I realize this blog is turning all Romney all the time, but this guy could fuck up a ham sandwich:
The prime minister has hit back at comments from the US presidential candidate Mitt Romney querying Britain’s readiness for the Olympics, urging the country to “put its best foot forward” and ensure they are remembered as “the friendly Games”.
[…]Romney said the fallout from the G4S security fiasco and a threatened strike by immigration officials were “disconcerting” and questioned whether British people would get behind the Games.
I’m just shaking my head at the kind of Anglo-Saxon stupidity needed to fuck up a feel-good trip to the Olympics. And, while we’re at it, what the fuck is he doing there in the first place? He needs to be on the other side of the globe from his wife’s prancing pony. Instead he’s in London pissing off Cameron and reminding us all that he’s rich enough to have a horse in the Olympics.
Culture of Truth
It just like with those cookies. He can’t help but insult people.
Cassidy
NO, he’s right where he needs to be reminding the schizophrenic undecideds that he’s a moron.
jibeaux
He threw the dancing horse under the bus already. Totally his wife’s horse! He’s not even going to watch it!
General Stuck
The fucking up a good trip, Cameron is doing his best for that as well. Reiterating his support for gay marriage as Romney touches down at Downing street. The Brits make their wingnuts a tad different than we do here in the land of the American Taliban.
karen
Isn’t G4S an American security company?
Culture of Truth
He was going to hold a fundraiser with the disgraced head of Barclays but he doesn’t want to be seen with Romney.
Cassidy
@karen: Yes
Redshift
Wow.
I have to wonder if it’s another manifestation of his alpha-CEO need to dominate any gathering. Mitt ran a successful Olympics, so he has to compulsively remind people that his were better, and lesser people may be able to have the
Miss Congenialityfriendly Games, but they can never be the winner.Not, I imagine, the kind of association with the Olympics his staff were hoping to get out of this trip.
flukebucket
I heard he was visiting his money.
eataTREE
Obama is really good at this sort of simple, feel-good diplomatic moment; as Mitt must do the exact opposite of whatever Obama would do in any situation, Mitt was therefore required to be a gigantic flaming asshole.
Biff Longbotham
No surprise here. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly.
d0n camillo
I’d encourage him to keep harping on the G4S affair. It is such a classic case of the public sector having to fix a private sector fuckup. It won’t do his campaign any good, but at least he’d be performing a public service for once in his life.
Redshift
@Culture of Truth:
LOL
redshirt
I have a feeling this is just going to get more surreal – the worst candidate in generations, backed by the worst team ever, will continue to make mistake after mistake and yet! The media will ensure this is as close as possible, and any Republican partisans won’t care. They’d vote for a cardboard cutout as long as it had an (R).
Democracy!
kdaug
@Redshift:
To paraphrase PM Cameron’s response:
“I suppose it’s easy to run an Olympics in the middle of nowhere”.
MattF
I suspect Romney’s made a miscalculation. Lots of people (including, in particular, journalists) from ‘over the water’ are following the Presidential campaign over the Intertubz, so they’re all rather well informed and don’t feel a need to give Mitt the benefit of the doubt. It’s not going to be a catastrophe for Romney, but it won’t be a vacation either.
Redshift
@eataTREE: And of course, a standard part of Romney’s stump speech is spouting lies that Obama has insulted our friends around the world.
No, wingnuts, this is what “insulting our friends around the world” looks like.
jp7505a
A PRIVATE SECTOR company
Ash Can
@kdaug: Not even a paraphrase:
(h/t Gus @ LGF)
Cassidy
Keep it up Mitt. Go to all our allies and just show them your Galtian genius. Let them know who their betters are.
Biff Longbotham
@kdaug: Rmoney’s ‘successful’ Olympics reminds me of one of my father-in-law’s favorite sayings:
“Any problem that can be solved with money isn’t a real problem.”
Culture of Truth
To be fair to Romney things could be better. Security problems, lost bus drivers, and their brand new cable car got stranding passengers for an hour. Apparently it got too hot.
Alexandra
On a glorious sunny and still day here in London, temperature about 87F, the Olympic torch relay went past just where I live an hour or so ago. Hundreds of people out on the streets, looking happy, waving flags, cafes full…
And I can guarantee that not one of them gave a shit about Mitt Romney.
chopper
the guy just can’t help but try to prod and passive-aggressively insult his lessers. the other thing is, he thinks everyone is his lesser.
every time this guy goes off-the-cuff, he insults somebody or an entire group of people.
Bobby Thomson
@MattF:
Fixed.
