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You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2012 / Open Thread: GOP Stalwarts Dropping (Out) Like Flies

Open Thread: GOP Stalwarts Dropping (Out) Like Flies

by Anne Laurie|  August 22, 20129:41 pm| 52 Comments

This post is in: Election 2012, Republican Stupidity, Romney of the Uncanny Valley

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(Mike Luckovich via GoComics.com)
(h/t commentors Siubhanduinne and SIA, who emailed me separately demanding I use it)
__
Via TPMLivewire, totally non-partisan megachurch Prosperity-Gospel-humper Rick “Saddleback” Warren has cancelled his “presidential forum“:

Citing the negative climate of the current presidential race, Pastor Rick Warren on Wednesday canceled the Civil Forum with President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney originally scheduled to be held this week at his Southern California megachurch, the Orange County Register reports.

Warren’s forum four years ago at Saddle Back Church in Lake Forest, Calif., with Obama and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was widely praised, but the pastor and best-selling author said the tenor of this year’s campaign runs counter to the spirit of the event.

“We created the Civil Forums to promote civility and personal respect between people with major differences,” Warren said in an announcement Wednesday. “The forums are meant to be a place where people of good-will can seriously disagree on significant issues without being disagreeable or resorting to personal attack and name-calling. But that is not the climate of today’s campaign. I’ve never seen more irresponsible personal attacks, mean-spirited slander, and flat-out dishonest attack ads, and I don’t expect that tone to change before the election.”

H/t commentor Lamnh. Some people say that Warren was worried about the risk of identifying Romney as a Mormon in front of God and his nominally-evangelical congregation, but I go with Occam’s Razor: Since the treasure-where-his-heart-is prosperity of Pastor Warren’s gospel lies in the gated community of Republican-friendly stalwarts like Erick Erickson, why risk so public a media airing of Romney’s charisma deficit compared to President Obama? Better to pass on this year’s debacle, and hope that Pastor Huckabee or another of the rising Talibangelical hopefuls doesn’t have too firm a spiritual-publicity grip on Jeb! or Rubio or whoever gets the ( R ) ticket in 2016…

How many cowardly apostates will desert the sinking ship? Charlie Pierce notes “Call Me Cynical“:

I couldn’t help but notice that Ann Romney told Brian Williams that she had experienced a flare-up of her multiple sclerosis last spring and that it had given her “a real scare,” of which, for reasons I decline to go into here, I have absolutely no doubt. (In fact, I’ve wondered from the start if the stress of a presidential campaign really was the best thing for her, but that’s her call and none of my damn business.) However, I am just cynical enough about her husband’s campaign to wonder quite seriously why we’re hearing about it, of all months, this month…

In a month in which the Republican party seems bound and determined never to get a vote from anyone with ovaries ever again, from the one person the campaign has going for it with any women at all, we get this little tidbit over which to empathize for a couple of days. I honestly wish the raw and open dishonesty of her husband’s campaign hadn’t made me so jaded. But then again, the Akin thing happened afterward.

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Reader Interactions

52Comments

  1. 1.

    SIA

    August 22, 2012 at 9:57 pm

    SiubhanDuinne! Our hometown cartoonist gets front paged by AL! (didn’t you just have a b’day?)

    I love the donkey’s expression. Heh.

  2. 2.

    Tara the Antisocial Social Worker

    August 22, 2012 at 9:57 pm

    Ah yes – the oh-so-civil Rick Warren who explicitly equated same-sex marriage with a brother marrying a sister, or an adult marrying a child.

  3. 3.

    WereBear

    August 22, 2012 at 10:04 pm

    The stench of FAIL is like skunk; easy to pick up, very hard to get rid of.

  4. 4.

    arguingwithsignposts

    August 22, 2012 at 10:08 pm

    I’m guessing someone decided they didn’t want to participate in Warren’s little shit show, or put too many demands on the event, and this is Warren’s way of bowing out with a double-barreled both-sides-do-it blast.

  5. 5.

    NotMax

    August 22, 2012 at 10:17 pm

    So he’s admitting to being unwilling or incapable (or both) of exercising guidance and control of programming and running an event he created, held at his own church, and of which he is in charge?

    There’s a word for that.

    It rhymes with Howard.

  6. 6.

    Todd

    August 22, 2012 at 10:19 pm

    @efgoldman:

    There You People go again, picking on poor Anne “You People” Rmoney.
    Her MS and noblesse oblige give her the same right to be First Lady that Mittster has to be President, just… because.

    She reminds me of the depiction of Gus Grissom’s wife in “The Right Stuff”.

  7. 7.

    Mike E

    August 22, 2012 at 10:20 pm

    Yep, these douchehammers are proof that evolution is at work creating better Republicants, every damn day.

