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You are here: Home / Open Threads / On the Subject of Moochers and Grifters

On the Subject of Moochers and Grifters

by Tom Levenson|  September 17, 201210:29 pm| 118 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Republican Stupidity, Romney of the Uncanny Valley

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I believe one or two posts so far have dealt with the Wit and Wisdom of W. Mitt Romney, Man Of The People™.  I’ve got nothing to add to the general hilarity, except to marvel at the fact that he is an allegedly sentient being who has spent seven years of the scant few we are all given on this planet to pursuing one job, and one job only — and that he remains so utterly unaware of self and others as to speak such words, the utterance of which by W. Mitt Romney will forever be remembered.*

Oh, and one thing more:  Mitt “Punch-Me-In-The-Googly-Bits” Romney can talk about moochers and dependency when he pays the same tax rate as yours truly — or that of any number of folks who make up this good community.

Until then, he should shut his festering gob, slink back into his vampire-capitalist den and thank all the pasta that’s holy that we cannot impose a retroactive asshole levy on his dressage horses, his car elevator, and the millions he’s squeezed from his exercises in vulture capitalism.

You may consider this (a) an excuse to post Jim Carrey’s insight into Mitt Romney:

<div align=”center”><iframe width=”420″ height=”315″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/EffPnse4WQs” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe></div>

and (b) an open thread.

*Sometimes I just like to try to write like it’s 1799.  Sue me.

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Reader Interactions

118Comments

  1. 1.

    Bostondreams

    September 17, 2012 at 10:33 pm

    Trying to make some folks have a stroke, hmm? And great sentiments.

  2. 2.

    Maude

    September 17, 2012 at 10:34 pm

    Did you see the presser? Twitter says Romney didn’t look good.
    The chickens are coming home to roost.

  3. 3.

    Bostondreams

    September 17, 2012 at 10:36 pm

    @Maude:

    Couldn’t happen to a, well, I would say nicer guy. Let’s just go with that.

  4. 4.

    Joe Lisboa

    September 17, 2012 at 10:37 pm

    BREAKING: Infamous “Whitey Tape” is Revealed.

    TWIST: It’s of Mitt Romney deriding half of the American citizenry at a $50,000 per plate fundraiser closed to the press.

    Game. Set. Match.

  5. 5.

    lamh35

    September 17, 2012 at 10:38 pm

    @Maude: watched it on Lawerence O’Donnell’s show.

    So now all the “remember Dan Rather” chicken little folks can be quiet. With Romney’s “presser” there is no denial that it was him.

    Lawrence showing the video and Mitts hair is all mussed up and his face was damn near Boehner colored.

    It was NOT a good look.

    Oh and he doubled down on his remarks.

    Zeke Miller ‏@ZekeJMiller
    RT @hollybdc: Romney: “This is the same message i give to people” in public

    ‏@hollybdc
    Romney says his argument wasn’t “elegantly stated” but suggests he stands by the jist of his message in the video

  6. 6.

    Villago Delenda Est

    September 17, 2012 at 10:41 pm

    This is incredible. Rmoney is doing, basically, a slow motion head explosion from Scanners.

    Obama is going to turn him into a puddle of goo during the first debate.

  7. 7.

    Maude

    September 17, 2012 at 10:43 pm

    @lamh35:
    This is the first time in his life he has been confronted with his words.
    The rest of us have had to deal with hardship, he has not.
    He is stupid.

  8. 8.

    MikeJ

    September 17, 2012 at 10:43 pm

    @lamh35: So what did we actually lose by waiting until it was verified?

  9. 9.

    Mark S.

    September 17, 2012 at 10:45 pm

    God damn I missed a ton of shit going to work today! I won’t make that mistake again.

    Jesus, has any candidate ever fucked the chicken this hard before?

  10. 10.

    mtraven

    September 17, 2012 at 10:45 pm

    I propose a toast to whoever took that video. And I really hope it was one of the waitstaff and this becomes a widespread tactic. It may not be as satisfying as peeing in the soup, but it is more politically effective.

  11. 11.

    dmsilev

    September 17, 2012 at 10:45 pm

    @lamh35: It defies belief that he would even hold a press conference like this. It screams “I have to get ahead of this disastrous story before the newspapers are printed”, though of course it’s too late to make a difference for the nightly newscasts. And since the only thing he said was “I didn’t phrase things well”, you’d think that an email blast would have worked just as well and not carried the stench of desperation with it.

  12. 12.

    beltane

    September 17, 2012 at 10:47 pm

    @Mark S.: What did the chicken do to deserve all this? Even Seamus had it easier than the chicken.

