I usually leave the nutpicking to others, but I was wondering who’s defending Romney today. The answer, so far, is the progeny of Erick, Starbursts Lowry and the ever-serious WSJ editorial board. There’s also the cream of Congress:
Only as the criticism mounted did Mr. Romney get some support, mainly from conservative leaders like Senators Jon Kyl of Arizona, Jim DeMint of South Carolina and James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma and Representative Howard P. McKeon of California. Mr. Inhofe attributed the attacks to “President Obama’s failure to lead and his failed foreign policy of appeasement and apology.”
Rudy 9/11 is quoted in that story, too, and he’s on board. Who’s left? Althouse? Check. The moans from NRO’s orgasm at the “Arab Harvest” seem to be obscuring their Romney defense. Other than that, as far as I can tell, not a lot of serious conservatives are standing up for Mitt.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Of course Inhofe is defending Romney. Otherwise that scary Muslim in the White House might take away his god given right to land on top of the lesser people when he flies home.
amk
For all their braggadocio, the thugs are really whiny.
c u n d gulag
So, few people who are running for election this year as Conservatives are supporting Mitt.
But those politicians in comfortable areas, or aren’t running anymore, are lending him some support.
And of course, the Keyboard Kommando propagandist’s are behind this because, well, if they can goad extremists into acts of violence in the world, the one thing they can be sure of, is that their asses will never be in the line of fire.
And, anything for an internet hit, right?
Balconesfault
Rush, of course, was going on and on in a full, impassioned defense of Mitt’s presser yesterday. Because Obama is weak, of course.
Litlebritdifrnt
I posted this in the previous thread but here it is on topic, Romney asked for ten years of tax returns from his VP shortlist candidates.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/13/romney-asked-vp-shortlisters-for-ten-years-of-tax-returns.html
Mark S.
The super competent WSJ editorial board:
Unbelievably stupid.
General Stuck
And the worstest thing of all is the venal stupidity that has now reached a level beyond the reaches of righteous snark. I’ve queued up the Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends on NF instant for a little extra yin to balance the yang. I almost miss Sarah Serendipity, that is most ominous for seeming a more normal grade of wingnut. Holy Smoke!
Handy
“serious conservatives?”
That is so rare these days. I can’t remember the last serious conservative I’ve seen or heard from.
Culture of Truth
I think you’ll see more endorse the ‘Obama is weak’ accusation as days go by, as not tainted by the whole “sympathizing” meme. Still the damage is done, Romney now regarded as less reliable by the Villagers.
Tonal Crow
Seriously crazy conservatives (which are nearly all that now exist) have made “serious” and “conservative” mutually incompatible. Evil clowns all.
—
Romney: Like Sarah Palin, but shoots first and aims later.
dmsilev
@Mark S.:
Fixed.
Also, too, ‘false peace’ is almost a perfect distillation of how neocons regard the state of not-war.
EconWatcher
Yes, I’m sure Obama is terrified of being thrown into that briar patch, to shift to foreign policy. Quaking in his boots. Go for it, Mitt!
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Fixed.
MattF
I’m thinking that this disproves the ‘Many Worlds Interpretation’ of quantum mechanics… If MWI was true, then by now these people should have tunneled out of the here-and-now into their own alternative branch of reality.
Ash Can
@Mark S.: This of course is the same WSJ that pushed for the ouster of the chief executive who presided over one of the biggest economic booms in this country’s history, and castigated France for not happily and unquestioningly following our then-Moron-in-Chief into the Iraq clusterfuck. Intelligence is not the WSJ’s strong suit.
Ann Rynd
Chuck Todd has been citing Laura Ingraham’s support of Romney. Right?
This woman is as close to being nuts as a person can be. She makes Sarah Palin look like Eleanor Roosevelt. She was engaged to Deenish D’Sousa for god’s sake. Have you ever seen him? Yuck! She never married, hates her gay brother, was at Dartmouth during it’s most reactionary years in the eighties and led the homophobic foment there. That’s what you got, Chuck? Ingraham and Limbaugh? Meh!
