Anybody with Photoshopping skills who can put that motto on a .jpg of Romney’s nasty little Aquafresh oval campaign stickers, you will get my eternal gratitude and a front-page acknowledgement. (Yes, I know, but there’s a world of people and internet sites that won’t let you spell out “bullshit”.)
Meanwhile (h/t commentor EFGoldman), the Union-Leader, mother & father of paleoconservatives, is not letting up on Willard’s tax issues:
It is very clear, from the current debate over revealing more of his tax documents, that Romney knows the steps he has taken to minimize his tax bite, while legal, will subject him to still more fire from President Obama and his supporters. That is a given. No doubt, Romney is right. In fact, his wife, Ann, made that very clear when asked why he would not reveal additional years: “Because there are so many things that will be open again for more attack … and that’s really just the answer.”
Well, yes — and no. Maintaining the secrecy creates the impression, justly or not, that there is something there to hide. No escaping that reality. The impression is there. And it will cost Romney votes he cannot afford to lose. Those voters might not cast their ballots for Obama, but not voting can be just as damaging. And yes, for using the tax dodges and loopholes legally available to him, he might lose votes as well.
But there is no place for secrecy or, indeed, privacy in a Presidential campaign. If you want the job, you have to subject yourself to the scrutiny…
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of this entire controversy is the one NOT being discussed much: How did Romney get himself into this position in the first place? He has been running for office for a long time. His presidential aspirations predate the tax returns in question.
What could he possibly have been thinking when he failed to ensure that everything contained in those documents was above reproach? Or was he simply not thinking at all? Surely he could not have arrogantly believed that he could withstand any storm that developed by bluffing his way through it? If so, it hasn’t worked….
Textbook use of the Cavuto Mark, there. Which lead us to Paul Constant’s excellent hatchet job on “The Man Without Qualities“:
I’ve been in the same room with Mitt Romney twice—in Des Moines and Bellevue. I’ve been in rooms full of people who voted for Romney in the Iowa and Washington State caucuses. I’ve shared disgusting hotel bathrooms covered in litter and puddles of questionable fluids with men wearing baseball hats and pins bearing Romney’s name and Romney T-shirts awkwardly pulled over their very expensive Oxford-cloth button-down shirts. I’ve stood in line with people at cold ungodly hours of the morning as we all waited to be allowed into Romney rallies. And I have never, once, met a Mitt Romney fan.
I have looked far and wide, halfway across this country and back, and I have not found a human being who is genuinely fond of Romney and believes that, based on the strength of his character, he would make a great president. I’m not talking about an anti-Obama Republican; there are plenty of people who will vote for Romney because he’s not Barack Obama. But I have not talked with one person who will vote for Mitt Romney because he’s Mitt Romney. And I’ve tried. E-mails and phone calls to prospective Romney fans went unanswered. Google searches were fruitless…
… Romney can’t run on the issues, because he can’t admit what his issues really are. And he can’t run on his record as a politician. His Senate campaign crashed and burned to a loss of 17 percent in the biggest election year for Republican wins on record. Except for the health- care reform he championed—Romneycare was supposed to be the centerpiece of his presidential campaign, before his party veered to the right and ran it down dead—Romney’s record as governor of Massachusetts is terrible. He cut funds to public education. Massachusetts fell to 47th in the nation for job creation. Hell, even Romneycare relied on funds from the federal government to really work.
So what does Romney have left? He’s “a businessman.” He can’t even say he’ll govern as a “CEO president,” because George W. Bush used that line already, and Romney can’t afford to remind people that the last “CEO president” we had presided helplessly over the destruction of a major American city, drove the economy at top speed into a brick wall, and then made his friends try to pin the accident on the nearest black guy.
***********
Since it’s late enough in London that Romney probably won’t embarrass himself again before morning, what else is on the agenda this evening?
Gwangung
Some wag might think there’s a connection between being a CEO politician and driving an economy into a brick wall.
Baud
If you live in Kansas City, you can get Google broadband.
dmsilev
Rumor has it he was sighted driving through London with two of the Queen’s corgis strapped to the roof of his car.
Linnaeus
A nice glass of pinot grigio is on the agenda right now. Then this damn essay I have to write. At least I’m getting paid for it.
Linnaeus
@dmsilev:
I saw Mitt Romney walking with the Queen…
Baud
If I didn’t care about our country and its people, I’d have to admit a Romney administration would be four years of delicious snark.
AkaDad
Let’s guess what type of gaffe Romney commits in Israel.
