And he’ll be the one to decide what that little shall be. Don’t miss Charles P. Pierce’s wise words on “The Shredder Campaign“:
… Over the course of the past 30 years, the shredder has become emblematic of how the government of the United States works, particularly in its Executive branch. Ever since Richard Nixon failed to follow Pat Buchanan’s advice to burn the tapes on the South Lawn, presidents have taken it as axiomatic that the first principle of the office is the cover-up. This was true throughout the Reagan administration, and particularly during the Iran-Contra aftermath and the extended cover-up that followed it. (Remember that Attorney General Ed Meese gave Oliver North and Fawn Hall sufficient time to spirit critical documents out of their offices before revealing the scandal to the world.) The current controversy over HSBC’s role as the worldwide laundromat for dirty money has a clear antecedent in the BCCI scandal that erupted during the adminstration of George H.W. Bush, when it was discovered that the U.S. intelligence services were running dirty money through the spin cycle in that institution for distribution to the Contras and to the mujahideen in Afghanistan. At about the same time, it was revealed that the senior Bush, through a complex web of transactions that became known collectively as Iraqgate, had helped arm Saddam Hussein during Bush’s tour as director of the CIA, as vice-president, and as president. During the transition period between the first Bush administration and that of Bill Clinton, it is said, the shredders in the Executive branch sounded like the Indianapolis Speedway at the start of the race. Those scandals are lost to political memory now because the shredders did their jobs so well.
Corporate America has led the way in the battle against transparency of any sort anywhere. In this, the government learned from business. (Any time you hear a politician suggest that we run government “like a business,” this is what he really means.) Romney grew up in the culture of the shredder.He made his pile in a culture that disdains openness and scoffs at transparency. He simply doesn’t know any other way, and he’s not intellectually deft enough to pretend that he does. If he were, he’d have released those tax returns all in a great lump at five o’clock one Friday afternoon, probably prior to a three-day holiday weekend. Instead, he seems determined to brazen it out. On this issue, he’s removing the country’s hard drives and feeding democracy into the shredder…
Let it not go unremarked that one thing all the unindicted co-conspirators mentioned above had in common was the “Republican” brand. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.
And speaking of the Republican mania for undisclosed locations and man-sized safes, the Old Hands stand ready to “help out” the latest figurehead recruit:
Former vice president Richard B. Cheney said the selection of Sarah Palin as the Republican vice presidential candidate in 2008 was “a mistake” — the sort of mistake Mitt Romney should avoid.
In an interview with ABC News, Cheney said Sen. John McCain’s choice of the relatively inexperienced Palin was one “I don’t think was well handled.”
In choosing a running mate, Cheney said, “there are two lists. There is the big list. And it’s got a lot of folks on it.”
To make the smaller list, he said, “the test . . . has to be, ‘Is this person capable of being president of the United States?’ ”…
A small, select list, of experienced candidates. Such as a person, some might say, who’s already had the experience of running the Oval Office for eight years, in everything but the legal figleaf. Romney/Cheney 2012 — America’s first all-cyborg ticket!
Yutsano
You and I both know the FSM doesn’t love us enough for that to Happen. Unless you’re talking Lynne.
WereBear
Cheney would balance the Romney wimp factor.
Yes, this is the way they think.
Amir Khalid
Wot, no cartoon? :(
It’s been said before, all Mitt wants is the President’s title; the job is an afterthought for him at best. Mitt hasn’t thought about whether he himself is up to the President’s job, how he might need to raise his game for it — if he had, his London balls-up would never have happened.
As it is, he’ll pick a running mate whom he reckons can best help him in November. He will not think to consider if his running mate can understudy a President.
