The Romney campaign is cracking me up.
Seemingly alarmed that the Obama campaign is actually fighting to win this election, and apparently unable to scare up a half-decent defense, the Romney campaign is relegated to whining about how mean Obama is:
“You know, in the past, when people pointed out that something was inaccurate, why, campaigns pulled the ad,” Romney said on Bill Bennett’s radio show. “They were embarrassed. Today, they just blast ahead. You know, the various fact-checkers look at some of these charges in the Obama ads and they say that they’re wrong, and inaccurate, and yet he just keeps on running them.”
It’s cute how he talks about “fact-checking,” isn’t it?
What’s marvelous about this election is that Romney is a terrible candidate and he’s shady as hell. Whether it’s lying about his residency on his tax returns back in 2002, stashing money all over the globe and refusing to tell us anything about it, pretending he quit a job three years before he actually did, or flat-out lying about President Obama’s policies (as he has done over and over and over and over and over and over), Mitt Romney is one shady motherfucker who doesn’t care about the middle-class or the poor. And in “Understands,” Priorities USA points out that Mitt Romney is one shady motherfucker who doesn’t care about the middle class or the poor. That’s the point of the ad — not whether or not Romney killed Soptic’s wife. Moreover, whether or not one believes that the ad is misleading, there is no effective counterattack to it.
Think of it this way: When the Romney campaign released the “you didn’t build that” ad —
— the Obama campaign loudly called bullshit and released counter ads which clarified Obama’s point and featured Romney making the same point Obama had:
It was a great one-two punch. Obama talking in soothing tones about how awesome you are for building your own business, and a flashy ad about how Mitt Romney blatantly edited Obama’s words and is a dirty liar who will say anything to get elected.
Meanwhile, Romney’s “you didn’t build that” ad ended up being a bust because as it so happened, the star of the ad, Jack Gilchrist, really didn’t build that all on his own — he benefited from a half million dollar government loan.
Now let’s look at the the Priorities USA ad which has Romney’s knickers in a twist and which has Michelle Malkin keening that Obama is calling Romney a murderer:
What are Romney’s options here? Forget about whether or not the ad is a low blow. The kick in Romney’s pants is that he cannot effectively defend against it. What’s he gonna do? Release an ad that explains Soptic’s wife wasn’t diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer until years after Soptic was fired? Claim that Bain Capital offered to buy Soptic out? Of course not. The last thing Romney wants to do is single out a widower and tell him, “Your wife would’ve died anyway. Sorry, bro.”
Romney does the only thing he can do. Toss out a tired political cliche about how Obama will do anything to stay in power — even though running the Priorities USA ad does not constitute Obama doing anything at all, since his campaign didn’t released it, a SuperPAC did:
MikeBoyScout
QUIT PICKING ON SLICK WILLARD!
It’s not fair!
His campaign would be helped immensely if you would just STOP talking about him!
Baud
Projection, thy name is Republican.
Randy P
Yeah I remember how quick they pulled those swiftboat ads when it was pointed out that none of the people who said they “served with John Kerry” had ever served with John Kerry.
Valdivia
yay, pop up link in another tab. I haz a happy! :)
Patricia Kayden
Say what now? Didn’t a Romneybot 2.0 SuperPac come out with an ad trying to link President Obama to the death of the Border Agent re the “Fast and Furious” controversy?
So it’s okay to link Obama with the death of a murdered Border Agent?
eyelessgame
Hi, Mr. President.
Hey, good times, eh? Yep. Crazy campaign, huh. Compared with some others, I wonder how it stacks up. So the reason I called —
Hm, that was out of context? You were talking about infrastructure? Well, yes, but they say about politics, it’s not beanbag. But –
Yeah, I know – those Jeremiah Wright ads, and the Bill Ayres nonsense, and all those birther rumors, that doesn’t seem to have been very fair. So anyway –
What’s that? Swift Boats? Yeah, yeah, I remember those. Pretty effective – what? yeah, took some liberties with the truth, those ads. Yes, yes they did. And speaking of –
Huh? Gore being misquoted? Hm, yes, I seem to remember – something about laughing about him claiming he’d invented the Internet, which he’d never said. Yeah, well, that was a one-time thing, but sure, okay, and related to that –
Willie Horton? Remind me? Oh, right, when ads started claiming the guy running for President was to blame for some murder. Um, right. Yeah, yeah, that really was uncalled for.