“Some of my friends own gas stations.”
Baud
@Linnaeus:
“Mormons in London” Win!
Tonal Crow
@AkaDad:
“We have a…a saying in America, where I come from. Tax increases, they kill jobs; they’re like, like a holocaust on business….”
beltane
@dmsilev: Just saw that one on #romneyshambles. I can’t wait to see who he insults tomorrow. Romney is doing to the UK what he did to the NAACP. I see a pattern here.
Anne Laurie
@AkaDad:
Since I don’t think he’ll be allowed to offer whichever glatt kosher rebbe his handlers can corral a delicious bacon cheeseburger, I’m hoping for a “You know, we Mormons call you people gentitles, hahaha” joke-oid comment.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Linnaeus: and his hair was PERFECT!
@Baud: I often thought about the Bush years, it would’ve made a hell of a dark political comedy if real people weren’t dying.
Watching Our Willard talk to Cavuto or whoever about protecting his tax returns from “Democrat” attacks, it’s like he’s still running in the primary. Letterman threw in a random reference to Romney’s taxes in the middle of an unrelated top ten list and it got huge applause.
MikeJ
@Linnaeus: Lee Ho Fook’s isn’t really that good. The main thing it has going for it is that it’s open late.
Mr Stagger Lee
@Baud: I wonder if an enterprising young journalism hound from the Jerusalem post will ask about the practice of the Mormons proxy baptizing victims of the holocaust.
dmsilev
@AkaDad:
Offering to retroactively baptize a bunch of Holocaust victims?
beltane
@Anne Laurie: Someone speculated that Mitt will inform the orthodox that the true holy land is Elmira, NY. That way he can kill two birds with one stone by making Christians and Jews dislike him.
S. cerevisiae
I love the snark the Brits are aiming at the Mittbot.
It is a thing of beauty.
scav
Favorite one gleaned from the NYT of all places: I hear the Poles tell Mitt Jokes.
maya
Wow! They actually pushed Bush as a CEO? That happened as a result of Arbusto’s merger with Spectrum 7. S7 died and was absorbed by Harken and that is where Georgie boy really cleaned up selling $400K stock for $800K. Insider, no less.
Come to think of it, Le Grande Mitterande is exactly like Bush. I’m sure when Mittshugana gets to Isreal he’ll endear himself by asking for the Morman plate and toasting, “La Hymie” with a can of Fresca.
smintheus
A commenter at the WSJ said that Romney, speaking publicly about his meeting with the head of MI6, referred to it as “M16” (M sixteen). Anybody know if that’s true?
dmsilev
You know, it occurs to me that we’re looking at Romney’s Excellent Adventure completely backwards. This is an opportunity. We need to ship Mitt Romney to various countries which are hostile to the US, and watch them collapse in his wake. Three days of Mitt in North Korea and all our problems there would be over.
And if not, well hey, we’ve sent Mitt to North Korea.
dmsilev
Dear Great Britain: You may have thought that we forgave you for that whole “burning the White House” thing 200-some years ago. No. We were just biding our time until the perfect weapon for our revenge was available. Now, the Mittronic 3000 is unleashed!
Muahahahahaha!
beltane
LOL, the conservatives on Twitter are whining that Obama did not even go to the 2008 Olympics and that Mitt is being unfairly scrutinized.
Linnaeus
@MikeJ:
But is there still a Trader Vic’s? Though I don’t think Mitt will be drinking a piña colada there.
Baud
@beltane:
FTFY
Ash Can
Given Mitt’s propensity to double down on the WTF, tomorrow should bring more fun. Especially now that Michelle Obama has arrived in London and provides such stark contrast, the British press is likely to be positively brutal, in their inimitable British way.
AkaDad
“In America, we have helicopter beanies.”
Nemo_N
Monitoring CNN; only one passing mention of the Romneyshambles gaffes. No video, no audio, just a line that seemed snucked up by Anderson Cooper into the “Romney visits London” piece.
I’d have thought that a rebuke from the Prime Minister himself would be enough to make up for a piece, but nope.
Weird.
MikeJ
@beltane: Yeah, Obama’s dancing horse was working Roseland for a dime a dance, not jetting off to foreign countries and producing huge tax breaks.
Warren Terra
Commenter Daveh at The Reality-Based Community made a “Rmoneys Believes In Nothing” ‘shoop over a year ago.
I think it would be better as “Rmoney: Believe In Nothing” (or “Believe In Anything”), and I think either would be better than “Believe In BS”.
