Garry Wills, in the NYRB, on Romney’s “trust me, I’m a rich white guy!” ploy:
One of the oldest bits of practical advice in the English language advises people not “to buy a pig in a poke.” It dates from days when there were shortages of meat, and con men sold what purported to be succulent ham or bacon in the form of a piglet wriggling in a poke, or burlap bag. A bargain price was offered on the condition that the poke not be opened. When it was opened, too late for the payment to be called back, the sucker found he had bought a stray dog or large cat, not a pig.
Why would anyone be stupid enough to submit to the condition that he not open a bag and inspect its merchandise before purchasing it? Now we know how dumb Mitt Romney thinks we are. He tells us he has a pig—a reasonable account of his taxes—in his pouch, but he won’t show it to us. Imagine our surprise if, after his election, we get to peek inside the pouch. There would be anger at him for hiding what he was selling us until after we had bought it by voting for him. But we cannot claim that as any excuse. We were obviously buying the unknown. If we do not ask to know, why should he let us? He will even tell us we have no right to look in the bag—that it is his own private pig until we take it off his hands. It is a distraction from the negotiation he is carrying on, which is about buying, not knowing….
It must be terrible for him to keep defying reasonable demands, those that any prospective buyer would make, that other sellers in his position have acceded to readily. Good heavens, unreasonable demands, such as that President Obama should publish his birth certificate once again, have also been met though they are just causing trouble. Romney’s defiance of precedent, public clamor, and even his allies’ concessions can only make sense if the size of the danger outweighs the problems of resistance…
***********
Apart from gearing up to listen for the squeals and other suspicious noises coming out of Tampa, what’s on the agenda for the end of the weekend?
jp7505a
IT would be bad enough if the only ‘poke’ we were buying was his tax return, but there is a poke for tax reform, his budget, what government programs he will cut, his foreign policy, etc, etc, etc. There are enough pigs to fill the meat department at WalMart. The only thing he has been specific about is that he will let BiBi decide if the US will go to war with Iran.
You can’t say that we didn’t see this coming
Maude
Yahoo! news headline: Romney says Obama diving country. Isn’t that rich?
I went to a new doc yesterday. My doc had left the practice. I fired her within three minutes. I was a very unpleasant experience with her.
Need to find a decent GP.
Patricia Kayden
Romney thinks he can buy his way into the Presidency. Not sure if billions of dollars will get him into the White House though. He’s just not likable enough.
As the first commenter pointed out, Romney’s taxes aren’t all voters have to worry about.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
Jeb Bush on why minorities and women just aren’t all that into the GOP: “I’m concerned about it over the long haul for sure. Our demographics are changing and we have to change not necessarily our core beliefs, but how we — the tone of our message and the message and the intensity of it, for sure.”
corrected:
“I’m concerned about it over the long haul for sure. Our demographics are changing and we have to change
not necessarilyour core beliefs,but how we — the tone of our messageand the messageand the intensity of it,for sure.”fixt
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Maude: “Romney says Obama diving country”
Funny, I thought wetsuits were exclusive to GOP pols
Josie
There is an interesting quote in one of the comments following that article:
“In other matters, the President has shown himself to be a master poker player, both in his ability to wait for the time to play his hand, and the way he reveals no hints or tells before he does.”
After reading that, I thought back to other surprises that he has presented to his opponents, and it gave me hope that he might have something in reserve on this.
Smiling Mortician
@Maude:
Is that an actual quote? Because I have no idea what the hell it’s supposed to mean. Maybe he’s saying Obama is good territory for scuba enthusiasts? Or maybe Obama dives country-style?
Josie
Help, Anne Laurie, I am in moderation and I don’t even know why.
dmbeaster
People just need to repeat non-stop that he is a fraud. Why bother with a loopy explanation of what a pig in a poke is? Put your own credibility on the line, call him a fraud, and prove the accusation. The case is made far better with force than lengthy circumlution.
A fraud thrives in part by the increduluity of his targets that no one could be so brazen. Calling him out with vigor is the best disinfectant.
BGinCHI
What Romney’s tax info will reveal, at a minimum, is that he paid far less than the people in the middle class who stand to pay even more — and he less — if he’s elected.
It’s a scam. It’s not even sophisticated enough to be a scheme.
khead
This is in honor of a previous thread.
:)
jake the snake
Selling a pig in a poke must have been a common occurence,
since “letting the cat out of the bag” comes from the same scenario.
BGinCHI
@jake the snake: Sorry, no. Or maybe at least not canonically. The “cat out of the bag” is from the British Navy and refers to the preparations for a flogging (cat-‘o-nine-tails…).