    We really do need to see Mitt’s tax returns. When will they be forthcoming?

  13. 13.

    arguingwithsignposts

    September 17, 2012 at 10:47 pm

    @dmsilev: Yes, and now he’s given them a visual to go along with the desperation.

  14. 14.

    22over7

    September 17, 2012 at 10:47 pm

    @mtraven:

    Someone downthread suggested that, by the angle of the video, it could have been a bartender. I thought so too.

  15. 15.

    geg6

    September 17, 2012 at 10:48 pm

    @Maude:

    THIS. Never once in this guy’s life has he ever had to justify himself. Never. He’s totally freaking out, especially if The Hair is mussed.

  16. 16.

    Ira-NY

    September 17, 2012 at 10:52 pm

    How can they put him on at 10:20 ESDT? Who is running this campaign, Moe, Larry or Curly?

    This is just unbelievable. Much more and they will yank Mitt and replace with Alan Keyes.

  17. 17.

    Maude

    September 17, 2012 at 10:53 pm

    @arguingwithsignposts:
    The Republicans deserve every bit of this. Mean bastids.

  18. 18.

    Mark S.

    September 17, 2012 at 10:57 pm

    Along with all of the other idiotic statements that will ensure he doesn’t win, I especially like Mitt’s insistence that “I have inherited nothing.”

  19. 19.

    Hill Dweller

    September 17, 2012 at 10:58 pm

    I didn’t see it, but if the Twitter machine is right, this is Willard’s second disastrous press conference in a week.

  20. 20.

    Irving

    September 17, 2012 at 10:58 pm

    @Ira-NY: isn’t it obvious? He decided to go out right now. He really is micromanaging the campaign, FSM help him.

  21. 21.

    CaseyL

    September 17, 2012 at 10:58 pm

    One of the central tenets of Mormonism is that, in the afterlife, the best/most faithful Mormons get a planet of their very own to be God of.

    It’s an absolute dead cinch that one reason Romney wants to be President is as a test run for future godhood. That’s how he’d govern: as a future deity.

    His remarks today, egregious and disgusting as they are, become even more so when you consider that the indifference and contempt he displays is something he considers appropriate to godhood.

  22. 22.

    rikyrah

    September 17, 2012 at 11:02 pm

    Ari Melber ✔@AriMelber

    Romney: If Hispanic voters become “as committed” to Dems as African Americans, “we’re in trouble as a party and, I think, as a nation.”

  23. 23.

    arguingwithsignposts

    September 17, 2012 at 11:02 pm

    I would love to be a fly on the wall in the headquarters of Karl Rove’s Crossroads PAC tonight.

  24. 24.

    Cacti

    September 17, 2012 at 11:03 pm

    The best/worst part of this…

    Romney will give himself and everyone in that room a deficit-financed tax cut.

    But he sneers at “dependent” poors who want things like food, shelter, and medicine.

    Where have you gone Robespierre?

  25. 25.

    Phil

    September 17, 2012 at 11:04 pm

    @CaseyL: right. on. the. money.

  26. 26.

    beltane

    September 17, 2012 at 11:05 pm

    @CaseyL: While it’s nice that Mitt is practicing to be the evil tyrant of his own personal planet, I prefer the future that ye olde traditional Christianity would have in store for him which is that he would spend eternity as Satan’s chew toy.

  27. 27.

    angelfoot

    September 17, 2012 at 11:06 pm

    “—and that he remains so utterly unaware of self and others as to speak such words…”

    Oh, he knew exactly what he was saying and who he was saying it to.

  28. 28.

    Maude

    September 17, 2012 at 11:06 pm

    @rikyrah:
    Romney just better pay attention to his own troubles. We, as a nation are just fine watching him skitter across the stage. The Republicans harmed a lot of people.
    We would be in trouble if there were 99% Mitts running around.

  29. 29.

    ? Martin

    September 17, 2012 at 11:08 pm

    @rikyrah:

    Romney: If Hispanic voters become “as committed” to Dems as African Americans, “we’re in trouble as a party and, I think, as a nation.”

    Poor things, the promise of an aryan nation keeps slipping through their fingers.

  30. 30.

    mai naem

    September 17, 2012 at 11:11 pm

    So what’s the Halperin/Heilemann book out of this campaign going to be called?