1badbaba3
The good news for Mitt is that he doesn’t have to suspend his campaign to work on the crisis. It never got started in the first place.
Which I believe is the real crisis – for their side.
Ann Rynd
@Ann Rynd: Not that there’s anything wrong with never marrying. Like me!
Zifnab
@Culture of Truth: Nonsense. If Romney wants the media back, he is always just one etch-a-sketch shake away.
General Stuck
The shitstorm is truly hard to process from being off the known charts for normal loads of bullshit. But if I get this right, Romney and the wingnuts are claiming the Obama Embassy chickens are surrendering cheese monkeys for saying the film by super wingnuts was not a good idea.
And somehow, this is not standing up for American values, which apparently to the nutters, includes Islamophobia film making that is immune from film critics exercising their free speech right whilst being shot at and killed by RPG attacks. Jeebus, I am speechless.
Steve
Someone last night had it right: initially they all hailed the Arab Spring as the flowering of Bush’s freedom agenda, then as soon as they realized the rebels weren’t all great guys, suddenly Obama had responsibility for empowering all these terrorists.
The Ancient Randonneur
Daniel Larison(The whole piece is worth a read, but this is an excellent comparison that I haven’t seen written about elsewhere):
And the same is true for Romney. It may not change a lot of votes but it does speak volumes to his poor judgment.
ChrisNYC
Ugh, the GOP is really just a sideshow anymore. Politically, yay that Romney’s disgustingness yesterday got hit as hard as it did but Americans really need some actual substantive info to grapple with this stuff. It’s gonna take a long time for some new order to be established after the Arab Spring. I’m hoping the President takes this opportunity to explain some basics.
Patricia Kayden
Why didn’t you include McCain? He was on NBC this morning decrying Obama’s poor leadership as the reason for the embassy attacks.
maya
@Ann Rynd: Chuckie is emblematic of the entire Village who see this particular wingnut attack as a way of tightening up the race that was getting tepid. A tightened race means more CU cash being spread around, thus, end year bonuses for all. No different than the war booty bonuses for helping push the Iraq invasion.
Follow the money, has been replaced by, Attract the money.
Cuppa Cabana
Rumsfeld emerged from his lair yesterday and tweeted:
“The attacks on our embassies & diplomats are a result of perceived American weakness. Mitt Romney is right to point that out.”
Donald Rumsfeld @RumsfeldOffice
(And over a thousand flying monkeys retwatted)
Matt McIrvin
All the clowns Romney ran against in the primary, and the wingnut mouthpieces, are going to have his back. But he seems to have actually momentarily shocked the Very Serious People. The interesting thing to watch will be whether they shrug it off.
bluehill
I’ve been reading the Michael Lewis article about Obama in Vanity Fair.
Good article so far. This description of the what’s it like to be the President seems to me to explain why Romney is unfit to be President as evidenced by his latest blunder.
I couldn’t understand how somehow that is supposed to be such a good businessman could be such a poor poker player. If you think you’ve got a winning hand, you try build the pot. Anyways, I wonder if Mitt has that much experience making decisions where the outcomes aren’t already well-defined and the odds aren’t already clearly in his favor.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
People who think Romney Boo Boo is going to be able to make up ground in the debates are going to be very disappointed. Romney will have to repeat his established talking points when asked questions, and his established talking points are non-starters with everyone except his base. Romney can’t do nuance and he can’t change positions so he’s stuck. For example, during the third debate (foreign policy) Romney will be asked about his premature comments regarding Libya and Egypt and he will go back to the same things he said yesterday. And those replies are not going to move the needle in the direction he wants it to go.
Romney Boo Boo’s only hope is that something terrible happens that completely upends the race. That’s why he jumped so fast on the Libya attacks. The man has nothing and I expect his campaign to continue to unravel as he becomes more desperate.
jibeaux
@Mark S.: They’re not going down without a sneer! And shouldn’t the WSJ be able to spell “faux pas” right? Maybe they were thinking of Latin for peace.