Woodrowfan
Why all the “we need a businessman as president” talk on the right? We’ve had three successful businessmen as President in the past century, that is, men who ran, successfully, a business before they entered politics: Warren Harding, Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter (newspaper, mining companies, peanut warehouse). Those are not exactly three successful Presidents (as much as I like Carter and wish he’d won in 1980, he was a kind of mediocre president).
Truman failed at business as did Bush Jr., but at least Harry was a good county commish, Senator and President.
eohippus
@smintheus: I don’t know that Rmoney called it “M16” but he did screw up the part about mentioning it, at all, because it was supposed to be a secret meeting.
(Trigger warning: Politico link)
Ash Can
@maya: OK, “La Hymie” made me LOL!
Tonal Crow
More possible Mittstatements when he visits Israel:
“As the angel Moroni said when he visited the Promised Land….”
“In America, where I come from, we believe in the Bible. Do… do Israelis believe in that too?”
Warren Terra
My favorite Rmoney story of the day is Mitt Romney Will Not Watch His Pretty Dancing Pony.
Rmoney has had months to figure out how to finesse the inveitable mockery and questions surrounding his ludicrous dancing equine tax deduction, and he decides the best path is to demean his wife in the media and tell 60 million woman voters he won’t hold her hand as they together watch the horse she rides compete in the Olympics? So, now he’s been a dick to his Missus in public, and people are still going to be told it’s his horse. Smooth move, Willard.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@AkaDad:
I’d like an Israeli reporter to ask Romney how it feels to finally be home again since he is a member of one of the lost tribes of Israel.
Alison
@smintheus: Hmm…I saw a clip on Maddow tonight of Romney talking about it and he didn’t say M-16. he said it correctly…or as correctly as it can be since he shouldn’t have said anything about it at all, FFS.
maya
@Warren Terra: How about, Romney: The Business Sciencer
Tonal Crow
@Alison:
Wasn’t Romney carping about “leaks” just yesterday? And today he shows he can’t be trusted with the simplest of secrets. Gotta love that karma.
—
Tag: Romney’s worse than Sarah Palin.
beltane
@Warren Terra: Almost as bad as when he referred to Ann as a “starter wife” and trophy wife all rolled into one. He is one creepy and obnoxious life form.
Baud
Ok, I’ve decided Romney’s gaffe in Israel will be to mention Israel’s nuclear arsenal publicly.
smintheus
@Alison: Thanks. I suppose it was too much to hope he’s dumb enough to mispronounce the name.
rikyrah
@beltane:
did he REALLY say that?
Mister Papercut
Believe in My BS sticker, get it while it’s hot…
beltane
@Baud: Oh yes. He will helpfully announce that Israel’s nuclear arsenal is not a sufficient deterrence to the threat that is the Muslim religion. Unlike his gaffes in the UK, this one will not be so funny.
The Dangerman
Mitt’s going to have to release his taxes in the not too distant future; he might as well take the hit instead of this Chinese water torture. How did this not get resolved in the primaries?
beltane
@rikyrah: Yes, he said it in 2008 but I’ve been told this is a “joke” he likes to repeat often. IMO it’s much worse than McCain calling his wife the C word in anger.
NotMax
(on being offered a plate of latkes)
“Is there any ketchup?”
(on meeting with Netanyahu)
“Bibi is just the right caliber.”
Linnaeus
@rikyrah:
Apparently he didn’t, but someone introducing his wife at a campaign event did.
The Dangerman
@NotMax:
Related:
“Shooting a gun is such a gas; chamber another round”
muddy
My dog Sawyer just now got skunked. He was better than the last dog that got it, Druid, who slipped past me and rubbed black tarry stench on every bit of furniture in the house. I yelled for Sawyer to get out, and he waited on the porch while I got the skunk kit mixed up. After his bath, he’s rubbing the side of his face and neck on every towel in the house that I just threw onto the floor. When I was bathing him I could feel that it was all up inside him mouth. Poor puppy, Now I’m burning incense like a hippie.
Worst of all, I was +2 on my cheaty-ritas, and now my little buzz is ruined.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Romney also made this comment:
I can tell you that I also feel as Americans do across our nation a special relationship with the nation of Great Britain
The teeny tiny problem there is that there is no nation of Great Britain – it’s a geographical area. There hasn’t even been a Kingdom of Great Britain since 1801.
