Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

T R E 4 5 O N

Not all heroes wear capes.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

People are complicated. Love is not.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

The willow is too close to the house.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2012 / Early Morning Open Thread: Tree-oompppphhh

Early Morning Open Thread: Tree-oompppphhh

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(Tom Toles via GoComics.com)
__
Best descriptive title award goes to Paul Constant: “Triumph of the Willard“:

Mitt Romney finally got exactly what he wanted tonight. A coming out party. A debutante’s ball. A two-and-a-half-hour long very special episode of This Is Your Life, so the whole world can see just how gosh-darned great Mitt Romney really is. He’s smart, successful, calm, dignified, loving, kind, and, oh, yeah, did we mention humble? Totally humble. And real. Authentic. Human. Honest. Funny. Did we say kind before? Let’s just say kind again, to be sure…

… Mitt should be happy with himself. He didn’t fuck up his speech. He got properly pissed-off at the right parts, even though he stumbled on the humorous parts, looking awkward as he waited for people to laugh. He shouted out to evangelicals with his calls for the banning of abortion and gay marriage.

And he even pulled one of his famous pranks, when he said he’d create twelve million jobs in four years. Twelve million! Can you imagine the roars of laughter in the writers’ room when that number came up?… There was no policy to back up that number, only a 5-point plan involving killing Obamacare, lowering taxes and regulations, cutting the deficit, promoting school vouchers, and drilling for oil on American land. Over half of those things have absolutely nothing to do with small business creating jobs at all in the short term, and would probably re-cripple the economy, Bush-style, in the long term. So, get it? That’s rich. That’s a real knee-slapper. And it was the only policy in the whole speech, aside from a vigorous remounting of the Bush doctrine.

But that doesn’t matter, either. What maters is that Mitt Romney spent eleven hours over three days listening to his enemies sing his praises to the heavens. Gingrich, Santorum—he crushed them all, and made them lavish hosannas upon him after the fact. His whole party rallied around him, and they almost made it feel convincing. Still, nobody likes Mitt Romney. But they will back him now, because they have no choice. They will pretend that they’ve always tolerated his wishy-washiness, his powdery touch, his creepy smile.

And as Romney’s celebration ended and the perfect balloons fell from the ceiling perfectly, I sat there in the Tampa Times Forum looking down at him relishing his moment, and I thought to myself, huh. I guess money really can buy you love.

Concerning the other Big Watercooler Topic of the evening, here’s Erick “Always for Sale, to the Right Bidder” Erickson:

… Now a word on Clint Eastwood.

It was entertaining, but it was weird. Many Democrats are scratching their heads wondering what the heck that was. I’ll tell you what it was. It was the unscripted conversation of an independent voter coming to terms with the end of the Obama love affair.

That speech may not resonate inside the beltway, but it resonates in Ohio and Florida and Wisconsin and other swing states. Clint Eastwood made people comfortable laughing at the President and Joe Biden, the great intellect of the Democratic Party, a smile with a body behind it.

I thought it was bizarre. But as a friend pointed out, lots of politically astute people thought Carly Fiorina’s now infamous demonsheep ad was bizarre and it turned out to resonate with people because the bizarreness and unfamiliarity with what they were seeing made them pay attention.

Clint Eastwood did that and it worked.

Is there an alternate universe inside the gated communities of Atlanta where Carly Fiorina won? Because I’m sure hearing ‘Go ahead and laugh at That Black Man in Our White House, since it’s not like he’s the one in charge now anyways’, was a relief to certain portions of the GOP/Confederate Branch, but if Eastwood’s “old man yells at chair” comedy stylings turn out to be as resonant as the Demon Sheep ad, this is… not good news for John McCain Mitt Romney.

Reader Interactions

77Comments

  3. 3.

    Aimai

    Talk about your alternate universes? That ” kind of like Carly fiorina” has to be the worst post presidential pundit ing since ” other than that, mrs lincoln, how’d you like the play?”

  4. 4.

    amk

    AP

    Social Security. Medicare. Iraq. Afghanistan. Illegal immigration.

    They’re all costly to taxpayers and the next president presumably will have to address them to one degree or another. Yet GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney made no mention of those issues Thursday in his wide-ranging acceptance speech that closed the Republican National Convention.

  5. 5.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    What was America doing last night while RobMe was talking?