Terry
Well, you certainly can’t accuse him of “going around apologizing” for the USA.
jibeaux
To be fair, being a dick kind of is part of our shared Anglo-Saxon experience.
aimai
@Redshift:
Bain people are a special breed of assholes. I was friends with the wife of a (top) Bain VP, an English guy who later ran the London Business School. You would not believe how hair raisingly assholish these people are in person and specifically about everyone else–not just poor people but everyone else. But its really because everyone else seems poor to them. Also: they despise their own clients. I mean: despise them for needing to take advice about dumb shit and then for taking their dumb advice.
So when Romney is asked any question, even “What would you like for lunch” he thinks all the proles are crawling to him and his company begging for his insights and wisdom. He literally has never had to stop and think “I wonder if this person actually thinks I’m all that and a bag of chips? Perhaps this person standing in front of me does not need my overwhelming insights into life and the universe and money?”
aimai
Culture of Truth
I also suspect Romney miscalculated, in that the British press is front-to-back complaining about the games, not getting that this is typical, complain but carry on proudly, then complain some more. They don’t need some soulless corporate mormon twit from across the pond to tell them what’s what.
Chyron HR
Let’s hear it for the Rainbow Tour.
Villago Delenda Est
Well, you know, he’s competing with the deserting coward for the hearts and minds of the 27%. And the deserting coward was a fantastic King Midas in reverse.
Needless to say, much of the security at the London Olympics has been “privatized”, which means the contractors get paid whether or not they actually deliver the security guards they were contracted for. This is the sort of shit that is right up OvenMitt’s alley.
Alex
Hey, don’t bring up the horse.
Romney doesn’t even know when the horse will compete and isn’t going to watch it anyways. He has more important things to do than support his wife’s Olympic-level sport.
—-
“I have to tell you. This is Ann’s sport. I’m not even sure which day the sport goes on. She will get the chance to see it, I will not be watching the event. I hope her horse does well.” -Mitt Romney
Biff Longbotham
@jibeaux:
Rimshot!!
chopper
@Ash Can:
jesus, mitt. and you want to be our latex salesman.
Ash Can
@Culture of Truth: It doesn’t matter. What Romney said is not the sort of thing someone in his position and situation should say. Regardless of whether it’s true, he’s a dick for saying it.
kdaug
@Cassidy:
And then ask them for money.
Make sure you get it in US dollars, too. None of that worthless pound sterling shit.
chopper
@jibeaux:
the venerable bede wrote exactly of this, in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Assholum.
scav
@kdaug: That was the quote that made my morning. The Stiff Upper Shiv.
chopper
@Alex:
wow, i’ve never seen a politician throw his own horse under a bus before.
kindness
Romney is in London looking after his $78K tax deduction. What? None of you have a horse you can use to deduct $78,000 from your income taxes? Oh my…..I had no idea.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So this isn’t campaign style, Romney just harps on every one who comes to his attention? WTF
This guy gets elected it will make GW’s presidency look like a golden age.
Violet
From the Guardian link up top:
The sunshine is out? The warmth is here? Who talks like that? Normal people say, “The sun is out and it’s warm.” Mitt sounds like he learned English from a computer program. Oh, wait…
Biff Longbotham
@chopper: I think horse throwing will be an Olympic demonstration event in 2016.
eataTREE
@Redshift: What wingnuts tend to mean when they say that “Obama has embarrassed America” is that Obama embarrasses them by acting like other nations and their leaders are worthy of respect. Because in Authoritarian Land, there is never any such thing as a mutually respectful relationship; to these guys if you aren’t being dominant, you’re being submissive. I expect more diplomatic assholery from Mitt for this reason: he needs to insult foreigners as much as possible so that his base is assured of his belief in American superiority.
Tripod
@Redshift:
Winter Olympics = organizing a hockey tournament and some skiing. The scale of the summer games are a order of magnitude larger.
Biff Longbotham
@Violet: Maybe ‘Guantes’ is more Mexican than he lets on. Show me his papers!!
ChrisNYC
Too hilarious that he’s disclaiming the freaking horse. Mitt “It wasn’t me!” Romney.
bemused
@Culture of Truth:
Sadly, t’s not going to hurt him with the 27 percenters if the British or any of those other furriners over there scorn and ridicule him. Just the opposite. Thinking about the 27 percenters often reminds me of the Idiocracy movie.
Ash Can
@chopper: At this rate, Rafalca’s going to get booed when she competes.
elmo
@Cassidy:
@karen:
No, it actually isn’t. G4S is a direct descendent of a Belgium-based security company, and is now HQ’d in Great Britain. It has a few USA subsidiaries, including Wackenhut, but it is not, itself, a USA company.