Perhaps people should start referring to him as the Presidential candidate for North America…
hilts
Lawrence O’Donnell is on fire with tweets from British media highlighting Romney’s amazing stupidity
beltane
@Linnaeus: I could have sworn I heard Mitt say this himself. Perhaps he found the quip to be so charming that he stole it.
Baud
@Phoenician in a time of Romans:
Maybe Romney was making a subtle statement about his views of the status of Northern Ireland?
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@Tonal Crow:
Let’s guess what type of gaffe Romney commits in Israel.
“Some of my friends own gas stations.”
“We have a…a saying in America, where I come from. Tax increases, they kill jobs; they’re like, like a holocaust on business….”
“And I’m sure Israel can emulate German engineering success in such items as cars, electronics, showers and plumbing supplies…”
Yutsano
@Phoenician in a time of Romans: I’ll check later, but I still think the official name of the country is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Roger Moore
@dmsilev:
Unfortunately, though, they’re likely to send him back.
Anne Laurie
@muddy:
Will he drink tomato juice? No idea if it would actually help, but I’m eating some of my own home-grown tomatoes right now and my dogs are frantically demanding scraps. Only one of the three is really obsessed with tomatoes (Zevon will pick a cherry tomato over a Zukes chicken treat), but if the old guy thinks they’re special, the other two are contractually bound to demand their fair share…
Maybe some milk, if Sawyer will drink it?
GG
@Anne Laurie: YGM. Now off to Post Office. Later going to ookfishal bash by new owner of our local Celtic pub, and still later hope to enjoy reading more snark about the Mittbot’s latest.
NotMax
@Yutsano
You are correct.
Maude
@Roger Moore:
Do you they could send him the long way home? Like maybe a trip that would take a few months?
Mark S.
He’s greedy. There’s not much else to discuss.
VICTORY! UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH! SCRANTON-TO-OSHKOSH CORRIDOR!
muddy
@Anne Laurie: Thanks, but he hates tomatoes. First dog I ever had that has preferences, typically mine have been happy to eat whatever is on offer. I gave him some milk, and am waiting to be sure it stays in and give him some chicken broth. I predict a long session at the millpond tomorrow.
Fluke bucket
Watched bits and pieces of the Piers Morgan interview of the Rmoney’s tonight. He seems to be running as the “trust me” candidate. “just know that what I do I do for America”. Surreally fucked up.
NotMax
@The Dangerman
Two more.
“As some of you may know, I’ve just come from London. And I’m so proud to be here at this time in Israel, which has a long history with the Olympics.”
“Thank you all for the wonderful reception here. Much as I would like to stay, I must now advance on to Poland.”
dead existentialist
@smintheus: MI6 is what the Telegraph purports. That’s the really deep cover operation over there.
Steeplejack
@Phoenician in a time of Romans, @Yutsano:
You’re both right. “The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (commonly known as the United Kingdom [U.K.] or Britain) [. . .] includes the island of Great Britain, the northeastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands.” Britain is the shorter name, but “Great Britain” gets bandied about so much that I’m not going to kill Romney for that one. There are so many better targets.
My question is where is the island of Lesser Britain?
EIGRP
@beltane: Palmyra. Maybe you’re thinking Tommy Hilfiger or Mark Twain for Elmira.
Eric
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Not an island (it’s a peninsula), but Brittany is sometimes referred to as Lesser Britain or Little Britain.
Mnemosyne
@Warren Terra:
I do love to make fun of Romney for having a dancing horse but jaysus what an asshole. He can’t even pretend to be happy for his wife? He can’t come up with a halfway decent excuse, like, “I really wanted to be able to see Ann’s horse at the Olympics because I know she’s been working hard for this day” (yeah, I know, just go with it) “but unfortunately I won’t be able to be there. But she knows she has my full support.”
TheMightyTrowel
@NotMax: In French: Britain is actually just ‘big Brittany’
Carl Nyberg
The Man U-L demonstrates what I suspect is going to happen to Romney.
Other than some Mormons and his business pals, there are few who feel deep loyalty to Romney.
When it becomes clear Romney is going to lose, Romney is going to experience, “Success has many fathers; failure is an orphan.”
I predict in the final days of the campaign there will be a collapse in Romney support.
These votes might go to Gary Johnson and Virgil Goode. Some will stay home.
And Romney… “I coulda been a contender.” Ummm, yeah, if you didn’t suck.
davidh
@Warren Terra:
Warren, I’m honored that you remember my revision of Rmoney’s logo. I’ve sent it to Anne along with two new versions with the text she requested—one has stars, the other is sans stars. I could do a new version with your text, too, if you want.