    This shouldn’t surprise anyone. Survey says:

    The fourth episode of “Honey Boo Boo” pulled in just shy of 3 million viewers at 10 p.m., according to Nielsen overnight ratings, growing 30 percent from last week’s 2.3 million haul.
    …
    In the demo, “Honey Boo Boo” did even better. The half-hour series’ showing among adults 18-49 bested all other cable outings for the night — coverage of the Republican National Convention, included — to pull a 1.3 rating.

    Honey Boo Boo? Yeah, Honey Boo Boo.

  6. 6.

    amk

    As the Obama campaign heads into its convention next week, Democrats see openings both to fill in unpopular details of Mitt Romney’s agenda left unsaid by Republicans in Tampa this week and to raise new questions about Mr. Romney’s character after widespread criticism of misstatements by him and his running mate, Paul D. Ryan.

    “It’s sort of breathtaking that Paul Ryan made a whole speech about being truthful and making hard choices and yet he never mentioned a single idea of theirs — like turning Medicare into a voucher program, or a new $5 trillion tax cut they can’t pay for,” David Axelrod, President Obama’s chief strategist, said in an interview on Thursday, hours before Mr. Romney’s own acceptance speech. “They’ve spent an entire week not talking about their ideas because they know their ideas are unpopular.”

  7. 7.

    Insomniac

    Someone needs to juxtapose that Half-time in America ad that Clint did with a clip of his weirdness at the RNC. The Half-Time side would say: “This is what Clint did for the Democrats”; the other side: “This is what he did for (or maybe to) the Republicans. Any questions?”

  8. 8.

    JPL

    Former VP Cheney must be proud of Clint’s performance if he remembers his conversation with Leahy. Biden is famous but it was for his BFD which means something totally different.

  9. 9.

    Schlemizel

    What scares me is the Rmoney has to know that unless he actually wins in November (Pasta forbid) THIS is the high point of his useless existence.

    Willard has to know that he has sold his soul, surrendered anything he actually believed in (assuming he ever did believe in anything) twisted himself into knots, had to tolerate being humiliated by his lessers through 2 Presidential election cycles and pissed away millions of his precious money and all he gets out of it is this sad sack party built around him.

    Because he knows that & because he also knows what the numbers are telling us all this fall is going to be so ugly. There won’t be a thing they won’t try, nothing will be beyond the bounds of decency. Given where the GOP is starting from that is quite far I’m afraid.

  10. 10.

    JPL

    @raven: Now that I can stream MSNBC TV, I try to watch Joe but seldom can listen to more that two or three minutes. I am so impressed that you can listen to his drivel.

  11. 11.

    JPL

    @Schlemizel: Depends on the definition of soul. This is a man who thought nothing of emptying pension funds, bankrupting companies and walking away with a wad of cash. I’m afraid because of Dan Senor and John Bolton making foreign policy. That can’t end well.

  13. 13.

    WereBear

    @Schlemizel: Willard has to know that he has sold his soul, surrendered anything he actually believed in (assuming he ever did believe in anything) twisted himself into knots, had to tolerate being humiliated by his lessers through 2 Presidential election cycles and pissed away millions of his precious money and all he gets out of it is this sad sack party built around him.

    Someone like Romney thinks it’s all tricks and lies anyway. No real difference to him?

  14. 14.

    J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford

    I thought Clint Eastwood’s speech was the most accurate representation of what has gone on the last 3.75 years…an angry white man complaining about an imaginary version of Barack Obama.

    The best part was when Eastwood criticized Obama for starting the war in Afghanistan before consulting with the Russians to see if it was a good idea.

  15. 15.

    Calouste

    What maters is that Mitt Romney spent eleven hours over three days listening to his enemies sing his praises to the heavens.

    Funny that, a lot of people seem to have the impression that quite a number of speakers were pitching themselves for 2016, at the cost of mentioning Mitt. Christie being the prime example.

    I thought Mitt fucked up his speech. At least when I watch a major speech and I burst put in laughter every ten seconds or so because the speaker stumbles over his words, and you can predict that because that’s when he comes to the end of the line on the teleprompter, yeah, I think that’s pretty fucked up.

  16. 16.