The Right Honorable Member for, the Very Reverend Mother, Her Duchal Serene Highness. Dr. Hortense Sussudio Fuuckerfaaster
romney/cheney that’s crazy talk.
i think ron jeremy throwing his sizable endorsement to romney paves the way for a potential romney/jeremy ticket.
if the devil is in the details, why can’t the devil be in miss jones, also too
(ancient porn reference for you olds, you were jerking off to the ll bean catalog by the time ron jeremy became cool for playing the heel in porn)
TheMightyTrowel
@Yutsano: The fail fest that is sure to follow if Romney et al pick a person of colour or (even better) Mary Cheney (she’s the one who’s married to a female partner, right?) would surpass the Palin sexism-palooza from Sept/Oct 2008. Not only would we get the usual rw fail (how do I talk to and about this exotic non-white/non-straight person?) but so much awful racism, sexism, + heterosexism from our supposed allies I don’t think I’ll want to keep my US citizenship.
The one thing that really bowled me over in 08 was how little you had to scratch far too many ostensibly Democratic/’progressive’ guys before their inner sexist mouth-breather emerged. Le Sigh.
Joey Maloney
This would be an AWESOME bumpersticker.
JGabriel
__
__
Richard Muller, Koch-funded AGW-denier, goes beyond admitting global warming is real, finally admits it is caused by people too:
__
Emphasis added.
.
LGRooney
Didn’t Romney & Co. shred the bones of their Massachusetts’ governor term, as well?
Frankensteinbeck
@Amir Khalid:
I have begun to take very seriously the idea that Mitt wants to be the president so he can staff the Executive branch with Mormons. I have no internal knowledge of the Mormon church to know if they care about the White Horse Prophecy or it’s just one of those ignored details any religion is packed with. However, the way Mormons systematically put other Mormons in important positions is an accusation that I hear over and over, and it’s pretty common of especially tribal sub-cultures. ‘Especially tribal sub-culture’ does describe Mormonism to a T.
NotMax
Oy vey.
NotMax
FYWP. In moderation limbo using snippets pulled from article.
Trying it this way.
Romney’s trot down stereotype lane in speech at fundraiser in Israel.
LGRooney
@Frankensteinbeck: Romney is extremely concerned with fulfilling Mormon
corporate planningdreams. Whether that is some prophecy, I don’t know. I have known very closely only 2 Mormons in my life, who both abandoned my friendship once it became clear their evangelizing would not be fruitful, and they both talked about helping find jobs for members of their church – while also dangling the prospect of good jobs in front of me if I would watch a video, listen to a spiel, a/o visit one of their temples to speak with one of their higher-ups.So, from my little experience with members of that organization, I would say there is no doubt that Mormon strains will be running throughout the government with the specific aim of advancing Mormon principles. The inbreds have always considered themselves to be more American than most. To be sure, every president stacks their WH with their own kind, i.e., people that agree with their ruling political philosophy. It’s just that with most, their ruling philosophy is not overwhelmingly bound to an evangelical version of some cult.
FYI, in LGRooney’s world, every religion is a cult.
Older_Wiser
Mitt Romney’s NeoCon War Cabinet: http://www.thenation.com/article/167683/mitt-romneys-neocon-war-cabinet#
Bush policies redux. In case you were wondering about Rmoney’s “performance” lately, it’s heavily influenced by The Machine of the warmongering rightwing and has found its perfect candidate, just as it did in Bush43, a malleable “CEO” of their version of govt who will do their bidding.
This is where the real power of the rightwing resides–and it should scare the shit out of you. Quitler and her ilk are rank amateurs compared to those people, and are left in place to gin up discontent on the domestic scene only, stirring up the resentments of the racists and the reactionaries, esp since the wisdom of the electorate voted for a man of color to lead us into the 21st century–a man who in spite of being hamstrung by an overtly belligerent, racist and resistant opposition, has accomplished much to try to alleviate suffering perpetrated by the powerful and greedy. Think of the economic mess Bush43 and his minions fomented in the US as a kind of “Weimar Republic”. We know it’s no accident that Republicans are not cooperating or compromising with this President–they have too much to lose in regaining power, and setting the US on a course no one should want, if they read history. They are “internationalists” only in the sense of conquest, of “Manifest Destiny” or “American Exceptionalism”, not world cooperation and democratic principles.