Gretchen
He’s already made his Israel gaffe. He scheduled his big dinner on a fast day.
They used to talk about Obama playing 11-dimensional chess and seeing many moves ahead. Romney can’t even see one move ahead. ” I’ll have to make these taxes public because I’m running for president in a couple of years? What’s your point? “
Jess
@muddy: Prolly too late now, but use Nature’s Miracle for that. Works wonders–really!
After getting thoroughly sprayed three times in one extended attempted attack on a skunk, my dog finally learned to leave them alone. Wish I could learn the same lesson about hard liquor…my dog has more wisdom and self-control than I do.
GG
@NotMax: because the Bretons came from Britain (mostly Cornwall & Devon). Mostly because of the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain.
JustRuss
@Linnaeus: Mitt may not have been drinking a pina colada, but his hair was perfect…
Caz
I still don’t get why you people (1) think people care about seeing Mitt’s tax returns, and (2) think there will be some smoking gun in his tax returns.
We already know he’s rich, and the tax returns won’t add to our knowledge in that area. All they will show is how much money made and perhaps where it came from. A lot came from Bain, a lot came from investments, a lot probably came from a variety of sources.
Aside from you liberals, Americans don’t really care about his tax returns. To the rest of us, it just seems like liberals are just hell bent on seeing them because he won’t produce them. If he produces them, you’ll just move on to something else. It just seems like a harassment tactic rather than any type of genuine request for relevant information.
Serious question: what is it about the tax returns that you all so desperately want to know? What is in there that you want to see?
I speak for most non-liberal Americans when I ask, who cares?
So what is it?
Jewish Steel
@Caz: You are a total chickenshit for making these comments, as I have seen you do several times, hours after a thread has died.
That’s one sorry-ass way to be, troll. If you can’t have courage on the internet, where can you have courage?
Caz
Jewish Steel, dumbass, I don’t read this site 25 times per day to ensure that I am on top of every single post that the BJtard nation pumps out. So when I do load up the site, I scroll through the last 15 or so posts that I haven’t read yet and if I have a comment on any, I post it.
I have no idea what that has to do with courage or lack thereof or how it relates to the proper way to be a troll, whatever the hell a troll is.
Seems to me you’re the chickenshit, being the only one who is likely to read my comment and question, and still not having the balls to answer it. Which just reinforces that I’m right and you have no clue why Romney’s tax returns are relevant to anything in this campaign.
It’s like you can’t find anything interesting to bash Romney about, so you pound away, over and over and over, about tax returns that he won’t release, as if there’s anything in his tax returns that anyone will care about. I mean, how about bashing him for failing to release a picture of his dog – equally irrelevant.
And what’s really pathetic is that you’re on this site so much, that you consider “hours after a thread has died” to be far too long to post a comment on it, meaning you have absolutely no life if you’re keeping up with the multitude of idiotic posts on this site by the hour.
So you have an answer to my question or you gonna stick to being a chickenshit and act like a 5 year old? The most intelligent thing you can come up with is that I’m a troll. What a pathetic loser. I bet that felt really awesome to insult me for no reason, made you feel all big and important and part of the club here, part of the crew, one of the guys. I’m beginning to think idiots like you are so glued to this site because you don’t have any real friends so you immerse yourself in this echo chamber of useful idiocy so you can feel like you’re a part of something important.
You’re sure representing your pals well with that sophisticated, intelligent, witty response to my question. You go, girl!
tybee
@Caz:
O is gonna beat the shit outta mittens over those tax returns.
mittens can run but he can’t hide. you rethugs need to keep telling willard to not release them. we’ll appreciate it over the next 90 days or so.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ)
I think until Mitt releases his full tax return, it is irresponsible not to speculate about what he’s hiding in his Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Island accounts. Is he laundering drug money? Was he selling arms to terrorists? Anyone else got anything?
On the coverage he’s getting in the US – NPR, which has generally been as uncritical of him as in is possible to be and still lay some slim claim conducting real journalism (because BALANCE)- had a fairly scathing report about his gaffs on Morning Edition. When you’ve lost Steve Innskeep you’re in trouble.
mainmati
@AkaDad: It will be about starting war with Iran or else something along the lines of “Hey you Palestinians, get off my grass!”
mainmati
@<a href="#comment@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ): -3498500″>Yutsano: Yes, point is that it is called the United Kingdom (or just the UK). Great Britain or “England” is informal.