Ann Rynd
Tell me if I’m being inappropriate. The ambassador’s funeral, one surmises, will be held in some prominent Washington church. the President, Michelle in black, Hillary and Bill. O and Hillary will speak. Both will be awesome. Mitt and Ann in black, silent in a row back from the front. Maybe George Bush. silent and bored looking.
This will be political no matter how it’s planned not to be.
Cassidy
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: Oooohhhh….maybe we can have a murder/ suicide as the big finish.
Cacti
@Cuppa Cabana:
The solution?
Bomb Iran.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
You misspelled “Witless” in the first word of the thread title.
Villago Delenda Est
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Revelation for me, but not for thee.
Totally unsurprising. Absolutely predictable.
The Obama people are going to pound the sack of shit for this. Bank on it.
catclub
@EconWatcher: The Romney campaign’s laser-like focus on jobs continues.
The Thin Black Duke
Other than the usual suspects of compliant sock puppets and the batshit crazy 27%, everybody else who lives in the Real World saw what would happen if Romney got that 3 a.m. phone call, and it scared them to death. Game over, Mitt.
1badbaba3
@The Ancient Randonneur: It still amazes me how well Obama ran the obstacle course that spring and summer. By the time he got to the home stretch, brotha’ was sylin’ and profilin’. Remarkable balance and an almost preternatural patience and calm. Beat that, hitches.
@Patricia Kayden: Then by his own logic; what the fuck does that mean for Shrub/Vader and 9 motherfuckin’ 11?
Villago Delenda Est
@Zifnab:
The problem is an etch-a-sketch shake will shake up the restless, bloodthirsty base.
OvenMitt is riding a tiger. A very hungry tiger.
catclub
@Cacti: Of course this does have the benefit of being checked during the Bush years,
as has already been done. And the result is no surprise, far more attacks on US embassies and consulates during the Bush years. (NB: The US really should close the consulate in Karachi. But I imagine that is where all the CIA guys sent to Pakistan and Afghanistan are based. Further guess is that that is also the reason it was attacked so often.)
Ann Rynd
What the fuck does American weakness even mean to someone like Rumsfeld? He fucked up Iraq Permanently, permanently. Turned it into a mentally and physically handicapped orphan abandoned and doomed. That”s what he wants from us now right across the region? He’s still delusional.
Villago Delenda Est
@catclub:
Embassies and consulates are always intelligence gathering stations. It’s been an unspoken major mission, if not the primary mission, for them since they were first invented.
Part of the Ambassador’s job is to learn what is going on in his assigned country, to get to know and be able to assess the movers and shakers there. Likewise, much of his staff is there to do the same thing. The trade legation to learn about the local economy’s ebbs and flows, the military attache to make contacts in the high command and find out what he can about the military’s capabilities, the cultural attache to learn about how culture impacts the political lives of the people, what it says about the support of the people for the government, and so forth.
Aaron Baker
My Facebook page response to Ann Althouse, if anyone wants to read it, and even if they don’t:
Can Ann Althouse really be this fucking stupid? Look, Ann: Romney accused the Administration of sympathizing with the attackers, and then of apologizing for our values. This is NOT a contribution to any serious debate about foreign policy. It’s a baseless couple of smears, and nothing more.
“Was it exactly normal, another day on the campaign, chewing through whatever comes up in the news, letting people see how the challenger would differ from the incumbent, who’s stuck handling whatever happens as part of his job? Or was this a specific and important occasion for drawing attention to Obama’s instinctive apologizing for America?”
Ann, try to get this into your box-wine addled brain: Obama has NEVER apologized for America. Nor was there any apology for America in the diplomats’ remarks at the beginning of this crisis; rather there was an assertion of a common American idea (or value, if you prefer): one shouldn’t trash-talk someone else’s
religion.
Really, Ann, aside from applauding and spreading nasty smears when you’re not generating them yourself (Jessica Valenti, anyone?), do you ever do anything worthy of notice? Late last year your Law School lost Jane Larson, a scholar of genuine talent and compassion. Yet you remain–what Homer called “a useless burden on the plowed earth.” More evidence, if anyone needed it, that God doesn’t exist.