I suppose more than one cat can play at this game though.
mai naem
I cannot stand Anne Romney. I have to admit I didn’t care much for Michelle Obama during the 08 campaign because she seemed like such a liability to Barack but Anne – OMG – I cannot deal with four years of Ann Romney. Total mean girl. I don’t even see what Mitt sees in her.
Villago Delenda Est
WATB OvenMitt is wailing like a banshee about the terrible terrible Obama telling the truth about his craven ass.
Too bad, shitstain.
Dennis SGMM
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
“… Our demographics are changing and we have to change not necessarily our core beliefs, but how we—the tone of our message and the message and the intensity of it, for sure.”
IOW; “We can keep on being assholes, we just have to be more subtle about it.”
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@efgoldman: That’s OK, there are plenty of people here who don’t think it’s knowledge we have to keep active.
My kid saw the yahoo story about how the anti-Obama movie made $6.3M, and he said, “that’s stupid.”
trollhattan
@Smiling Mortician:
He’s diving Miss Daisy?
Oh, just saw the head: That meanie is “dividing America.”
Willard would be fine with it if it went, “That’s one for me, twenty-five million for you…”
PurpleGirl
I’m reading information at the iUniverse site for my typing client. She wants to self-publish a book we’ve been working on. She has written a workbook on how to write a play/screenplay.
urlhix
Our local Saturday night auction house does a “pig in a poke” every week. Basically, an item in a box you aren’t allowed to see. I’m always amazed at the number of people who buy it. They do a big reveal where everyone opens it all at once and it’s usually some shitty silk flowers or dollar store crap that they pay $6+ for. Every week. People are really gullible.
Smiling Mortician
@trollhattan:
Misguided pron title?
Maude
@Smiling Mortician:
I’m tired. dividing. Oops.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Dennis SGMM: that too
Gretchen D
Parade Magazine today described Anne Romney as Mitten’s “radiant wife”!! Ugh.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Smiling Mortician: “Misguided pron title?” I could say the same about the title of this thread. It seems that there’s simply not enough brain bleach to go around. =)
Heliopause
Why would anybody voluntarily watch that sort of thing in this day and age? I mean, regardless of Dem or GOP? There are 8,415 cable/satellite channels. There’s this thing called the internet. You could even read a book made out of dead trees.
Caz
Do you know how tired and lame the “rich white racist” line is by now?? Don’t you idiots have anything better to campaign on? If your party had any ideas other than growing govt and taking over everything to solve every problem in the world, maybe you would have something to support besides just bashing conservatives as racist all the time. It’s lame and people aren’t buying it. What a shallow, dishonest party.
trollhattan
@Smiling Mortician:
Work in a Southern fracking subplot and we’ll green-light that sucker, stat.
“Wah, mistah president, ah don’t recall ordering pizza.”
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Caz: Do you know how tired and lame the “rich white racist”
lineis by now??fixt.
Don’t you idiots have anything better to campaign on?
I’m not sure about the idiots, but Obama can, and has.
Also, you’re a moron, and nobody likes you, but I’m sure you already know that by now.
Have a nice evening.
trollhattan
@Caz:
No, we don’t know how tired you are of the “‘rich white racist'” line. Why don’t you detail your umbrage right here and we’ll form a support group*.
*It will be mockery, but you’ll mistake it for support.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@trollhattan: as an aside, you managed to make the asterisk work as the first character on a line of your post. How?
*when I do it, as I did here, it disappears =( FYWP
ETA: Aha – i guess that was fixed. never mind. and yay.
Suffern ACE
@Dennis SGMM: shorter bush. Our message that you other minorities are aspirational unlike the blacks is getting drown out by our message that we think your presence spells the end of civilization and decency.
Sparrowgal
@Gretchen D:
Nuclear waste is somewhat ‘radiant’, too. Not sure that I want to bathe in its presence, though.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Sparrowgal: oh, you people!
trollhattan
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
The randomness is one thing that keeps me coming back. :-)
And Tunch.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@trollhattan: love tunch! <3 <3 <3 I want to squeeze and squish the tunchness. =)
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@efgoldman: I’ll take an over under that it’s as close to laid as he’s ever been. =)
Anya
@mai naem:
In 08 media tried so hard to portray Michelle Obama as a liability — an angry black woman who’s emasculating her husband. Contrast that with the media trying so hard to convince us that Ann Romney is an asset to her husband. They constantly tell us that she’s Romney campaign’s secret weapon, yet the launch of this secret weapon is a spectacular failure of a North Korean rocket launch proportion.