Do not become the “good American”: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Good_German_Syndrome.html
Valdivia
Great article by Haaretz about Romney and Netanyahu
Raven
@Valdivia: Why give us a link we can’t read?
Valdivia
@Raven:
oops sorry. I can read it. Didn’t know you couldn’t. I will excerpt it.
ETA and now I can’t even get into it. Short of it: it said that the speech was Bibi’s words in Romney’s mouth and that it had all been orchestrated by Bibi’s right hand man Ron Dremer (via Senor). That Bibi’s office helped even with the setting and planning of the speech last night and that Bibi is betting against Obama like no other PM before him had gone against an incumbent president.
Bruce S
@Raven:
If you register at Haaretz you get free articles (probably limited, not sure how many, but it’s an easy access to the best reporting from/on Israel. More critical and far better informed than any US major.)
Valdivia
@Raven:
here is a link that spells a lot of it out
https://twitter.com/PeterBeinart
arguingwithsignposts
@NotMax: Wow, so shorter Romney: You Jews really do know how to make the money.
wormtown
Based on his lt. governor in MA; I think the vp candidate has to be someone that is content to be low profile, in Mitt’s shadow; and a yes man/woman. I agree Mitt has little interest in actually being president; he didn’t seem to have any interest in being gov. How that would translate, I’m not sure. Hadn’t thought of the angle of appointing Mormons; but that might be it. Although, wasn’t really aware of any such appointments when he was gov. His religion really was a non factor (as far as I was aware).
P.S. I always felt he had a very low opinion of women, and thought they should be home with the kids; not in the workplace. I’m in my 50’s; just reminds me of the attitude of a lot of men when I started working in the 70’s. You know, OK to be a secretary, but not liking women getting into what at that time was considered men’s jobs.
Triassic Sands
Mitt loves to pee on the peons.
It’s a special form of noblesse gofuckyerself.
But he seems perfectly likable to Piers Morgan.
NotMax
Some of the earliest leaders in Mormonism (for example, Orson Hyde)were saying exactly what Romney was promulgating in Israel re: Jerusalem.
Cannot find any credible info as to whether Mitt did or did not make a pilgrimage to Orson Hyde Memorial Garden in Jerusalem.
Chinn Romney
Fast Fearless Leader and his minion Furious Eric say hi.
But if you want to hear all about how we got Bin Laden, not a problem.
Anya
@Valdivia:
I really don’t get this. Why is Netanyahu doing this? It’s not like President Obama changed US policies towards Israel. He is pro Israel as the last US President. What the fuck do pro-Israelis want from him. Like his predecessor, President Obama has little regard for Palestinian people’s wishes and interests. What significant changes did he make that they’re troubled by?
Valdivia
@Anya:
Sincerely I don’t know. I think the group of neocons are convinced that they can buy the office of the President and since this is who Bibi hangs out with he too is convinced. Also–from twitter yesterday I gather that like the Galtian Lords of the Universe on Wall Street they don’t give a whit about policy, it’s the fact that Obama wasn’t subservient to Bibi and he dared not support the settlements.
catclub
@NotMax: “Having publicly pledged a “solemn duty and moral imperative” to protect Israel, ”
We have ZERO mutual defense treaties with Israel. Contrast that with Japan and Turkey. Isn’t it only the President and Secretary of State who announce our Foreign policy?
AxelFoely
@Chinn Romney:
Oooh, new troll in the house!
Doggie D
Mitt Romney does have a very prominent chin.
catclub
@Older_Wiser: Bush policies redux.
Actually, worse. The people that even George Bush told: “No war with Iran, you nutbags!” The Cheney Branch of insane republicans.
Anya
@Chinn Romney: Also, too, 57 States.
Gypsy howell
Cheney is more likely setting up LIZ Cheney, rather than himself, as VP. And that should scare the shit out of everyone.
debbie
@ Valdavia:
Didn’t he also stop Romney from meeting with the leader of the Labor Party? We all owe Bibi our thanks — he singlehandedly exposed this trip as the fraud it is. And Romney for what he is: Palin With Pants.