    Scott

    Poor Clint. I’m sure somewhere right about now he’s trying to remember who talked him into that routine.
    Look, I like Clint. I grew up with him on
    “Rawhide” and in the spaghetti westerns on Saturday afternoons($0.50 cents admission, stay all day!)but that has to be the weirdest goddamn thing I’ve ever seen at a political convention.
    And it may well be the last thing a lot of folks saw on the east coast. Willard didn’t make his appearance til after 11.00 pm, so I imagine lotsa folks were snoozing when Ol’ Dead Eyes made his speech.

  18. 18.

    hep kitty

    None of you front-pagers watched the convention. Whatever happened to live-blogging?

    Oh yeh, the twitterz.

    I suffered through some it, for some reason. Turned on CSPAN this morning and Mitt is talking about how awesome it is to lose your 22.50 and hour job and then have to work 2 jobs and try to spend time with your family and losing your house, and blah, blah, blah.

    Something like that.

  19. 19.

    PeakVT

    @amk: Social Security. Medicare. Iraq. Afghanistan. Illegal immigration.

    Two out of five is a good night at the plate. Here, not so much.

  20. 20.

    matthew frederick

    The Eastwood thing was uncomfortable and sad to watch. I’m still utterly flabbergasted that this is what opened the prime-time all-networks coverage of Romney Night ’12.

    Eastwood’s “speech” bumped the Romney biopic from the prime-time coverage. What terrible judgment on the part of the Romney campaign. Imagine the judgment Team Romney would exercise in the Presidency.

  21. 21.

    hep kitty

    Was this not the most disjointed, fucked up, lame-ass convention in the history of conventions? Or is it just me?

  22. 22.

    Jon Rockoford

    The Rose…

    Here’s a challenge for enterprising journalists and bloggers: The story is bullshit. Investigate.

    The logistics of procuring and placing a rose on a nightstand night after night over decades are terrifying even for the most loving spouse — even if you’re really rich.

    Mitt is a fabulist; Mitt made this story up. How delicious to prove it is as fake as his plan to magically create 12 million jobs in 4 years!

  25. 25.

    Kirbster

    So, for the last three days, Republicans have been trying to persuade moderates that despite their monstrous policies, they themselves are not monsters, and evil really is pretty banal.

  26. 26.

    WereBear

    @hep kitty: No, I think you are completely correct in that assessment.

    I can’t even watch! It’s like seeing someone back from the dentist chewing their own lip off during dinner. For the luvahumanity, make it stop!

  29. 29.

    JPL

    President Obama is an amazing character. What other president started a war ten years before he was in office and closed an automobile plant months before he was in office.
    Maybe he had the same info that Condi and Bush had and didn’t share it before 9/11/01.

  31. 31.

    kd bart

    In true Flags of Our Fathers/Letters from Iwo Jima style, Clint Eastwood will be giving the same speech at the DNC next week but it will be in Japanese.

  33. 33.

    kd bart

    The Republicans could’ve saved a lot of time and money and just gone ahead and nominated a chair instead of Mitt Romney. A chair is more likable and less wooden than Mitt. I mean who doesn’t like a comfortable chair?

  34. 34.

    Dennis SGMM

    @Jon Rockoford:

    Mitt is a fabulist; Mitt made this story up. How delicious to prove it is as fake as his plan to magically create 12 million jobs in 4 years!

    I wasn’t paying much attention K-12, but that seems to add up to creating 250,000 jobs per month. How the hell can someone promise that with a straight face? This economy hasn’t for years now even been able to create the necessary 155K jobs per month let alone another nearly 90K jobs on top of that.

    Did he promise that it would rain fried chicken as well?

  35. 35.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @kd bart: What depressing is realizing that too many bigoted idiots in this country would happily vote for the empty chair than for the Black Guy in the White House.

  36. 36.

    JPL

    @amk: President Obama didn’t reopen all those factories that Mitt shut down. Vote for me the guy who killed the middle class. That’s MItt Romney’s motto.

  37. 37.

    Dennis SGMM

    The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding, and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism, and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.

    -John Steinbeck

  38. 38.

    Both Sides Do It

    What’s with this weird “everyone thinks Biden is the universally recognized Democratic intellect and there’s liberal omerta preventing good honest folk from making fun of him”?

    It seems like if anyone ever gave Erickson a copy of the Onion his incoherent self-pitying response would have such incredible force that he would melt.