So anyway, listen. About those ads you’re running saying I might have something to hide about my career in business that I’m making the centerpiece of the argument for why I should be elected? I kinda think they’re unfair. Could you stop them?
I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you over all the laughing on your end. Was that a yes?
Hunter Gathers
My toddler has more balls than that pathetic wimp. My goldfish could get him to cry uncle. My dead grandmother could beat his ass. At this rate, he’s going to quit before the debates and get Inanimate Carbon Rod to replace him. At least Inanimate Carbon Rod won’t whine as much as Mittens does.
Linda Featheringill
Andrea Saul is still working for Romney.
I can certainly understand the desire to do opposite of whatever Ann Coulter demands.
SteveinSC
It really was hilarious when new ally Newt Gingrich, afflicted as usual by buzz-word diarrhea couldn’t even stay on Planet Earth long enough to answer John Heilemann’s one, simple, question about the inaccuracy of the Romney “gutting of welfare to work” ad. These guys are a clown show. The Romney campaign is a wreck even before it gets to Tampa.
Valdivia
Also, too. Fucking amen.
MikeBoyScout
@6 eyelessgame:
damn! that’s a thing of beauty!
Baud
@eyelessgame:
Pretty much what you said.
piratedan
note to Mr. Romney….
The man you’re running against isn’t a pussy and is probably the most pragmatic dude to hold the Office since LBJ.
While in most cases, money can indeed buy competency but since you’ve sold your principles, soul and integrity, everyone else on your bandwagon is just along for the gravy train following the money.
also too, when you casually fuck over people with such casual cruelty for the sake of making a buck, sometime karma is a bitch that will bite you squarely in the ass…. just sayin.
looking forward to voting against you and all of your ilk in November…
and no, that finger doesn’t mean that I think you’re number one.
Pirate
randiego
This pampered puss has probably never had anyone fight back before. Punch a bully in the nose and watch him cry.
MikeBoyScout
@8 Linda Featheringill:
And the WINGNUTS are apoplectic about that. It’d be irresponsible not to concern troll them about it.
Thoughtcrime
Mittens is having kittens!
owlbear1
“Mitt Romney, he’s even a piss poor liar.
Obama 2012.
Brantl
It’s amazing to me that Romney has coasted this far. I find it difficult to believe that anybody really buys into this crap.
jl
Sitting there whining on TV is what Rush wants him to do.
The wingnuts have told Romney not to give substantive responses, and brave intrepid CEO that he is, looks like he is doing as the wingnuts say.
Win for the wingnuts, I guess.
I like it.
scav
Oh dear, another small brick in the new meme du moment: NYT — Can People as Rich as Romney Escape Taxes? They Can. (shhhh. even contains data.)
cute little echo right there at the end?
geg6
This is the best Willard and the best political operation billions and Swiss bank accounts can buy can come up with? Seriously? Quit hitting me repeatedly in the nuts and help me out with my campaign? The fuck?
This campaign gets more surreal and hilarious every day. I feel like I’ve been eating mushrooms, everything seems like a dream and, simultaneously, the funniest shit I’ve ever seen. And I haven’t eaten mushrooms in 25 or 30 years or so. But I remember the feeling well and this is a lot like that.
jl
And to repeat, I do not think the ad is a low blow, nor a personal attack.
Unless you are rich, these tragic stories are what happen under Romney Hood policies. And I think the average person gets that very well.
LongHairedWeirdo
Um. Maybe I’ll have to re-listen to that ad again sometime, but at no time did I see him blaming Romney or Bain for the death of his wife – only saying that he doesn’t think Romney cares or understands.
In a country that says “let’s put a dope in the White House because more people would like to have a beer with him” I don’t see how this is out of bounds. If you want honest appraisal of the issues, you can’t start by using beer-metrics.
Malkin dissed Kerry for not gobbling a cheese steak (as a Philly native, I found his performance acceptable – he’s not a working class joe, he’s not supposed to eat like one); she has no grounds for whining that she doesn’t like someone playing the same sort of game. Of course, not having grounds never stopped a whiner like her before, but still.
Villago Delenda Est
Popcorn futures continue to skyrocket.
Valdivia
Has anyone done a parody of the ‘Leave Britney Alooooone’ youtube with Mitt? Because this is what his campaign sounds like.
NancyDarling
@eyelessgame: May I copy this and post it on another blog?