Heliopause
@Caz:
Sweet Jesus, Juicers are now high-level campaign operatives for Obama! Congrats!
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@efgoldman: I iz teh cat whisperer. I’d take my chances. Although my kitteh Groucho Mugabe would probably rip my face off. He’s the jealous sort.
Fun fact: Staring at tunch is what got him into paying attention to the magical picture box. =)
trollhattan
@efgoldman:
Cole swears he chirps and cuddles, then the Furminator comes out and Cole’s back at the clinic for a transfusion.
Abusive relationships usually require two participants.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@trollhattan: I’ve seen video of the former, but never the latter. Probably because it’s tough to hold a camera while being mauled by a bear-sized critter.
trollhattan
@Anya:
I suspect Ann’s secret weapons are a new horse and some fresh, odd dresses.
Yeah, that’s gonna work. Maybe the boys can put on a musical extolling a 700-ship Navy.
Mnemosyne
@Caz:
Still waiting for you to explain how birthers claiming that Obama wasn’t born in the US despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary is totally not racist. I was out most of the day, so maybe I just missed your explanation?
Joey Maloney
@Smiling Mortician:
How about “The Humper Games”? Shapely teenagers have to fuck each other to death until only one survives.
…just a random thought after being assaulted from all sides by the promotional materials for the DVD release.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Mnemosyne: Umm, I’ll tackle that one. Trust me. I speak fluent wingnut.
Because nobody called Obama a Ni-CLANG! and because it’s true and because shut up!
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Joey Maloney: get a room.
Maude
@Anya:
Where’s the Whitey Tape?
trollhattan
@Maude:
In the Greeny Room?
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: I think he’s just hitting and running again. I blame sexual frustration. And Obama, natch.
Hill Dweller
@Mnemosyne:
Also, too, the welfare lies/ads are blatant race-baiting.
Mike in NC
Is that crappy weekly Parade Magazine published by the LDS church? They put out yet another one today with a slobbering cover story on the odious Rmoney family.
Mnemosyne
FYI — tonight’s season finale of “The Newsroom” is all about voter fraud. I think we know where Sorkin is putting his thumb on the scale. :-)
Ian
@Caz:
Risking the troll bait, but we have plenty of great ideas to campaign on.
Campaign finance. Healthcare for all. Progressive taxation. Quality of life senior pensions. Environmental protection. Universal quality education. Efficient and competent government workers and services. Hell, at this point even just maintaining our post office, FEMA, and FAA have become Democratic positions.
See?
Edit- not to mention Pro-choice, which should have jumped to the top of my mind in recent weeks
Chuck Butcher
@Yutsano:
Mom needed to use the washer and dryer in the basement…
he really didn’t want her to see the homo pron in the other window…
Jennifer
Ummm…sacks of shit don’t wriggle.
Lyrebird
@mai naem: I was the opposite… back in the primaries (in ’07) I was sorta rooting for Edwards, & when Obama came on the scene, I was afraid he was more of the Harold Ford school — milquetoast centrist from the center of the country, but with no real guts.
Then I saw a (youtube of) a speech by Michelle Obama. She was so direct, so honest, and so goldang SMART, I thought okay Mr. Obama: you’ve just risen quite far in my estimation, bc I love men who love smart women! (see also Biden, Joseph…)
Someone could counter with tales of the late and lamented Mrs. Edwards being a poor predictor of her husband’s worth as a candidate, but anyhow, that’s how it went for me.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@Josie:
After reading that, I thought back to other surprises that he has presented to his opponents, and it gave me hope that he might have something in reserve on this.
You know, having him or a convenient proxy just speculating out loud that, as Chief Executive, Obama might have the power to order the IRS to release a person’s tax records if it was “in the public interest” would be enough to cause the wingnuts to screech and whine as if the sky was falling and make Romney look like he has something absolutely hideous to hide to the wider apathetic audience.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Following up on @Phoenician in a time of Romans:
Heh heh heh.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/6103
—-.
(g) Disclosure to President and certain other persons
(1) In general
Upon written request by the President, signed by him personally, the Secretary shall furnish to the President, or to such employee or employees of the White House Office as the President may designate by name in such request, a return or return information with respect to any taxpayer named in such request. Any such request shall state—
(A) the name and address of the taxpayer whose return or return information is to be disclosed,
(B) the kind of return or return information which is to be disclosed,
(C) the taxable period or periods covered by such return or return information, and
(D) the specific reason why the inspection or disclosure is requested.
—-.
Hey, if he doesn’t have anything to hide, he can’t object to Obama using his legal authority to look, can he? Isn’t that the reasoning given for domestic surveillance?