    Someone give Erickson a copy of the Onion.

  40. 40.

    hep kitty

    @The Ancient Randonneur: Well, that crossed my mind, of course. I know it was crazy, but not in a clown-show kinda crazy.

    This was a crass, cheesy, horribly orchestrated and written hypocritical display before a bunch of bitter, vengeful creeps, along with really sucky entertainment.

    And in the end, honestly, James Brown?

  41. 41.

    MattF

    Erickson wonders: “How would someone with a brain react to this?” There’s something stirring there, he’s not sure what it is.

  42. 42.

    jibeaux

    Obama spokesman emailed that they were referring all questions on this to Salvador Dali. Holy shit, that’s funny.

  44. 44.

    Applejinx

    another sort of 3 am phone call

    …Hello, Clint? This is Karl.

    Oh, hi, Karl. Uh, this isn’t a great time…

    Yeah, shut up, Clint. Listen- I know what you did. You fucked us, Clint.

    Excuse me, Mr. Rove, I’d prefer to be addressed with the dignity of a man who’s put his reputation on the line for…

    Stow it. You fucked us.

    (sigh) Define ‘us’, Mr Rove.

    You know what I mean. You even ran over and fucked Mitt’s time slot. You know they can’t read that stuff fast. You’re endangering the whole plan for 2016 and beyond…

    Oh, really? So your boy, he isn’t really part of your plans, then, Mr. Rove?

    He can move the Overton window for us. It’s his own fucking money he’s spending. I hope he chokes on it. Our fundraising sucks thanks to his good example.

    Ah, good examples. So, you’re still in there setting good examples for Republicans, Mr. Rove? Keeping things on the straight and narrow?

    What the fuck are you talking about?

    All your wonderful new strategies. Except they’re not new, are they? Are you really what you’d call a conservative, Mr. Rove? Or is it another agenda that you really care about?

    …this is about the blacks, isn’t it? You’re queer for the blacks. You’re too soft for politics.

    Whatever would give you that idea, Mr. Rove?

    Stow it. I’m not stupid. Neither are you. I’ve been watching your movies, Clint.

    Ah. A little ‘Bird’ told you.

    How does it feel to know your greatest performance as a cranky old fuck who gets redemption won’t ever get your precious redemption? You’re a laughing-stock, Clint. They think you’re senile, they think you have Alzheimers, and all the time it’s an act. I watched you drop into character. Enjoy it, you’ll die in it.

    A word of thanks would be nice. You know, for a man who’s given you fine gentlemen his reputation in the sunset of his career.

    Fuck you. It was over the top. You played it to lose. You took a dive.

    Well, then, that gives you two choices, doesn’t it, Mr. Rove? You can gracefully accept the gift you’ve been given, and never tell anyone your truth. You all are getting plenty of practice with that, so it won’t be hard to do. You’ll keep right on with your strategies, but they wear a new face now. I’ll lose my reputation as a man who knows what’s going on, my life work will be tainted, and your plans scuttled.

    …what’s the other choice?

    My reputation becomes one of a man who’s pulled the wildest caper in history- and yours becomes shit.

    … (click)

    (softly) and may God have mercy on your soul…

  48. 48.

    Dennis SGMM

    @raven:
    Got it. Interesting history, to say the least. I never could figure out how food would stay edible after being stored for months in CONEX boxes in an ambient temp well over 100 F. The C-rats name must have been a legacy from another war. Many of us who served at the time that I did were the sons and daughters of WWII and/or Korean war vets.

    Side note; I weighed 185 lbs. when I got to the Delta. When I left I weighed 144. They sent in a bunch of doctors who gave us all physicals and drug tests when our outfit was definitely pulling out. They just split and the only person to fail the drug test was a very religious young man who never took drugs. The day after the doctors left MACV Chinooks (Shithooks) began arriving from Saigon began daily visits with loads of really good hot food. We were so fucked up that we were authorized to travel home in civvies. You should have seen the look on the faces of the Marine MPs at the Long Beach Naval Station when I showed up three days AWOL and dressed in blue jeans and a t-shirt. Bless their snowdrop hearts, one of them read my orders and they just gave me a ride to the getting-out place without another word.

  52. 52.

    Paul

    @J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:

    I thought Clint Eastwood’s speech was the most accurate representation of what has gone on the last 3.75 years…an angry white man complaining about an imaginary version of Barack Obama.