Baud
@scav:
Unpossible. The factcheckers assured me that Harry Reid had to be lying. They gave him pinocchios and said his pants were on fire and everything.
Turgidson
Romney 2012:
“Owwwww, stop! No fair!”
somehow I don’t see that being a winning slogan. Even if Romney did have a reason to be upset (and of course he doesn’t), he’s still admitting he’s losing, and only making it worse, by taking to the teevee and whining.
LanceThruster
In the “SHAMBLES” poster, the Willard Mechanism has that look like Sefelt in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”
MCMURPHY – Maybe I’ll just use that thick skull of yours as a batterin’ ram, Sefelt.
SEFELT – Why, my head would just squash like an eggplant, McMurphy.
Steve
I’ll say it again: as lame as Kerry’s response to the Swiftboat attacks was, imagine how much more absurd it would have been for him to say, “Can we just declare my military record off limits?”
Dennis SGMM
The next thing is to determine how fucked up this nation is by seeing how many people vote for Romney anyway.
Turgidson
@LongHairedWeirdo:
Like I said in one of the earlier threads, all these people whining about the Understands Ad were cheering lustily when Bush/Cheney 04 put out an ad inferring that a vote for John Kerry would lead to rabid Muslim terrorist wolves eating your children at night.
And again, they can take their phony outrage and stick it so far up their asses they choke on it.
Martin
@geg6: Yeah, I’m looping past this story a 2nd time and I still cannot believe it. Honestly, all it does is broadcast to Obama that it’s time to twist the knife.
Violet
Mitt Romney is a coward and a bully. He proves it every day.
AA+ Bonds
Holy shit, Fareed Zakaria turns out to be a lickspittle class apologist with no ideas of his own (warning: link goes to the Atlantic Monthly, which is mostly shit)
Valdivia
@Turgidson:
Exactly! and apropos of that, even Rove agrees, it seems.
geg6
@Dennis SGMM:
Oh, 44% at least. Of that I have no doubt.
AA+ Bonds
I hope everyone is at least a little offended that the current Democratic Party has decided to apply a thin smear of truth (capitalism and capitalists quietly murder other people through theft) to its campaign to maintain an enthusiastically bank-friendly Presidency
scav
@Baud: Exactly. The entire Disney Pantheon went up like a fireworks show in San Diego over the sheer unpossiblity of that mean mean man’s statement of rumor. If this starts to metastasize to Wealthy People Other Than Romney and their tax burdens, this election could be All about the Economy in a way the GOPsters didn’t exactly count on in Their Math.
mai naem
Gee, Where was whiny Willard when Princess Snowmethbilly of the Northwoods was calling Obama a commiepinkomarxistsoshulistfascitisterrahreestbabykillerwhitenvykenyanananticolonic? Seriously, this dude is such a WATB. How did he manage to survive in the cutthroat world of high finance? Just STFU and go home. And take Lady Anne and her La Boheme dancing horse she came on with you.
burnspbesq
Wait, what? Romney is complaining about Obama not pulling a super-PAC ad?
One of two things is happening here. Either (1) he is ignorant about the basic requirements of what’s left of our campaign finance laws, or (2) he knows that he himself is violating those laws and assumes Obama is doing the same.
Remember, super-PACs are supposed to be independent of the candidate.
Eric
@Hunter Gathers: Inanimate, i’ll show you inanimate”. (camera moves to pawlenty)
Jay C
“Leave Mitt Alone!!”
Right – I think an awful lot of voters are going to be deciding to do just that come Election Day. Remember how dopey he looked when he made that speech in Detroit to that smattering of people in a corner of a cavernous empty stadium? Why do I think that’s what “Romney For President” Headquarters will look like on the evening of November 6th??
lonesomerobot
@Dennis SGMM: well see, the fucked up thing is they’re not voting FOR Dubya Mitt Rmoney so much as they’re voting against ooga-booga secret Kenyan dog-eating Muslim. This election will be a lot closer than it should be — you know, in post-racial America.
Villago Delenda Est
Well, that’s YOUR campaign, OvenMitt.
Barack Obama is campaigning to win.
Which means that your business record (it is, after all, by your own choice, what you’re running on, not your Governorship of Massachusetts) is fair game.
BTW, asshole, fork over your tax returns. NOW.