G4S and Securitas were once sister companies, offshoots of the same tree. They are now competitors – Securitas is based in Sweden – and each claims to be the world’s largest private security company.
Cassidy
@elmo: I thought Wackenhut bought G4S?
jp7505a
I’m sure W is rooting for a Romney win. After all there will then be some competition for worst president ever!!!
ding dong
M.itt was running a Winter Olympics in a city where my guess is that a third of the property is owned by the LDS church. A small city at that .A young city. Before 9\11. Just STFU Mitt.
DougJ
Should have gone with “he’s king Midas in reverse”.
beltane
Geez, even the far-right Daily Telegraph can’t stand Mitt dailykos.com/story/2012/07/26/1113825/-Daily-Telegraph-Mitt-utterly-devoid-of-charm-and-mildly-offen…
I realize that Romney is not the type of conservative that appeals to British conservatives, but wow.
Kane
I think it was Tim Russert who once said that presidential elections often come down to the question of who Americans want to invite into their living room for the next four years. Does anyone, even on the republican side, want to have Romney over for a visit? Everywhere he goes, people dislike him.
elmo
@Cassidy:
Other way around. And I was wrong about Belgium – G4 was in Denmark, not Belgium. Oops.
pseudonymous in nc
He just can’t fucking help himself, can he? I really hate having to say nice things about that Tory arsehole Cameron, but the “middle of nowhere” line was a good one.
The Mittens Olympics in Mormonopolis: 2400 competitors, 15 sports. London? 11,000 competitors, 26 sports.
Now, perhaps it’s better to host the Olympics in one-party states like China or Utah where people do what they’re told and the Official Brand Partners have their three weeks of unsullied glory. But anyway.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ)
Did he even stop to think that maybe he should wait to see whether the Games come off well before insulting their host?
gene108
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
The scary thing about modern politics, versus Bush, Jr.’s 2000 Presidential campaign is the lack of “compassionate conservatism” espoused by Republicans.
In 2000, Bush, Jr. and the Republicans basically had to lay out how conservatism could enable government to help the “little guy” and not just give tax breaks to the rich, because the American people and the MSM wouldn’t tolerate a political Party whose platform rests solely on making the rich richer.
In 2012 the Republicans are running on a platform of making the rich richer and telling the “little guy” to piss off and no one’s bothered.
I really do wonder why American’s outlook has changed so radically in the last 12 years.
PaulW
He and his staff probably coordinated this trip months ago to highlight his “success” overseeing the 2002 Winter Games. Sometimes the tone-deafness of a campaign is due to the push by said campaign to bulldoze through and stick to their schedule…
Davis X. Machina
@gene108: All those 1930’s Warner Bros. movies to the contrary, hard times makes people mean….
dmsilev
@Violet: Yes, yes, but was the torch the right height?
These are important questions!
Cassidy
@elmo: Oops, myself. I applied with them actually for some contracting positions. I thought about throwing my hat in to try and get an Olympics gig.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The Winter Olympics is a hug undertaking and requires a lot of specialized venues. This is not a defense of “I’m usccessful because the gov’t bailed my ass out” Mitt, but let’s not insult the Winter Olympics because he’s a chithead.
LanceThruster
Stupid is as stupid does.
Ruviana
@ding dong: Uhhh, 2002 winter olympics. After 9/11. Though I appreciate that a lot of the preparation was before.
redshirt
@gene108: Hate to say it, but 9/11. And not the attacks themselves but our response. We’ve become a very cruel, uncaring society that is at each other’s throats. The hatemongers (Republicans) feed these flames because they profit from them, for now.
Hope we can pull out of it.
Villago Delenda Est
@DougJ:
Yes, you should have.
(Must credit Villago Delenda Est)
Chyron HR
@Violet:
At least he didn’t say the temperature was the right Fahrenheit.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@gene108:
It’s like what happened to the California GOP, they gave up on being the majority and now are a niche party.
But still, four years of Mittens insulting and patronizing even his fellow Republicans is going to create a huge mess that goes far beyond the Red verse Blue thing.
elmo
@Cassidy:
Well, hm. Not to be too OT, because this is neither an open thread nor a jobs thread, but if you’re looking for work in the security industry send me a note.
private email: sierra (canines, but with the k and the 9s instead of spelled out, get it?) AT bellsouth dot net. No spaces, obvs.
