all about? Please enlighten me. And I’m not being sarcastic at all – I’m seriously stumped. For one thing, I can’t think of anything even interesting that would be in them, and secondly I’ve yet to hear any theories about what might be in them.
So what’s the dealeo?
jl
Yee-Haw! Tax Time!
Keep filin’ filin’ filin’
Feds may be disapprovin’
But keep deductions movin’
Tax time!
Don’t try to understand ‘em
Loophole, stretch, and ram ‘em
Soon we’ll be living high and wide.
My hearts calculatin’
My true love sum is waitin’
Waitin’ at the end of my ride.
Tax time!
Tax time!
pattonbt
@Caz: I’ll play.
I’d like to see them for a few reasons:
1) It’s normal procedure. And if you can’t follow normal procedure, what’s up with that? I mean even a candidate first lady has released more than Mitt. When you won’t do what everyone else has done, it looks shady. I dont want a president who looks shady.
2) I’d like to see if Mitt has invested in America. My dad always said “if I’m paying taxes, I’m doing good”. And I live by that mantra as well. I think someone who wants to be president should show that they invest in America. I dont care if he’s rich, but to me, if he’s looking for every legal loophole to short America, I think it’s worth knowing. And based on the limited, incomplete information he’s released to date, it doesn’t support such character. I’d like Mitt to prove me wrong.
So, for you, having the man whose finger will be on the economic pulse of the country being someone who doesnt invest in America, or better put, only invests in his self interest is the kind of man you want trying to fix things?
I don’t care if he’s rich. Hell, I probably count as rich (maybe not 1% rich, but certainly 5%) and I make sure I pay all my taxes. I see it as patriotic. Does that mean how I like how the government spends all my contributions? No. But you need the foundation of government to make everything work. You can quibble all you want on where that line needs to be drawn, but it must be there. Without government infrastructure, without government regulation and without contract sanctity upheld by as uncorrupt a common law foundation as possible, you end up with Somalia.
So what Ive seen of Mitt’s returns to date shows me he’s looking for a government like Somalia, not America. I’d like to believe that he would rather invest in the US and proving us wrong.
I’ll eat punds of humble pie if proven incorrect.
Why are you so scared?
Mnemosyne
@Caz:
Mitt Romney probably paid a lower percentage of his income in taxes than you did for at least the past 10 years, and probably longer.
But I guess that’s no big deal to you, because Romney earned that money by being born to a rich man and all you did was work for your money.
Mnemosyne
@pattonbt:
Also, this:
It’s not like we’re asking Romney for something special or different than any other candidate has done. Hell, his own father released more returns than were required by the FEC because he didn’t want it to look like he was hiding something.
When you ask for special treatment, that immediately raises a red flag.
Mnemosyne
@pattonbt:
Oh, crap, now I get it. Now I get why they keep demanding Obama’s college transcripts in return for Romney releasing his tax returns. They’re trying to build an impression that Obama got special treatment as a college student (“affirmative action”) so therefore Romney should be allowed to demand special treatment when running for president. After all, it’s only fair that Romney gets to claim a special exemption the way Obama did, amirite?
I think that’s the one dogwhistle of the Romney campaign that managed to escape me.
amk
@Caz: Asslickers of rich like you will never get it. Give it up.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Triassic Sands:
This, oh this. Thank you for saving me the trouble of ranting about this.
pattonbt
@Mnemosyne: I’ve always assumed that was the case. Because we all know Obama couldnt have achieved what he has on his own now? They just want to bray about “affirmative action” both for dog whistle and “not worthy” memes. They (the 27%) really believe this stuff they have built up about Obama, contrary to every public scrap of evidence to date. They just know Obama is an idiot, manchurian candidate, marxist, sockilist, pussy, chicago-thug, teleprompter-needing, shiftless, lazy other. So shut up thats why!
I just don’t see how they are going to get traction out of this “vetting” of Obama business. Sure, the 27% will love it, but for normal humans, Obama, for whatever they think of him, is a known quantity now. He’s been president. His record as president can be judged.
The challenger is the one who needs to be vetted equally.
As soon as Mitt releases everything Obama has and everything the 27% demand further of Obama, then they can pound sand. Of course, we know they won’t stop and we know they won’t be called on it because “it’s Chinatown”. Hypocrisy is a feature, not a bug.
NOTE: Original comment in moderation (can be deleted) due to dreaded sockilist spelling).
Steeplejack
@Greed Is God:
Cue Bill Cosby–the young, funny Bill Cosby: “What’s a cubit?”
ETA: Man, standup comedy sure was a lot simpler back in the old days. Where’s that onion for my belt?
blahblah
A craven man. Not “A Craven”. Good lord, I hated this post.
Just call him a coward and throw away that goddam Word Of The Day calendar, you amateur.
Villago Delenda Est
@Caz:
This is because you are, to put it mildly, a git.
Gretchen
@Caz: The speculation, based on the 2010 return, is that he may have paid no taxes at all in 2009. How would that play with the average working stiff? Also, 2009 was the year that UBS released names of secret Swiss bank account holders to the IRS. The IRS allowed a one-time amnesty with large fines to avoid criminal prosecution for tax avoidance. Romney had Swiss bank accounts that he thought were secret in 2007 and 2008. Did he get amnesty for tax avoidance in 2009?
That’s the tax return indignation. Not to mention the “invest in America” vs. “bet against the dollar by keeping your money in Swiss francs” mentioned above.
Villago Delenda Est
@blahblah:
You could call him a craven coward.
The man is beneath contempt. His integrity is a null set, at best.
I have no doubt the Mittlets are pretty much in the mold of their vile sire.
blahblah
Call him what you like as long as you aren’t using an adjective as a noun.
Triassic Sands
@Sarah, Proud and Tall:
You’re quite welcome. Had you gotten there first, I would be thanking you.
blahblah
I should have read the comments. It’s so obvious that everyone would be bitching about this.
Fuck it, I’m glad I piled on.
chopper
@Brian R.:
they also built a navy full of aircraft carriers that took down the japanese imperial fleet, but no way could they build a really big boat.
chopper
@blahblah:
nouning is a total dumb.
LanceThruster
@Villago Delenda Est:
I have no doubt the Mittlets are pretty much in the mold of their vile sire.
Maybe their “integrity” tries to poke through once in awhile at least until the thought of risking their $20 million trust fund dawns on them.