Violet
@Valdivia:
Someone sure needs to do this, if it hasn’t already been done. The very thought made me laugh.
jl
@Valdivia:
” Has anyone done a parody of the ‘Leave Britney Alooooone’ youtube with Mitt? Because this is what his campaign sounds like. ”
Some originals cannot be parodied.
And in some ways, Mitt cannot be topped.
I think Mitt’s passive aggressive, hectoring style of whining that he should be left alone is unique, a national treasure, which should not be violated by some mushy parody.
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq:
Projection. It’s what Rethugs do.
Ben Franklin
@AA+ Bonds:
I don’t think the stakes have much to do with honorable, stylistic campaigns. I loved George McGovern, but his campaign failures are not remembered for their integrity.
LanceThruster
@Dennis SGMM:
Between that and election fraud/theft, I worry that it ain’t over till it’s over (and not even then).
A Mittatorship would mean that I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.
cat48
Script to Mitt’s New AD Attacking Prez Character:
SCRIPT: Romney for President Ad, “America Deserves Better”
By Mark Halperin | August 10, 2012
inShare
NARRATOR: “What does it say about a president’s character when his campaign tries to use the tragedy of a woman’s death for political gain? What does it say about a president’s character when he had his campaign raise money for the ad then stood by as his top aides were caught lying about it? Doesn’t America deserve better than a president who will say or do anything to stay in power?”
Read more: http://thepage.time.com/2012/08/10/script-romney-for-president-ad-america-deserves-better/#ixzz23BbDEa3S
Priorities USA Already Has Another AD Out–Testimonial From Another Steel Worker So Obama is on it! No Retreat; No Surrender!
Mike E
Is this an “I am suspending my campaign to focus on the economy” moment for Mitt? This is great news for John McCain!
Valdivia
@Violet:
maybe it could be Jeniffer Rubin on the video all crying telling us to live her Mittens alone :)
@jl: but you do have a point. He is the embodiment of passive aggressiveness, a trait I despise in people which is probably why i hate him with the passion of a thousand burning suns.
Turgidson
@Violet:
This. Also a Downfall parody.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Villago Delenda Est:
Well, I for one am confident that Chuck Todd hit the multiple absurdities of that word salad like a hawk on a wounded rabbit.
eyelessgame
@NancyDarling: Yes, go ahead – I shamelessly stole the individual bits from other comments on the last couple threads here, so it’s not like it’s all mine anyway. But yes!
Turgidson
@cat48:
I think the audience will be reminded more of Romney than Obama with the “oooh character, and lying is bad!” line of thought.
burnspbesq
@AA+ Bonds:
Holy shit: AA+ is playing fast and loose with reality!
Bago
His sense of entitlement burns so brightly that NASA has to turn all of the telescopes away.
His entitlement is so large it needs multiple houses, just to support it.
His entitlement is so tall, the Curiosity rover has to drive around it.
patrick II
As a part of the GM/Chrysler bailout, pension fund money for retiree health care was traded to the company for equity in the car companies. In an op-ed piece written under Romney’s signature, he complained that the pension fund (which he framed as “union cronies”) should have been stiffed and Wall Street banks paid off first. If people get seriously ill and don’t have health care they die. The money was owed to the employees for the work they had done. There is no ambiguity about Mitt’s position that money owed for a person’s labor is fair game to be taken as profit when possible.
To Mitt people who work are overhead and profit opportunities — the loss of profit due to illness is just one more expense to be avoided, and the person who actually dies as a consequence of that avoidance need not be mourned or talked about for her only real contribution can only be to the bottom line.
LanceThruster
@Ben Franklin:
I only learned about some of that dynamic recently.
from: http://bookpage.com/review/the-wild-blue/journey-into-the-wild-blue-yonder-with-wwii-pilot-george-mcgovern
Villago Delenda Est
@cat48:
Gawd, that’s pathetic.
I’m going to enjoy dancing on this idiots corpse in November.
jl
@Valdivia: You do know that I am an economist, right? Not saying you’re getting into sensitive territory there, just saying.
Dennis SGMM
@geg6: @lonesomerobot:
As someone whose family has shed blood for this outfit since 1775, words can not express my sorrow at what it’s become.
Valdivia
@jl:
wait. are economists known to be passive aggressive? /makes note to self. ;)
tulip
@Dennis SGMM:
this.
It makes me want to cry. And that is no lie.