  8. 8.

    geg6

    August 22, 2012 at 10:22 pm

    Fuck Rick Warren and, especially, fuck Ann Romney who thinks “those people” like you and me don’t deserve to know who and what she and her piece of shit husband are all about. I don’t usually wish bad things on others, but having a friend who died from MS without the gold-posed medical help that Ann Rmoney has makes me hope she suffers mightily from her disease and that her suffering equals that of my friend, Jill.

  9. 9.

    The Other Chuck

    August 22, 2012 at 10:25 pm

    @NotMax: Scoured? Broward? Deflowered? I’m drawing a blank here :)

  10. 10.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    August 22, 2012 at 10:30 pm

    Raw Story is coming out with a election model that says Romney wins. However before you grab the smelling salts or betting the house and laying the points, the guys running the election model say there are caveats. And also this only goes back to 1980.

  11. 11.

    SiubhanDuinne

    August 22, 2012 at 10:32 pm

    @SIA:

    I know! Proud to be f-p’d with you!

    Yeah, turned 70 a couple of weeks ago. Yours was in July IIRC but I don’t recall the date. Hope you’re well.

  12. 12.

    jl

    August 22, 2012 at 10:38 pm

    Pastor Warren couldn’t be guilty of the sin of bearing false witness, could he? Say it ain’t so.

  13. 13.

    SiubhanDuinne

    August 22, 2012 at 10:39 pm

    @SIA:

    I love the donkey’s expression. Heh.

    I love his feet :-) and the fact that he is unscathed while the heffalump is battered, bruised and bloody. And missing a great chunk out of his ear à la Tyson-Holyfield.

  14. 14.

    lamh35

    August 22, 2012 at 10:39 pm

    Photo of the day! Alright comic book fans, Superman has a new leading lady (in the comics that is..lol). Sound off: What do you think of Superman & Wonder Woman? and where does that leave Lois Lane???

    https://twitter.com/psddluva4evah/status/238435847538618369/photo/1/large

  15. 15.

    NonyNony

    August 22, 2012 at 10:52 pm

    @lamh35:

    What do you think of Superman & Wonder Woman? and where does that leave Lois Lane???

    My initial reaction is “Why is DC comics publishing stories based on second-rate fan fiction ideas?”

    My second reaction was “Oh yeah, their entire business model has been ‘publish second-rate fan fiction’ since the 70s”.

    My third reaction was “Oh hell – if you’re going to publish second-rate fan fiction, why not just have Wonder Woman kissing Lois Lane instead and get it over with. Throw Superman kissing Batman in there and call it a night.”

  16. 16.

    Mnemosyne

    August 22, 2012 at 11:06 pm

    Wanted to make my famous chicken chili for dinner tonight, but I only had one can of tomatoes. So instead I put in the can of tomatoes, a can of chicken broth, and a can of hominy and called it posole.

    It’s still simmering, but the tastes I’ve taken of it so far have been pretty darn good.

  17. 17.

    Calouste

    August 22, 2012 at 11:16 pm

    @Mr Stagger Lee:

    That model doesn’t have a 100% success rate, because it has never been used before to predict an election. It is a model that has been developed recently and that when applied to the past results, matches them. I can give you a model that also matches the results since 1980 and that shows Obama will win. It’s called retrofitting. Whatever journal this is published in should be ashamed of itself.

  18. 18.

    SIA

    August 22, 2012 at 11:19 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: Happy belated birthday! Yes mine was July 12. I’m well, hope you are too!

  19. 19.

    Calouste

    August 22, 2012 at 11:21 pm

    If you or your family are in bad health, don’t run for President, it’s a tough job. If they are and you do, don’t whine about it. And what happens if their situation gets worse during the Presidency? It’s not a job that comes with extended sick leave.

    I thought Edwards should never have run for President in 2008, because his wife had a serious chance of dying of cancer while he would be President. Of course we now know that he didn’t give a shit about her, so it wouldn’t have made much difference.

  20. 20.

    burnspbesq

    August 22, 2012 at 11:25 pm

    It is truly amazing, the shit that suddenly turns up when a soon-to-be college freshman decides to clean up his room.

    I had completely forgetten that I own a FC Basel baseball cap, a souvenir of the month in 2005 when I flew 25,000 miles in 17 days (LA to Basel and Barcelona and back, home long enough to do laundry, and then off to Bangalore).

    T-minus seven days and counting.

  21. 21.

    Bobby Thomson

    August 22, 2012 at 11:27 pm

    Warren is totally ducking the Mormon thing.