Might could be that I know people in that field.
amk
Twitter
And another Mitt Romney blunder: confirmed outside No 10 he met head of MI6. Aspiring US presidents not meant to say that
Nemesis
On the contrary. mittbots trip is
1. comedy gold
2. having the reverse effect intended
3. helping Obama appear even more likeable/presidential
4. embarrassing to us back home
and this is day one, people.
PaulW
@beltane:
Romney’s not really a conservative. He’s not really a moderate, and definitely not a liberal. He’s the emptiest of empty suits: someone who will say anything at the time he thinks will best help him get what he wants. Even when what he says now is completely opposite of what he had said before: he’ll just continue campaigning and ignoring the growing pile of lies because he’d gotten away with it before and is convinced he will again.
Dissing the Olympics he thinks may score points at home with the GOP base, without caring how it will piss off the host nation mostly because he won’t win any votes in the UK anyway. But he’s forgetting the independent-minded voters he NEEDS to win and who tends to take such things as polite diplomacy with established allied nations a lot more serious than the Far Right.
scav
Oh hell, the thought that I would ever read the Telegraph with even mild pleasure . . . I presumably needed the humbling, for which I am grateful. I’m still not sure about the Daily Mail though.
TooManyDans
What is this crap about not watching his wife’s horse? I thought that was why they were going? Why the hell else would you do this in the middle of a presidential campaign?
peach flavored shampoo
@ding dong: Actually, after 911. About six months after.
chopper
@amk:
“also, i met the following secret agents…”
amk
Guardian live blogging mittbot’s gaffes. :)
pseudonymous in nc
@Culture of Truth:
Same way only New Yorkers are allowed to complain about New York; if you’re in from Boston or Bumfuck, shut the fuck up. But yeah, the mood in London is that Londoners have the sole right to complain about the shitty stuff, and now that the damn thing’s finally here, they might as well make sure the rest of it goes well.
Cassidy
@TooManyDans: He’s going through his “I’m manly” phase. I’m honestly surprised he didn’t say something about missing the event so he could go to a pub and drink some local libations that are at the right temperature and height.
TooManyDans
@amk: And it is hilarious.
amk
@TooManyDans:
Some of the tweets are hilariously killing the mittbot so much that twitter died just now.
amk
from the guardian liveblog above
scav
Moaning and Queuing, Moaning and Queuing, isn’t that core to the whole Anglo-Saxon thing? (Well, that and the whole don’t mention MI6 thing.)
Biff Longbotham
@scav:
Exprain prease for this non Anglo-Saxon: What’s up with not mentioning MI6? Is it a matter of convention, kinda like Democratic politicians not talking about gun control around election time?
ding dong
I have no idea but I keep on thinking slc was in 1992 not 2002. Defintiely duhhh.
Randy P
@Tripod: Don’t forget shooting. I mentioned the skiing-and-shooting thing to my Finnish sister-in-law and she got all nostalgic about how they used to do that in Girl Scouts.
amk
@Biff Longbotham: Guardian liveblog
Randy P
@Biff Longbotham: From the Guardian:
McJulie
@gene108: The reason Republicans aren’t pretending to be “compassionate” anymore is that letting the sociopath flag fly doesn’t seem to hurt them in elections. So they’ll get worse and worse until such time as it does seem to hurt them.
I can only hope that this is a serious long-term miscalculation — that by the time they realize it is hurting them, it will be far too late to do anything about it.
Robert Sneddon
On the subject of the Olympic Games, blog by my friend Charlie, illustration by my friend Smuzz:
antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/07/a-message-from-our-overlords.html
catclub
@PaulW: “independent-minded voters he NEEDS to win and who tends to take such things as polite diplomacy with established allied nations a lot more serious than the Far Right.”
Important if true, but most ‘independent minded voters’ seem to have no mind at all. Go look at a the internals of a survey. Once they have no idea what party they are in they don’t know _anything_.
pseudonymous in nc
@Biff Longbotham:
The government only acknowledged the existence of SIS (aka MI6) in 1994, and has only made public the identity of its chief (“C”, the real-life “M”) since then; everybody else who works for SIS does so covertly. It’s not the CIA.
Mattminus
You must never make fun of that heroic horse, Rafalca! It administers Ann Romney’s chemotherapy or something.
Maude
@amk:
I am going to follow the Brit press on this stuff. They are hands down the tops at ridicule.