Dee Loralei
@eyelessgame: Brilliant! Man you guys have been amazing today! YAY BJ crew!
lonesomerobot
@Dennis SGMM: for me, it’s the profound disappointment in relatives or people I’ve been friends with for years who damn well should know better.
Baud
@cat48:
And when that doesn’t work, Romney’s going to have no choice but to go full ni-CLANG.
jefft452
“I do not think Mitt Romney realizes what he’s done to anyone, and furthermore I do not think Mitt Romney is concerned.”
Conservatives respond that the plant didn’t close till after Romney left Bain, Its not Romneys fault that after the plant closed the only job a 50 year old factory worker could get was a minimum wage job with no benefits. They should have borrowed money from their parents to start a new business, or they could have bought insurance with the lavish 15 grand a year they were pulling in. Besides, Bain just turned a middle class family into a working poor family, he didn’t actually give the woman cancer
Proving that conservatives – do not realize what “job creators” have done to anyone, and furthermore are not concerned.
Davis X. Machina
@Dennis SGMM: Take the fundamental depravity of mankind, and the points. The FDoM doesn’t always win — if it did we’d have already blown up the planet. But it always covers the spread.
No one makes money betting against the Vegas line, and St. Augustine, and John Calvin.
LanceThruster
@Dennis SGMM:
— The story goes that Benjamin Franklin was approached by a woman as he left the Constitutional Convention –
She asked:
“What have you given us?”
Franklin is said to have replied:
“A republic, if you can keep it.” —
Turns out that was a pretty big if.
Patricia Kayden
@cat48: AMEN.
Kick them when they’re down!
Violet
@Baud: Can you imagine if Romney or one of his staff or surrogates slips up and actually says ni-CLANG for reals? I mean the real word. I can see it happening, but I can’t imagine what might happen afterwards. Who would denounce him (or her)? Who would support him? What would happen?
Ben Franklin
@LanceThruster:
Yeah. He was a hero in multiples. If you like to read, get a copy of Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail.===Hunter S. Thompson
Brian R.
Cry for me, Mitt. Fucking cry.
Drum and all the other liberal thumb-suckers can eat it.
Steeplejack (phone)
@burnspbesq:
Excellent point!
Dennis SGMM
@Davis X. Machina:
Aw shit. The damage done by those last two just goes on and on and on…
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
Remember when Obama got hit with the Jeremiah Wright tapes and he totally said that was way off base and below the belt and pleaded with righties to let it drop even though he could have written and delivered a sober, kick-ass speech about race in America if he’d wanted to?
Yeah, that’s when I knew he was gonna lose to McCain.
Ben Franklin
@burnspbesq:
Purely as a posteriori experimentation; try to make a comment of substance wherein the schadenfreude button is muted..
LanceThruster
@Ben Franklin: It’s one I haven’t read. Thx for the rec.
Baud
@Violet:
The only thing the Republican establishment understands about equality and civil rights is that you do not say the N-word publicly. Once that rule goes, we’ll be in uncharted territory.
Linda Featheringill
“Our campaign would be — helped immensely . . .”
Why would we want to help your campaign, immensely or otherwise?
Steve
@cat48: It was unclear to me whether this is the script for a whiny ad that Romney has actually made, or the script for a whiny ad that Halperin thinks Romney should make.
Either way, I’m certain that tut-tutting Obama for his negative ads will sweep Romney to VICTORY! just like with Hillary and her “shame on you” message.
Davis X. Machina
@Dennis SGMM: They named what they saw — but it was already out there. The damage they did came from grounding a moral theology in it.
But it’s like the speed of light. The fundamental depravity of mankind is a constant.
JGabriel
The Hill:
Given that Romney continues to ignore that the Obama campaign can’t pull the ad because they can’t co-ordinate with the Super-PAC airing it, can we assume that Romney ignores the restrictions about co-ordinating with his own Super-PACs?
I think we can. At the very least, it would be irresponsible not to speculate.
.
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud:
If it happens, it will happen after Sir Mittens’ clock is cleaned in the first debate.
Some Rmoney operative in the spin room will utter it, imagining it’s under his or her breath, and it will be picked up by a non Villager type actual journalist, and there will be unspeakable hell to pay as a result.
“Sorry about the ‘up yours, nigger’, Sheriff.”