    I think you mean “OLD angry white man”.

    The best part was when Eastwood criticized Obama for starting the war in Afghanistan before consulting with the Russians to see if it was a good idea.

    Like you most Americans I didn’t watch the travesty. But if Mr Eastwood said the above, it seems as if he might have been sent there by the Obama campaign to embarrass Romney.

  53. 53.

    bemused

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    Oh goody, now Noonan has another outlet to dream up gems like Paul Ryan makes Obama look old and tired, Gov. Christie was bodacious and funny and Clint Eastwood was endearing.

  55. 55.

    WereBear

    @Paul: But if Mr Eastwood said the above, it seems as if he might have been sent there by the Obama campaign to embarrass Romney.

    This is why I am so incredibly pleased the the Republican Base is tired of hiding their light under a bushel. They want to tell everyone exactly what they really think!

    I think they should.

  56. 56.

    kd bart

    Clint Eastwood hadn’t shared a scene with something that wooden since his days with Sondra Locke.

  59. 59.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    @matthew frederick:
    “The Eastwood thing was uncomfortable and sad to watch.”

    Damn! I would have tuned in, if I had only known that there would be a “yelling at furniture” segment of the convention!

    Maybe the GOP will make it an regular event at their conventions? With their demographics, sounds like a winner.

  60. 60.

    J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford

    @Paul:

    But if Mr Eastwood said the above, it seems as if he might have been sent there by the Obama campaign to embarrass Romney.

    Transcript:

    “…I know, in the, you were against the war in Iraq and that’s OK. But you thought the war in Afghanistan was OK.

    You know, I mean — you thought that was something worth doing. We didn’t check with the Russians to see how they did there for 10 years.”

  62. 62.

    Paul

    @J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:

    So, he is criticizing Bush for attacking Afghanistan. By the war, a war that probably at least 95% of all Republicans approved of. I still think Obama sent him over there to embarrass Romney.

  63. 63.

    Paul

    @J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:

    So, he is criticizing Bush for attacking Afghanistan. By the war, a war that probably at least 95% of all Republicans approved of. I still think Obama sent him over there to embarrass Romney.

  64. 64.

    xian

    the redstate comments are hilarious. they are so in the bubble they don’t realize Obama is winning this thing.

  66. 66.

    Cacti

    Romney’s got major problems with women voters and people of color in general.

    But an 80-something white dude arguing with a piece of furniture will surely win them over.

  67. 67.

    ...now I try to be amused

    The only way a hypothetical President Romney could create 12 million jobs is if he started World War III (or IV, depending on how you keep count).

    @Schlemizel:

    Because he knows that & because he also knows what the numbers are telling us all this fall is going to be so ugly. There won’t be a thing they won’t try, nothing will be beyond the bounds of decency. Given where the GOP is starting from that is quite far I’m afraid.

    Godwin may strike me dead for this, but I can think of another leader who decided that if he was going to lose, he’d take his entire country down with him.

  68. 68.

    Bulworth

    Started to read the paragraph that was praising Clint’s empty chair, thinking it was written by a real person, not some teabag hack. Imagine my relief to discover the paragraph wasn’t written by a real person, but by that RedState guy. Phew.

  70. 70.

    Surly Duff

    @J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
    Spot on; one of the best comments I have seen today.

    I could not help but think of Grandpa Simpson throughout the whole Eastwood debacle

    “We can’t bust heads like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to tell them stories that don’t go anywhere. Like the time I took the ferry to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe so I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on them. ‘Give me five bees for a quarter’, you’d say. Now where were we, oh ya. The important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn’t have white onions because if the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones.”

  72. 72.

    LABiker

    Hey Ewick, was Clint Eastwood an independent voter who voted for Obama and is now disenchanted? Yeah, sure he is.

  73. 73.

    Ruckus

    @Dennis SGMM:
    I spent March/April 73 working SP/master of arms-transit barracks at NSLB just before I got out. The Marines stationed there that I worked with were a hoot. Working the gate was hilarious when it wasn’t stone boring. Watching the Marines pull over an officers car, search and find drugs… Almost as much fun as getting in a lifers face to stop him from beating up an E2 for burning incense in his room. And then have to discuss with that E2 about being smarter and finding a better place to smoke.

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