Biff Longbotham
@amk:
@Randy P:
Thanks. Not doing a lot of clickthroughing at the moment…
Soonergrunt
@amk: twitter is still down as I type this.
cmorenc
What a more socially/politically astute Romney should have said regarding the London Olympics and any potential parallel to the Salt Lake City Olympics is something like this:
But noooo…he speaks to Londoners as if they were sometimes unruly ten-year olds about to be taken along on a visit to dinner at someone else’s house, i.e. “put your best foot forward”. As opposed to putting your bare ass forward like Romney apparently did.
Soonergrunt
@cmorenc: The big thing about him is that he keeps making these kinds of gaffes over and over again and doesn’t appear to learn from them at all.
It’s like he’s got Asperger’s Syndrome.
different-church-lady
You just don’t understand how the CEO thing works: the CEO decides he wants to do something and the appropriate narrative is created for such a thing being necessary. Thus, Mitt wants to be in London for his wife’s pony show, so a narrative is concocted about how it’s all about displaying foreign policy credibility. Hardly a CEO in the world would do it any other way.
Stranded Northerner
@TooManyDans:
No kidding! If I was the one with the horse in the show, my husband would be right there with me to root for it. It doesn’t speak well of Mitt as a husband.
22over7
@Cassidy: Mitt doesn’t drink libations. But hey! the warmth is here, so maybe he can work on his tan.
different-church-lady
@Soonergrunt:
He doesn’t have fucking Asperger’s Syndrome. He’s got Rich, Sheltered Asshole’s Syndrome. He has no idea how to be tactful and diplomatic because he’s never had the need to do it before in his entire life.
NonyNony
@TooManyDans:
Because at this point the ONLY accomplishment that Mitt Romney has in his life that he wants people to focus on is that he “saved” the Olympics. So he goes to the Olympics to remind people that he “saved” the Olympics.
The fact that his accomplishment of “saving” the Olympics is starting to crumble around him means it may not help him, but I kinda figured he’d have to do this campaign stunt once he decided to make his Olympics history a centerpiece of his campaign instead of the one-off Jeopardy trivia answer that it should be.
Mobile Grumpy Code Monkey
@Soonergrunt:
That would actually explain a lot.
LAC
@Biff Longbotham: Or in Romney’s world, fish gotta dance, birds gotta walk underwater.
What’s next on this imbecile’s world tour?
LAC
@Alex: Anyone got the video of a fancy horse and wife being thrown under a bus by a rich Mormon? Please youtube it! :)
Kerry Reid
Wonder what all the wingnuts who are still whingeing about Obama insulting the Brits because of that damn Churchill bust will have to say about this. Oh who am I kidding? It won’t make a damn bit of difference.
JR in WV
@Ash Can:
Yes, yes, I agree totally!
Isn’t it wonderful! How he opens his mouth, and pearls of, of… well, uxorious nonsense that offends everyone not on his payroll. Can’t help it, can’t shut up and still run.
What if he decides not to run, after all. Sometime between now and the convention, after catching tons of valid criticism from bloviating political pundits who should be on his side, because they’re bought and paid for, but can’t help but criticize the enormity of Williard’s obnoxiousness, he just says, “That’s it, you people just don’t deserve me, I’m moving to the Cayman Islands!”
What an imagination, huh?!
Wouldn’t that be great?!
What a total dick the man is! I can’t believe he could might maybe win an election.
I think all the thinking Republicans will slowly decide not to take an other flier on a dicey looking candidate, after the way
BushShrub fixed things for us all. I hope, anyhoo.Soonergrunt
@different-church-lady: I don’t know many rich sheltered assholes.
I do know quite a few Aspie kids, and his behavior is reminiscent of them. Although, I’m more like to believe that being a rich, sheltered asshole is the biggest factor here. He’s never (certainly not since he left home) had anyone tell him he was out of bounds in his behavior. Not in any way that worked. That much is obvious.
Betsy
@Soonergrunt: It’s not gaffes! I keep saying.
redshirt
Talk about your perfect response to the “You didn’t build it BS”: Mitt’s only remaining accomplishment he can brag about – “Saving the olympics” – only came about through the infusion of billions of tax payer dollars. Talk about not building it yourself Mitt!
Darkrose
@Chyron HR:
Where would you like your internets delivered?
Another Halocene Human
@pseudonymous in nc:
Zing!
Amir Khalid
What I’ve seen from the reports of Mitt’s trip to London suggest that, of this year’s major-party candidates for POTUS, there’s a chance he might not turn out to be the better diplomat.
cckids
@Culture of Truth:
It is related to the “I can complain about my spouse, mother, siblings, etc, but if YOU do, I’ll snap you off at the ankles”.
Idiot. You don’t arrive as a highly visible guest and start publically crapping on their stuff.