    The Imploding MBA
    The Exploding Elephant
    Every Which Way But Win
    The Bad,Dumb and Ugly
    Marathon Men in a Triathlon World

  31. 31.

    geg6

    September 17, 2012 at 11:11 pm

    @Hill Dweller:

    This is much worse than the last one. Much worse. For one, the timing indicates complete and utter panic. Second, he looked an absolute mess. Really. Like they rolled him out of bed after a bad night of drinking tequila shots. And third, he walked out after taking a couple of questions. Roger Simon is tweeting derision. When you’ve lost Politico…

  32. 32.

    angelfoot

    September 17, 2012 at 11:13 pm

    The beautiful thing is he will be forced to double down on every vile word.

  33. 33.

    mai naem

    September 17, 2012 at 11:13 pm

    @arguingwithsignposts: Nah, you wouldn’t want to be a fly at Crossroads. Trust me, you would be dead because everybody’s banging heads on whatever walls are available.

  34. 34.

    MikeJ

    September 17, 2012 at 11:14 pm

    @mai naem:

    So what’s the Halperin/Heilemann book out of this campaign going to be called?

    “How the black guy was totally unfair and stole the election from the guy who was universally loved. “

  35. 35.

    Dennis SGMM

    September 17, 2012 at 11:14 pm

    @CaseyL:

    One of the central tenets of Mormonism is that, in the afterlife, the best/most faithful Mormons get a planet of their very own to be God of.

    If he runs his planet like he runs his campaign it will look just like the surface of the Moon.

  36. 36.

    geg6

    September 17, 2012 at 11:14 pm

    @mai naem:

    I wanna know who will be playing them in the HBO movie. Game Change had some awesome casting. I’ll bet there are campaign operatives shopping their screenplays around as we speak.

  37. 37.

    Tonal Crow

    September 17, 2012 at 11:15 pm

    I think it’s time:

    Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey,
    Kiss Mitt goodbye.

    Goin’ off to drop some more $ into Obama’s kitty. Meeeee-ow!

  38. 38.

    ? Martin

    September 17, 2012 at 11:17 pm

    Hahahahahahaha!

    How Jimmy Carter’s Grandson Helped Leak the Secret Romney Fund-raiser Video

    DON’T FUCK WITH JIMMY CARTER!

  39. 39.

    Maude

    September 17, 2012 at 11:17 pm

    @geg6:
    I vote Johnny Depp as Romney.

  40. 40.

    Joseph Nobles

    September 17, 2012 at 11:17 pm

    Unfortunately the “Obama skipped daily intel meetings, the US was warned about Benghazi violence three days before, and Obama is crapping all over free speech” narrative is impenetrable among the people I’m discussing things with on Facebook. I’ve had a Tennessee cousin wax wroth over the people in the projects loading onto buses to vote to keep their welfare checks coming — and that was two weeks ago.

    What we see here is that Mitt knows his audience. What we can rest assured on is that his audience is getting smaller and smaller.

  41. 41.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    September 17, 2012 at 11:18 pm

    I predict this fiasco will teach the same lesson to the Republicans that Abu Ghraib did: don’t let anyone bring cameras.

  42. 42.

    arguingwithsignposts

    September 17, 2012 at 11:19 pm

    @? Martin: loooooooooool

  43. 43.

    Frank Zappa

    September 17, 2012 at 11:20 pm

    I used to write a lot of songs about people.

    Let’s just get right to it.

    Broken Hearts are for Assholes.

    Because really how can a guy like Mitt feel bad about getting caught telling the truth? Shit occasionally happens even to rich fuckers.

    Anyway this is for all the Republican Party. You must have got what you wanted? Right? Because conservatism can never fail, but it’s followers can fail the idea.

  44. 44.

    Kathy in St. Louis

    September 17, 2012 at 11:22 pm

    Romney’s remarks are very much in keeping with the “venture capitalist” ideal of acquiring a business’ assets. Once you make that acquisition (the citizens of the U.S.), you load it down with debt (raise taxes on the lower level beings to give breaks to the upper level), then you see if your acquistion can sink or swim on its own. If it can great…it becomes a 53 percenter, if notit stays in the 47 percent that are not only totally on their own, but the goverment doesn’t care for or about them anymore.

    That’s how Bain did it, and if it’s good enough for Bain, it should certainly be good enough for all the moochers in the 47%.

  45. 45.

    Tonal Crow

    September 17, 2012 at 11:24 pm

    @Mark S.:

    Jesus, has any candidate ever fucked the chicken this hard before?

    I dunno. Not to Godwin the thread, but there *was* a candidate in another nation who — sometime after assuming office — was not infrequently referred to as “Chicken-Screwer”.

  46. 46.

    MikeJ

    September 17, 2012 at 11:26 pm

    @Dennis SGMM:

    If he runs his planet like he runs his campaign it will look just like the surface of the Moon.

    Biology will teach you that no environment is “good” or “bad”, merely more or less suited for life. The moon is a wonderful place unless humans are involved. I don’t see that as an issue for Romney.