“You will of course have the decency to never tell anyone I said that”
LanceThruster
@Ben Franklin:
The level of integrity that Sen. McGovern possessed is exemplified in this story —
http://liverputty.blogspot.com/2008/08/george-mcgovern-as-b-24-pilot.html
Former Gov. Mittens…not so much.
hoppipolla
@Bago: “so tall you can’t over it/so wide you you can’t get around it/if you make your bed in heaven it’s there/if you make your bed in hell it’s there/it’s everywhere!/help me somebody!”
Mitt, contemplating the albatross that is his storied business career, appeals to his advisers.
karen marie
@AA+ Bonds: Are you kidding? I thought it was common knowledge that Fareed Zakaria is “a lickspittle class apologist with no ideas of his own.” That’s always how I’ve understood him.
LanceThruster
@JGabriel:
Jeez, JG, rules are for the little people (and the Ni-Clangs), doncha know?
Captain C
@geg6: Mittens’ mushroom samba.
Linda Featheringill
The ad, “Understands” apparently has never been aired. It is, however, up on youtube and various news shows. I guess no money has been spent on dissemination of the ad.
The youtube video has had over a half million hits.
Steeplejack
@Imani Gandy (ABL):
Cool! The
targetthing is working.Jay in Oregon
@Violet:
“Both sides disagree”?
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
Also, too, may I just say that this news has totally fecked up the rest of my work day? How can I be expected to concentrate on frikken spreadsheets when there’s so much hilarity afoot and the siren call of the Rachel Maddow Show beckons?
Dennis SGMM
@LanceThruster:
A neighbor of mine, now deceased, was also a WWII bomber pilot. He and I spoke often and he never mentioned his service until the day that a restored B24 Liberator bomber flew over. I mentioned that I loved the sound of those big radial engines in chorus and that I thought that the Liberator was an under rated aircraft. “It was,” he said, “But that Davis wing was hard to get used to.” Turned out that he was one of the pilots who managed to bring his aircraft back from the Ploesti raid.
Violet
@Villago Delenda Est: I can’t imagine the fallout. I know the one rule is that Republicans can’t say the n-word out loud, but if someone breaks it….what will happen? Will African-Americans be accused of being whiners? Will Very Serious Persons decide it’s time to have a Serious Discussion about whether people can or can’t use the word? Will Mitt’s polling go up or down?
Honestly, I just don’t know.
karen marie
@cat48: I’m going to assume that the claims in Rmoney’s ad are false unless someone can provide a link that the Obama campaign put out the PAC ad and that Obama’s “top aides were caught lying about it.”
The Lodger
@Valdivia: Leave Mittney ALOOOONNNNE!
pseudonymous in nc
It really is “Leave Mittney Alone!” time.
Dennis SGMM
@Violet:
The R’s and the Very Serious People will applaud the use of the n-word because its speaker was acting in the best tradition of Lenny Bruce.
Turgidson
@Violet:
South Park explored this very issue, and according to them, yes, that’s what will happen. Followed by a congressional bill legitimizing it.
The knuckledraggers and their media enablers would probably at least try to move the conversation in that direction, should a niCLANG utterance slip out.
Steve
@LanceThruster: That was a FANTASTIC story. Thanks for linking.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Linda Featheringill:
That is what Politico reported today, it has never been aired on a single tv station (other than being shown during the course of a “OMG this is awful” MSM show so they can all say bad things about it), something that the fuckwits at Morning Joe and everywhere else have neglected to mention. It is on Youtube and nowhere else, and the delicious irony is that before the media started complaining about it, it had 30K views, as you say it now has 500K, Priorities played the MSM for the damn fools they are.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Ben Franklin: Last time I checked, lawyers were explicitly paid to not do that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Huh, just saw a clip of Willard’s “Stop picking on me!” interview, and to his credit, Chuck Todd looked like he was almost physically restraining himself from laughing.
Turgidson
@karen marie:
Greg Sargent (I think) had a post about how Stephanie Cutter and someone else (maybe Gibbs) said they didn’t know anything about the story in Understands, but then someone else in the campaign said the campaign did know. The squishy part is whether Cutter and [other advisor] were speaking for themselves or the campaign when they denied knowledge. So Romney, for once, is arguably NOT lying.
Calouste
Maybe time for a little rewrite of the Smiths’ “Sweet and Tender Hooligan”:
Poor woman
Died of a preventable disease
But that’s OK
Because she was poor and she would have died anyway
DON’T BLAME
The sweet and tender billionaire, billionaire
Because he’ll never, never, never, never, never, never do it again
(not until the next time)
LanceThruster
@Dennis SGMM:
Thx for the 1st person account (love those snippets of history).