Another Halocene Human
@Ann Rynd: Wait wait wait–WHAT? Ingraham was at Dartmouth WITH D’Souza and Coulter?
All of these vile babies hatched at the same nest?
WTH was going ON down there?
I thought it was a normal school. With maybe an abnormal about of undergrad drinking.
I had a friend whose parents were both BC professors. To rebel she went to Dartmouth (only child, they could afford it) and regaled us (her childhood friends) with tales of FRESHMAN drink-til-you-pass out parties on the lawn.
Villago Delenda Est
@Aaron Baker:
Yes.
SATSQ.
Haydnseek
@Ann Rynd: @Ann Rynd: Laura Ingraham was engaged to Dinesh D’Sousa?!? REALLY? That’s scary enough in and of itself, but consider the possibility that they might have produced offspring. Be afraid, be very afraid…
Roger Moore
@Ann Rynd:
We’re not killing enough innocent brown people. To a neocon like Rumsfeld, strength is synonymous with violence, so toning down the violence is proof of weakness.
Roger Moore
@Ann Rynd:
We’re not killing enough innocent brown people. To a neocon like Rumsfeld, strength is synonymous with violence, so toning down the violence is proof of weakness.
Roger Moore
@Ann Rynd:
We’re not killing enough innocent brown people. To a neocon like Rumsfeld, strength is synonymous with violence, so toning down the violence is proof of weakness.
Roger Moore
@Ann Rynd:
We’re not killing enough innocent brown people. To a neocon like Rumsfeld, strength is synonymous with violence, so toning down the violence is proof of weakness.
the Conster
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
It’s Money Boo Boo, but otherwise right on.
Mandalay
@Ann Rynd:
You think it is fair game to judge and attack people for their physical appearance?
From Wikipedia:
In 1997, Ingraham wrote an essay in the Washington Post in which she stated that she changed her views after witnessing “the dignity, fidelity and courage” with which her gay brother Curtis and his late companion coped with AIDS.[8] Ingraham regrets the “callous rhetoric” of her youth, and now supports some legal protections for homosexuals
I’m no fan of Ingraham, but seeing her gay brother’s partner die apparently changed her views on homosexuality. It is pretty small to attack her now for her views in college that she has explicitly denounced.
Haydnseek
@Mandalay: Fine. Her views while in college are now off limits. How about this? She didn’t change her views on homosexuality until she saw her brothers partner DIE? That’s what it takes? Apparently, she would still hate gays if her brothers partner were still alive. I guess rational, logical arguments based on facts aren’t enough to modify her positions. If they were, well she wouldn’t be Laura fucking Ingraham now, would she?
Ruckus
Shouldn’t the title be
Witless for the Defense
Mandalay
@Haydnseek:
So the new criticism of Ingraham is that she didn’t change her views on homosexuality (in 1997) fast enough to meet with your approval?
How do you know that? The nation has come a long way on gay issues in the past fifteen years.
I do not like Laura Ingraham at all, and she still has a long way to go on gay issues, but these specific attacks on her are pretty lame.
Ruckus
@Ruckus:
And of course never the groom, but at least the best man.
Haydnseek
@Mandalay: You yourself stated that she didn’t change her view until she saw him die. The problem wasn’t the speed of her conversion re: homosexuality but the motivation for it, as you well know. You yourself said why she changed her views on homosexuality. I merely reiterated your statement, as it so ably supported my position on with regard to her motivation for changing her views of gay people.
Bubblegum Tate
My favorite wingnuts are backing Romney on this–sticking with his talking points almost verbatim, in fact–even after having their noses rubbed in the fact that their entire outrage is based on a lie. But they mostly just mouth a few “yeah, Romney was right” platitudes (or, as one winger put it, “Romney is the only one articulating the ‘right’ American position”) before they move on to the real point: Gettin’ their hate on!