Flying Squirrel Girl
@Gypsy howell: As was pointed out earlier, Liz has a wife problem. She will not be the pick, nor will Condi.
Linda Featheringill
@The Right Honorable Member for, the Very Reverend Mother, Her Duchal Serene Highness. Dr. Hortense Sussudio Fuuckerfaaster:
Yup. I had to look him up.:-)
arguingwithsignposts
@Flying Squirrel Girl: Interesting. I thought it was the other Cheney daughter with the wife problem.
Valdivia
@debbie:
indeed he did. The cancellation played in the Israeli media as Romney being Bibi’s poodle.
Frankensteinbeck
@Anya:
Oh, no. Obama is VERY different, if you’re Netenyahu. Obama respects Muslims and has made it clear that if Netenyahu starts a war all on his own, the US won’t back him. This is all pretty weak beer to us, hardly a sliver different from your average president. To Netenyahu, a man dedicated to exterminating the Palestinians as fast as he can get away with, Obama is an insult (rather than an injury) and Romney is a big opportunity.
PeakVT
@Anya: I think the Israeli right wants an American president that will protect them if Israel does something highly provocative. Both attacking Iran and declaring the settlements legal would qualify. If Romney is elected, a Likud government is likely to do both.
Chinn Romney
@AxelFoely:
New, nah. Infrequent, si. Anne’s thesis is fine as far as it goes. She just left out another primo example. Such an obvious example that it makes one go ‘hmmmm’.
I forgot that criticism of fearless leader, no matter how accurate, is not tolerated in your little echo chamber. A thousand pardons, I’m heading back under my bridge now, so carry on telling each other what you want to hear. Some of it is even true.
Flying Squirrel Girl
@arguingwithsignposts: Dammit you’re right. It’s Mary! Does “it’s early” count as a defense?
Shalimar
@The Right Honorable Member for, the Very Reverend Mother, Her Duchal Serene Highness. Dr. Hortense Sussudio Fuuckerfaaster: Of course Ron Jeremy is the perfect Republican. He used to be able to suck his own dick 30 years ago. Now he pays poor young women to suck it for him.
Villago Delenda Est
@Gypsy howell:
I’m suitably scared. Who knew that He-Who-Should-Not-Be-Named did the wild thing with Bellatrix LeStrange and Liz was the result.
Gypsy howell
@Flying Squirrel Girl:
You’re thinking of Mary Cheney. Liz Cheney is married with 5 children, and would be the neocons wet dream of the new power behind the throne. Cheney is probably interested in establishing his own political dynasty, and Liz is the perfect second generation politico. She’s much smarter ( and much more frightening) than GWB is.
kay
The Sherrod Brown-Barack Obama interplay in Ohio is interesting.
It’s such a mutually beneficial accident that they’re both up at the same time. Brown validates Obama with labor and white working class, and Obama validates Brown with turnout in the “3 C’s” (Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati). Brown has added this line to his stump speech “Obama is better on trade enforcement than the last 4 Presidents” and Brown is absolutely credible in Ohio on trade with labor, because that’s been his career-long issue, House and then Senate.
They’re perfectly complimentary on women’s issues, too.
The state convention had an undeniable Focus on Women feel, and Connie Schultz (Brown’s wife) was up first. She took a really unusual approach for a political spouse. She presented herself not as Brown’s wife, but as an Ohio Democrat (which she was, first, they didn’t marry until she was 46) and then explained why she, as an ordinary Ohio Democrat and a feminist, would support Brown and Obama.
Next up was Lilly Ledbetter, who started with “Obama as feminist” and then went to Democrats in Congress as working for equal pay. They’re making women’s issues a populist issue, an economic issue. Lilly Ledbetter isn’t a feminist in an abstract way. Lilly Ledbetter is a feminist because she was paid 40% less for the exact same job for 20 years. She said that hurt her family finances, her children’s standard of living, which of course it did.