Flying Boxcars, weren’t they? There’s that famous airwar footage that has a B-24 wing hit by a friendly bomb as it was out of position and it just drops from the sky like a rock [shudder].
Ben Franklin
@LanceThruster:
Nice piece….thx
AkaDad
Rachel Maddow has a chronicle of Romney’s lies.
Edit: Link not showing up.
Maude
@AkaDad:
Does it come in a boxed set?
Joseph Nobles
@Villago Delenda Est: Maybe Mitt has cornered the market. That would explain all of this.
AkaDad
@Maude:
Lol. With 29 volumes, it could.
Ben Franklin
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
Lawyers are most competent at determining your cash reserves, billing to that number, then dropping you like a hot rock.
karen marie
@Litlebritdifrnt: And it’s about time the Democrats got equal time airing ads without paying. Republicans have been doing it for years.
karen marie
@Turgidson: Or maybe the person who said the campaign knew was mistaken. Also, I have to say, “the campaign” knows nothing, human beings know things. And of course, there is the question of when did they know something, and in what context.
But I say, sure, let the Rmoney campaign chase this bullsh7t around the block a few more times. Less time for them to tell lies.
MLRjr
@eyelessgame:
WILLIE HORTON! WILLIE HORTON!! Let’s just keep reminding all of Willie Horton! Thank you for this recitation!
MLRjr
@eyelessgame:
WILLIE HORTON! WILLIE HORTON!! Let’s just keep reminding all of Willie Horton! Thank you for this recitation!
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
@Maude: Oh, scorch!
cat48
@Turgidson:
It’s a silly Ad because the Priorities USA Ad that all Media & Mitt are whining about NEVER RAN as a PAID AD ANYWHERE. I’m truly pissed about the Media whining about a Video from a Website & it being portrayed by Media as ab ad Obama ran. The GOP took it to the Media & pushed it & INSISTED they Demand common decency from Obama. The complicit Media. If Priorities had actually ran it as Paid Media for days or weeks, then I might feel differently. It got to them via GOP.
Lojasmo
@burnspbesq:
Clock right twice a day reference submitted.
trollhattan
@owlbear1:
“Mitt Romney, he’s even a piss
poorrich liar.”fxd
Lojasmo
@burnspbesq:
Toes hurting?
cat48
@Steve: It’s Mitt’s Actual ad that is running. I REALLY don’t think the Voters care either. NOBODY even likes him. Just looks like the whiny rich bastard he is.
Turgidson
@karen marie:
Oh yeah, they’re wasting time trying to make a stink about it. As usual, Romney has a record a mile long of pretending not to know what his superPAC is doing one second, then revealing that he’s quite familiar with it a couple seconds later. And no one really cares. They won’t care about this either.
I pointed out that Mittens might be telling the truth for once because it’s such a fucking rare occurrence. Hailey’s comet comes around more frequently than Mittens tells the truth.
ABL
@Valdivia: I aim to please! (sometimes.)
trollhattan
@Dennis SGMM:
Holy crap, Ploesti was an utter disaster.
WWII bomber crews faced awful, awful odds. I wonder how many recall George McGovern received a DFC piloting a B-24 in Europe?
Whoops, beaten to it waaay upthread.
ABL
@eyelessgame: You win all the things.
wrb
@Baud:
In a manly, affiliative green-room gesture just soaked with humility Romney once sidled up to Santorum and whispered, “I too have a vegetable child.”
Dennis SGMM
@trollhattan:
I’m too much of an old SOB myself to feel honored very often. I felt honored talking with that modest man. He mentioned Ploesti in the list of places where he’d flown missions and that only when I asked him about the fifty mission rule. I said the same thing “Holy crap!” when he mentioned Ploesti. All he said was that he’d never seen so much flak.
SiubhanDuinne
@LanceThruster:
What an incredibly moving story. And how lovely that after so many years of anguish, there was release. Wow.
SiubhanDuinne
@Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn:
Hell, I knew at that very moment that Hillary had the nomination in the bag.
Steve
@cat48: I suspect an awful lot of Americans have a recollection of the massive avalanche of negative ads Romney ran in their state during the primary. Little late for him to get all sanctimonious now.
trollhattan
@Dennis SGMM:
Most of the dads in my neighborhood served in WWII, a few in Korea. They never talked about their service and I was too intimidated to ask, now I’m hugely sorry I didn’t. Heck, I only have a sketchy knowledge of my own dad’s service.