    In the Open Thread spirit, I recently discovered my estranged wife’s online dating profiles and it has had a . . . focusing effect on me. Ironically, I’ve sensed recently that she wants to improve our friendship. We had a “moment” a couple of weeks ago. I know that happens every now and then and doesn’t really mean anything.

    And I have a feeling I’ll be up late again tonight.

  22. 22.

    MTiffany

    August 22, 2012 at 11:33 pm

    Just came across this Greenwald piece in the Guardian.

    “The bizarre, unhealthy, blinding media contempt for Julian Assange”

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/22/julian-assange-media-contempt

    Am I late to the prom again?

  23. 23.

    Narcissus

    August 22, 2012 at 11:35 pm

    Didn’t Superman and Wonder Woman already do this once?

  24. 24.

    Roger Moore

    August 22, 2012 at 11:36 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    Wanted to make my famous chicken chili for dinner tonight, but I only had one can of tomatoes.

    What do tomatoes have to do with chili? Chili is supposed to be made with chilies, not tomatoes. If that’s too spicy, use a milder kind of chili, but don’t dilute the flavor with tomatoes.

  25. 25.

    burnspbesq

    August 22, 2012 at 11:38 pm

    @MTiffany:

    I’m having a hard time figuring out what’s unhealthy about contempt for a megalomaniac who thinks he should be above the law.

  26. 26.

    AxelFoley

    August 22, 2012 at 11:42 pm

    @lamh35:

    Photo of the day! Alright comic book fans, Superman has a new leading lady (in the comics that is..lol). Sound off: What do you think of Superman & Wonder Woman? and where does that leave Lois Lane???
    https://twitter.com/psddluva4evah/status/238435847538618369/photo/1/large

    Being a huge Superman fan, this has piqued my interest.

  27. 27.

    burnspbesq

    August 22, 2012 at 11:44 pm

    @MTiffany:

    Yeah, Greenwald is cashing in, just like he has so often accused those with whom he disagrees of doing. Imagine that.

  28. 28.

    Gretchen

    August 22, 2012 at 11:46 pm

    @Calouste:
    Exactly. I’m sorry she has ms, although I wish it gave her empathy for other sick people. But don’t bring it up every time you want a distraction like it’s our fault we’re making you do this. I read that her health was better in Utah than Boston, but he thought he’d have a better shot at being president after being governor of Massachusetts than Utah, so Mass. it was. He cares about her well-being about as much as Edwards cared about his wife’s well-being.

  29. 29.

    Mnemosyne

    August 22, 2012 at 11:50 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    I like tomatoes in my chili. So sue me.

  30. 30.

    burnspbesq

    August 22, 2012 at 11:53 pm

    I loves me some Barry Riholtz. This legend appears at the top of the comments on his blog, The Big Picture.

    Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.

  31. 31.

    Sly

    August 22, 2012 at 11:59 pm

    Both 2008 campaigns were initially interested in a candidates forum conducted by American scientists on science-related issues (Lawrence Krauss was one of the organizers), but backed out at the last minute in order to attend Rick Warren’s “An Evening With Jesus” from which we as a nation learned absolutely nothing, mostly because the majority of the voting public is in the grip of fantastical illusions that are differentiated only by the degree to which they are morally and epistemologically repugnant.

  32. 32.

    Gus

    August 23, 2012 at 12:02 am

    My wife has MS. You wanna talk a real scare, think about losing insurance and paying $35k a year for meds that are now costing $200 a month. That’s pocket change for Mitt, but that’s real money for us. Fortunately for us the insurance provided by my job is good and relatively inexpensive, thanks to a management team that wants to take care of its people.

  33. 33.

    dance around in your bones

    August 23, 2012 at 12:05 am

    Citing the negative climate of the current presidential race, Pastor Rick Warren on Wednesday canceled the Civil Forum

    This strikes me as over-the-top hilarious.

    Also, I had a friend with MS (shit, my SISTER has MS) and neither one could even begin to afford a horse of any kind for ‘therapy’

    Plus, they never bitch and moan about it….I guess because no one in their family (the friend is dead by now, sister is not) is running for Prez.

    Certainly not ME.

  34. 34.

    TheMightyTrowel

    August 23, 2012 at 12:09 am

    @NonyNony:

    Throw Superman kissing Batman in there and call it a night.

    You mean Apollo and Midnighter?

  35. 35.

    Ash Can

    August 23, 2012 at 12:09 am

    That has to be one of the lamest fucking excuses I’ve ever heard. I’d say the charisma-deficit concern is the least of it. Warren has already had this forum discussion with Obama — as noted in the excerpt above it went fine, and Warren knows what to expect from him. So what has changed is obviously Romney, and this weak-ass excuse says loud and clear that Warren thinks Romney will absolutely shit himself in this kind of forum environment.