And, even funnier/pithier:
dj spellchecka
conservative leaders like Senators Jon Kyl of Arizona, Jim DeMint of South Carolina and James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma
well, if you can judge a person by the quality of his critics, our president is in very good shape
Haydnseek
@Mandalay: Oh, and your contention that the nation has come a long way on gay issues in the past fifteen years? Not the part of the nation that Ingraham panders to. Hatred of gays among conservatives has never been more palpable, virulent, and at times murderous, as you surely know as a follower and commenter on this blog. We’re basically on the same side here. I just refuse to give Laura Ingraham credit where I don’t believe it is even remotely due.
Mandalay
@Haydnseek:
Right! Let’s not accept her conversion! Let’s still attack her because the motivation for Ingraham changing her position in 1997 does not meet with your approval!
You are nuttier than her.
Haydnseek
@Mandalay: Look. We’re commenters on a blog. We attack shit ALL THE TIME. It’s one of the main reasons we’re here. Why do we attack the things we do? Because they DON’T MEET WITH OUR APPROVAL! It took a death to get her to change her views. I didn’t know this until YOU BROUGHT IT UP. You can bet your sweet ass that this doesn’t “meet with my approval.” If this is considered nutty in your bubble, I proudly plead guilty as charged.
Mandalay
@Haydnseek:
As with race, there wil always be a group of haters, but the number of gay haters is shrinking fast. Google it.
I completely disagree. The more egregious examples of hatred of gays are easier to publicize and criticize now, and the overall level of hatred is clearly diminishing. The debate has now shifted to whether gays should be allowed to marry.
I don’t want to give Ingraham credit for anything either. But if people post misleading information about her they deserve to be called on it.
Haydnseek
@Mandalay: ;Mandalay, I agree with you completely. If people post misleading information, they do deserve to be called out. That’s why I was careful to only use information about Ingraham that you provided. If this information was misleading in any way, I’m sure it was unintentional. With that, I bid you a very pleasant day.
Jay
Where’s Jenny Rubin in all this? She’s long been Romney’s number one media spinner, right?
Catsy
Holy fucking shitballs, that Redstate thread linked in the OP is a serious fount of irredeemable crazy. Like, living in an alternate universe crazy. Reading it is like reading an alt-history novel where all the names are recognizable but the story revolves around the noble Hitler leading a valiant crusade of European nations against America’s imperial ambitions and ruthless domestic crackdowns.
Triassic Sands
Imagine my shock to discover that Althouse is still a complete idiot. Once dead, brain cells aren’t likely to regenerate and in Althouse’s case, I think she drowned most of her gray matter in wine years ago.
It’s good that her knees are in fine working order — they allow her reflexive idiocy to be repeated without a hitch.
Cartman
It’s nice that Republican Nazis are willing to stand up for my right to speak incendiary truths no matter who it riles.
Republican Nazis are now apparently fans of the bigoted hate film that insulted other’s religion so severely that it may have provoked the murder of Americans.
…
So now that Republican Nazis have set the ground rules for free speech as an absolute right:
Erik Erickson is a Nazi and should join the Nazi clowns that that Nazi Rupert Murdoch has gathered at the Wall Street Journal and FOX.
And we all of course await an apology from Mitt Romney for demanding everyone stop pointing out that Romney is using Nazi Goebbels propaganda with his Big Lies….
That Romney’s Nazi Big Lie strategy most recently lied about any “apology” by America is just more evidence to the fact that Romney is using Nazi Goebbels propaganda tactics.
And note that now that Republicans believe in an absolute right to insult other’s religion, Mormonism is as fair game as the Mormon’s evil bigoted belief that it’s ok to spend Mormon money for political attacks on minorities.
Note that Mormonism was explicitly racist, which means that Romney belonged to an explicitly racist church into his adulthood.
Mormon’s are Nazis is clearly okay to say according to Republicans suddenly profound respect for offensive free speech.
Yup.
Ken_L
Interesting how the very word ‘apology’ seems to drive conservative lunatics into a frenzy. It’s usually coupled with ‘weakness’, demonstrating they find the notions of self-awareness and admission of error to be fundamentally, deeply offensive.