We really, really need a visceral understanding of the horrors of full-scale war and the last living folks who experienced it are at life’s end.
kay
Well, Priorities has a new ad up and they actually bought time to air this one, “they used us like scrap steel” (Bain and Romney) so expect more squealing from paid political media and conservatives.
Isn’t Priorities Begala? I always liked him. He’s a better advocate than the rest of the 1990’s Democrats. He seems to be missing the GIANT ego that afflicts that group.
I love that line he used with Rendell: “you’re a good Democrat, well, you’re a Democrat…”
FFredPalakon
@Turgidson:
Romney Downfall’s already been done a few times. I did one, and so did a bunch of other people when the issue was Bain and the tax returns, pre-Harry Reid, “You paid nothing and liked it!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfQKZE7bwQk
WereBear
@kay: September 25, 2008. On Anderson Cooper 360, Paul Begala, after saying “I’m going to get in trouble,” calls President Bush a “high-functioning moron.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfCMHGrs7VU
As it happens, I was watching it live, and I’ll never forget the way the other people around the desk got ashamed and stared down at its surface.
That’s when it crystalized for me, deep down to the bone; they all know, and they pretend not to. The world has truly gone mad.
kay
@WereBear:
Great story. That’s what I like about him. He has something going on behind his eyes. So many of those people are sort of zombie-like.
He seems to reach a tipping point on bullshit. He won’t refer to Rendell as a “good Democrat” because, really, he’s not.
I watched him light into zombie-Matalin on Title X. Apparently she worked on Title X with HW Bush when Bush was in the House and she was sitting there lying her ass off about the program.
He turned to her and just calmly tore her to shreds. She was sputtering mad. Just beautiful to watch.
LanceThruster
@Dennis SGMM:
Maybe one Veterans Day or Memorial Day, BJ can do a thread about some of the stories people have shared with us about their war/combat/military experiences. I never served myself for a number of reasons (which is a story in itself in a way) and I’ve never had any vets treat me with anything but respect knowing this, and upon sharing those tales with them, understood I was no armchair warrior cheering on the horrors they knew firsthand. I know some of the tales many of you in here have shared are incredibly moving.
I am a tall, strapping manly-man, but the McGovern story tends to make me tear up because I am reminded that there are people of such depth and compassion in the world. Mitt Romney often makes me feel like crying because he seems to be the template for a large portion of planet, and that such callousness is the growing norm is disturbing to no end.
Xj27b/6
When it comes time to return fire, SuperPac master Rove might just decide a $200M Rove prosperity fund is the best use of the Crossroads and Prosperity money.
Scorpions are scorpions after all.
Valdivia
@The Lodger:
LOL :)
El Cid
@WereBear: They should have felt glad he said “high functioning” — that’s a gimme in and of itself.
Bobby Thomson
@burnspbesq: For a brief moment I considered the possibility of it being some kind of a trap, perhaps by to lay the groundwork for Romney denying any responsibility for overtly racist SuperPAC ads against Obama. But then, in addition to realizing he already should have that deniability under the law, I remembered that Willard just ain’t that clever.
I think your second hypothesis is more likely with respect to a generic candidate, but Romney’s stupid enough for the first one to be true.
brent
@kay: My favorite Begala moment was when he was arguing, I think it was on Anderson Cooper, with Ari Fleischer about torture. He had finally had enough of Fleischer’s bullshit and he said something like “Look. We executed the Japanese for war crimes for doing exactly this.” and then really loudly “EXECUTED THEM. How do you defend that?” Fleischer was completely flummoxed. Had no reply for like 10 seconds. It was quite a thing.
Jennifer
I’d love to see a very arch response from the president’s campaign team, along the lines of “oh, I do declare, we couldn’t possibly tell this superpac what to do – it would be ILLEGAL for us to coordinate our campaign with them in any way whatsoever.”
In other words, suck it, shitbags. You guys were the ones who thought it would be a great idea to remove any and all restrictions on letting moneybags buy up all the airtime. Sucks to be you when all those billions can’t save your sad sack of a candidate.
JR in WV
@burnspbesq:
My money is on “Both” !!
Just guessin’ but that’s how I read this.