It’s just funny to watch the speculation on whether Romney will pick Portman to “help” in Ohio when there’s this OTHER Presidential/Senatorial Ohio synchronicity campaign that is completely ignored nationally, going on NOW and may actually be more important in terms of moving the needle.
I sort of hope Romney picks Portman because then it becomes Obama/Brown versus Romney/Portman, in a way, within the state.
Narcissus
Mary Cheney has a lesbian problem. Liz Cheney just has an asshole problem.
Also maybe Bibi just doesn’t like Obama because he has a schvartze problem.
Older_Wiser
@Flying Squirrel Girl: Mary is the lesbian; Liz is the breeder (5 kids).
NotMax
@anya
At least some of it must be attributed to pique. Take a look at a list of all of Obama’s foreign stops. Note that Israel is not in there (although he has pledged to visit during his second term) and that Obama’s first major overseas speech was made in Egypt.
Villago Delenda Est
@Flying Squirrel Girl:
Liz is not the one with the wife problem. She has a husband. It’s the other Cheney spawn who has the wife problem.
Liz worked at the State Department during the deserting coward assmalistration, and later showed up as an op ed contributor at the WaPo, pushing neocon crap.
Linda Featheringill
@Frankensteinbeck: #37
I didn’t realize Obama’s modest amount of independence made such a difference. Wow. Now that I think of it, you might be quite right in your analysis.
Bear in mind that I am Judeophilic and pro-Israel when I say that I think Bibi is leading the whole country into mass suicide and that the current state of Israel needs to pull back and quit acting like a bunch of bullies.
Older_Wiser
@Narcissus: That’s probably the case since African refugees are being ousted: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/05/world/middleeast/netanyahu-vows-crackdown-on-african-asylum-seekers.html?_r=1
NotMax
Anything Dick Cheney has to say, whether seemingly correct on the surface or not, about picking a v.p. is to be regarded askance.
This is the person who selected himself.
Chyron HR
@Chinn Romney:
Hi, Tim.
debbie
@ Kay:
Have you ever seen anyone more uncomfortable looking than Manel when he visited the fair this weekend? Priceless!
TS
@wormtown:
Fixed – Romney won’t select a woman VP
PeakVT
@NotMax: Cheney selected himself once he realized Bush was an easily manipulated twit. That makes sense to me.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
@LGRooney: Yes, the Mass Gov records were expunged from hard drives. Coincidentally the 2002 Olympics planning records mysteriously disappeared also.
Frankensteinbeck
@Linda Featheringill:
And Obama feels that way, pretty much. I’m pretty much in your boat as well. But to the right wing fringes and a lot of the older merely conservative Jews, Arabs AND Muslims are an existential threat to Israel, an absolute enemy. In their mind, the idea of both a Palestine and an Israel is an impossible fantasy for the deluded. Some of those people consider it sad that it’s an impossible fantasy. Some… well, I grew up with the more moderate of that group and have had to sit across the table at meals with a Zionist sister-in-law complaining that Obama was a wimp because he wouldn’t nuke Iran, and dismissing Israel’s bombing of a school with ‘they’d have grown up to be terrorists anyway’. Those are extreme right wing attitudes in Israel, but Netenyahu’s history and policies make it blatantly clear he shares them.
So to him, Bush allowed anti-Muslim sentiment in America to fester, and followed a neocon plan of adventurous wars to turn the Middle East Western. That was great, a step up from the usual presidents who had a ridiculous idea of ‘peace’. Obama is drawing down those wars, only got into Libya at the request of the Arab community and got out again immediately, doesn’t seem to mind the Muslim Brotherhood winning elections in Egypt, and has no intention of intervening in Syria to ensure any new rulers are pro-Israel. Oh, and Obama loudly tells the international community that Muslims are people and their governments should be given the same respect Israel gets.
To the ‘Arabs are the existential enemy’ group – including Netenyahu – this makes Obama a hateful menace. ‘Obama bin Ladin’. Romney is exactly what Netenyahu ordered.
