(Tom Toles via GoComics.com)
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Looks like we might actually be at one of those rare windows where, despite the “national narrative is wired for Republicans” bias, the media Villagers decide that the Conventional Wisdom will now be that Mitt Romney is a big old LUZER. He, or his handlers, have teed off the infotainment sector — “Greta Van Susteren wrote, ‘There has been no press access to Governor Romney since we landed in Poland. We (press) are in a holding pattern (I can’t help but feel a bit like the press is a modified petting zoo since we are trapped in a bus while Polish citizens take pictures of us.)'” — while signally failing to impress the politics-as-horse-race wiseguys like Chris Cillizza:
“I find this entire trip borderline lunacy,” said one senior Republican strategist granted anonymity to speak candidly. “Why on earth is he seeking to improve his foreign policy cred when there will not be a single vote cast on that subject?”
Ed Rogers, a longtime Republican operative, was more measured, but acknowledged that the trip was something short of a unqualified success.
“Romney abroad is the same as Romney at home,” said Rogers. “His performance is uneven at times, but overall, pretty good.” Added Rogers: “Let’s face it, Romney can’t win, but Obama can lose.”
I’m sure President Obama’s re-election team is doing its deft best to cement the “Romney can’t win” CW in the impressionable minds of the crucial low-information, bandwagon-jumping voter. Meanwhile, those of us on the Democratic side of the aisle get to enjoy the show. John Cassiday at his New Yorker Rational Irrationality blog:
… The touchdown of Romney’s campaign plane on American soil on Tuesday afternoon brings to a merciful end one of the most star-crossed foreign ventures since June, 1777, when General Burgoyne and his army of redcoats marched out of Quebec and headed for the Hudson Valley. Like Burgoyne’s ill-fated journey, which ended in surrender to the American colonists at the Battle of Saratoga, Romney’s trip was ill-conceived, poorly executed, scarred by miscommunication, and, ultimately, it had the effect of encouraging the enemy.
Fittingly, it ended in farce, with Team Romney being obliged to apologize for a press spokesman shouting “kiss my ass” to reporters, following a wreath-laying ceremony at one of Poland’s most revered sites, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw. Yet as Romney headed for the airport, one of his top strategists, Stuart Stevens, insisted (presumably with a straight face) that the six-day jaunt had been “a great success.” It’s amazing what people will say when they are on the sort of hefty financial retainer that political consultants receive….
Stevens also defended Romney’s fitness to be President, saying, “I think that given his background, his stature, what he’s accomplished, his age, that he is someone that people think is qualified and ready to be president.” His age? When a campaign strategist is reduced to citing how long his man has been alive—sixty-five years—as a reason to vote for him, you know something is terribly amiss…
Matt Miller, a writer so blandly centrist as to be invisible in the room-temperature beige gruel of the Washington Post editorial pool, rises briefly to the top of the ‘most popular’ bar with a neologism:
… Traditional adjectives just won’t do. When Romney thoughtlessly trashed British Olympic preparations, even his allies were left with a sense that modern English wasn’t equal to the occasion. (“It’s unbelievable, it’s beyond human understanding, it’s incomprehensible,” said my Post colleague Charles Krauthammer on Fox News, before adding, “I’m out of adjectives.”)
When Romney says “corporations are people, my friend” or okays the explanation that he “retroactively resigned” from Bain, the mind reels, but the mouth comes up short.
What’s the right new word? “Mitticism” might be a serviceable noun, but it feels quaint and obscure. “Mittgaffe” has a fun ring redolent of “McNugget,” but it still misses. After all, we’re talking about a state of mind, a way of thinking (or not thinking), that goes beyond any single misstep.
No, sometimes only a punchier adjective will do.
I propose “Mitticulous.”
Mitticulous means that what Romney does is thoroughly ridiculous yet in its own way very precise — that is to say, Romney is literally “meticulous” in his inanity…
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Apart from toasting confusion to our enemies, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Wednesday Evening Open Thread: Media Mocks Mitt SlipsPost + Comments (71)