    As for Ann, I find it ironic that Charles Pierce calls her “the one person the campaign has going for it with any women at all” in light of the fact that I read somewhere today that her speech at the RNC is not going to be televised. D’oh!

  36. 36.

    Bruce S

    August 23, 2012 at 12:10 am

    Apparently the campaigns had declined to participate – this is Rick Warren saving face.

    http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/sarahposner/6319/warren_cancels_forum_obama_romney_declined_to_attend/

  37. 37.

    Wag

    August 23, 2012 at 12:13 am

    @Bobby Thomson:

    Don’t do it.

  38. 38.

    Ash Can

    August 23, 2012 at 12:16 am

    @Bruce S: If this is the case, it’s still a lame statement, but I certainly stand corrected on the reasoning behind it.

  39. 39.

    Platonicspoof

    August 23, 2012 at 12:20 am

    Hi Anne Laurie
    The Charlie Pierce link has an extra h t t p : / /

  40. 40.

    Rick Massimo

    August 23, 2012 at 12:33 am

    So Rick Warren wants to gold a forum to improve the discourse, but now he refuses because he doesn’t like the state of the discourse.

    Hell of a missionary this guy would make: “You want to send me WHERE?!? It’s all HEATHENS there!”

  41. 41.

    Bobby Thomson

    August 23, 2012 at 1:15 am

    @Wag: Some its already have been done and some others doubtless shouldn’t be.

  42. 42.

    Yutsano

    August 23, 2012 at 1:18 am

    @Gretchen: Neurological conditions do better in drier warmer climates. No one is certain of the exact why.

  43. 43.

    The Other Chuck

    August 23, 2012 at 1:30 am

    @AxelFoley: Larry Niven’s take on Superman’s … “romantic problems” is a must-read.

  44. 44.

    Pen

    August 23, 2012 at 1:40 am

    My mother has MS, is on disability retirement, and her insurance refuses to cover her MS meds. Ironically enough that should mean my first-hand experience should make me sympathetic to Romney’s condition. But I’m not a good person and it doesn’t, just reminds me that the rich bitch gets better healthcare than my mother every could and her husband is running on a platform to ensure that fact never changes.

  45. 45.

    bob h

    August 23, 2012 at 6:41 am

    I’m certain Brian didn’t ask her how she felt about her husband killing healthcare for tens of millions while she enjoys the best care money can buy. But someone should.

  46. 46.

    satby

    August 23, 2012 at 6:53 am

    @Pen: Substitute “my sister” instead of mother and everything you just said x10.

  47. 47.

    WereBear

    August 23, 2012 at 7:03 am

    @Yutsano: One theory is more Vitamin D. Aren’t you in Seattle? You should probably supplement.

    I do (living in the Frozen North) and it’s made a world of difference!

    http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/

    It is a complete disgrace that even those with “medical” care don’t have prescription or dental coverage except in the rarest of instances. Just try to be healthy without them sometimes!

  48. 48.

    Shawn in ShowMe

    August 23, 2012 at 8:26 am

    @lamh35:

    John Byrne did this 25 years ago.

    http://comicsworthreading.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/actioncomics600.jpeg

  49. 49.

    Kane

    August 23, 2012 at 10:09 am

    An argument could easily be made that the climate of the current presidential race is rather tame in comparison to the campaign of 2008.

  50. 50.

    flukebucket

    August 23, 2012 at 10:34 am

    Have any of you guys received the right wing forward about Obama keeping power “By Any Means Necessary”?

    Man, talk about projection.

    One part says, “Obama was strangely disengaged from the actual tasks of governing.”

    I laughed out loud. Speaking of disengaged, isn’t it Mitt who is sole owner and share holder and pulling down 6 figures from companies without knowing about anything what is happening at those companies?

    I can well remember when Bill Clinton was going to declare marshall law and keep the Presidency no matter what.

    These fuckers are crazy!

  51. 51.

    Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God

    August 23, 2012 at 10:54 am

    I just remember McCain leaning forward, stammering ‘when… when… when do you ask about the Supreme Court Justices!’ Right, no radio in the limo.

    Oh, and that’s also the moment I realized that offshore oil drilling (‘drill baby drill’) had somehow become an Evangelical concern. Standing Ovation for that one.

    Must been out sick from school when they taught that part of the Bible.

  52. 52.

    Lojasmo

    August 23, 2012 at 6:01 pm

    @WereBear:

    Unlikely to be vitamin D. Adults stop synthesizing it from sun exposure at a pretty young age. Also, it takes significant skin exposure (daily full body exposure to the point of faint pinkness) to make enough.

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