(End note: To the existential enemy types, Arabs and Muslims are basically the same thing and the entirety of both groups are the enemy.)
kay
@debbie:
I didn’t see it, but I wouldn’t think he’d be good at the fair. His whole premise doesn’t seem coherent to me; Iraq vet, Iran, Islamists, it’s like a throw-back to 2003. So much has happened since the Bush-era fear-mongering after 9/11. It didn’t even work in 2006 when Dewine tried it. It’s going to work now, 6 years later? Terrorism! Ooga booga!
Brown came to watch his wife’s speech. They are taking care of their 4 year old grandson this week. It was truly amusing to watch a senator mind a 4 year old in a big convention hall. You know how you’re distracted and can’t really follow anything because you have to spot the kid visually every twenty or so seconds? It’s like an internal timer: “where is the kid?” Twenty seconds later “where is the kid, NOW?”
He was doing that. It’s such an immediately recognizable thing to me.
rikyrah
Pierce tells the truth
Frankensteinbeck
@Villago Delenda Est:
All moot. Romney would be insane and incompetent to pick anyone named Cheney. The man is less popular than Bush The Lesser. The American public in general hears the Imperial March play in their heads when they hear the name Cheney, not just us.
danielx
@NotMax:
Well, yes. Cheney’s record for actually being right about anything (short of thinking he won’t be indicted or convicted for/of anything) ranks right up there with Bloody Bill Kristol’s.
Roger Moore
@Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937:
And the real question is whether those records were destroyed out of generalized paranoia about leaving records or in an attempt to hide specific wrongdoing. I’m leaning toward “hide specific wrongdoing”, but maybe that just shows I’m a cynic.
NotMax
@Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
@Roger moore
Records were not expunged from the hard drives in Massachusetts (the records might still be recoverable).
The hard drives were purchased, trucked away and replaced with empty drives.
divF
@JGabriel:
Muller could have gotten here a lot more quickly if he had simply read the other studies carefully. He’s not a right-wing shill per se, but a self-promoting blowhard.
Roger Moore
@NotMax:
This is a distinction without a difference. The records were destroyed for practical purposes in that they were not available for interested parties to inspect and review. It says a lot about Romney that he doesn’t think the public should be able to see public records.
NotMax
@Roger Moore
Wiping records is bad enough. Claiming public data as private and stealing off with the drives is worse, in my book.
YMMV.
rikyrah
kay,
thanks for the great observation about POTUS and Sen. Brown.
LanceThruster
Why do the captains of industry treat their tax strategies like fetish porn that they’re ashamed of instead of showing some pride and talking about it like they were doing a Tony Robbins infomercial (You see, what you do is move this account here and defer these earnings to a later date when your tax burden will be less…)?
I suppose the answer is that it will not be quite as lucrative a strategy if all the rubes were in on it. That, and the clear evidence that they are merely gaming the system to the exclusion of all except for benefit only to themselves.
Glob of Kolob, how I hate the droid known as Mitt Rmoney.
In Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” the droids lacked that bit of human empathy that might help them pass as human. In “Blade Runner” the androids possessed more of that appreciation of “life” than many of their human counterparts.
As some BJ wags here noted far back, the Mitterbot needs to subject himself to a Voigt-Kampff test, to assure us earthlings he is indeed human (or at least possesses the modicum of human characteristics necessary for the job).
JohnMcC
As much as I generally agree with the point of the Orignal Post by Ms Laurie, and also enjoy Mr Pierce laying waste left and right in Esquire, the quotes from him reveal a really sad misunderstanding of the Iran-Contra scandal.
A hint, George HWBush had nothing to do with it, altho the CIA under Admiral Poindexter did and the recipient of the TOW missles was not Saddam Hussein, but the Iranian army through the intermediary of the State of Israel (or at least PM Perez) and a shadowy Lebanese named Ghorbanifar. It included Col Ollie North apparently trying to steal money from the Sultan of Brunei by depositing the money into Mr North’s personal Swiss bank account.
As anyone can see there is plenty of stuff here to blast the right-wingers with. Ignorance of the actual events only makes Mr Pierce and Ms Laurie look — well — ignorant.