  47. 47.

    LanceThruster

    September 17, 2012 at 11:26 pm

    @? Martin:

    The Goober spawn took it to the Gomer!

    Burn!

  48. 48.

    Emma

    September 17, 2012 at 11:27 pm

    @Joseph Nobles: That’s the thing. They will always believe that because they can’t face the reality they helped build. But as long as the totality slowly dwindles, we can handle it.

  49. 49.

    MariedeGournay

    September 17, 2012 at 11:31 pm

    @? Martin: That is so fucking beautiful.

  50. 50.

    Tonal Crow

    September 17, 2012 at 11:31 pm

    Any guesses on how Bobo will excuse Mitt’s latest hateful blast?

  51. 51.

    LanceThruster

    September 17, 2012 at 11:31 pm

    @Dennis SGMM:

    If I had a chance to interview Mitt, I’d ask him, “Is it true you expect to spend eternity firmly ensconced in Uranus?”

  52. 52.

    Rome Again

    September 17, 2012 at 11:31 pm

    @Joe Lisboa:

    Winner!

  53. 53.

    mai naem

    September 17, 2012 at 11:32 pm

    Timothy Hutton could play Mitt and Gina Bellman with blond hair would be a ringer for Anne and there’s just something delicious about using cast members from Leverage to play in a Romney movie. The younger guy from Leverage could play the Stu Stevens character. Jake Gylenhaal could play Paul Ryan.

  54. 54.

    jwb

    September 17, 2012 at 11:35 pm

    The inevitable Downfall mashup: “Hitler finds out about Romney’s secret video” with special digs at Jennifer Rubin.

  55. 55.

    MaximusNYC

    September 17, 2012 at 11:35 pm

    Jim Carrey basically got his entire schtick from Max Headroom.

  56. 56.

    Tonal Crow

    September 17, 2012 at 11:44 pm

    So let me get this straight. BullMitt thinks it’s terrible that people who work hard jobs for low pay don’t pay any income tax. But he wants to eliminate the capital gains tax, which would mean that many people who don’t work any job at all won’t pay any income tax.

    Hmm.

    I call BullMitt.

  57. 57.

    TS

    September 17, 2012 at 11:49 pm

    Despite admitting that I read a couple of wingnut sites to see what they are saying – when I see this type of comment (often)

    “i am sick of tired of people who cannot afford 1 kid having 5 all on welfare.”

    and know that 10 minutes later the same poster will be ranting elsewhere against birth control and abortion, i wonder
    do they never see the contradictions in their view of society?

  58. 58.

    JeffH

    September 17, 2012 at 11:50 pm

    I love the smell of flop sweat in the evening…

  59. 59.

    mai naem

    September 17, 2012 at 11:50 pm

    KInda OT, Paula Dean had Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter on a cooking show of hers I saw. I don’t know if it was a rerun or recent but she called Jimmy Carter the greatest humanitarian walking earth today which was a pretty cool thing to hear. I just don’t expect white Southerners to be to the left. I just expect all of them to be right wing fundie nutjobs.

  60. 60.

    phoebes-in-santa fe

    September 17, 2012 at 11:52 pm

    @jwb: That was pretty clever.

  61. 61.

    var

    September 17, 2012 at 11:59 pm

    Can someone explain to me why what Mitt Romney said would have any impact on the Villagers? Don’t Bobo and the Mustache and Cohen and Dowd already know that the little people are swarthy and cash their gubmint checks to buy their t-bones on the Galtians’ dime? They are just voting in their economic interest of course.

    It’s not like that Obama fellow insulting the folks that vote in favor of the Villager’s interests – the nerve of him!

  62. 62.

    dance around in your bones

    September 18, 2012 at 12:00 am

    OT, right?

    I just got into trouble for apparently cutting number two grandkid’s bangs too short (they were hanging over his nose)

    I am so ashamed. And I will never take scissors to grandkid’s hair again (well, I guess w/o prior approval).

    But the little fucker needed his Gawd-damned bangs cut. Sue me.

    I will not be ( I forget what I was going to say here too ……..disturbed for getting reamed for cutting the kid’s bangs).

  63. 63.

    Davis X. Machina

    September 18, 2012 at 12:03 am

    @dance around in your bones: How old is the grandkid? It’s a big deal with my 9th grade boys that you should be able to flip your bangs by swinging your head. They were all standing around waiting to get let into home room this morning, flipping their bangs.

    Looks idiotic, like a bunch of ponies beset by flies…. but it’s the fashion.

  64. 64.

    suzanne

    September 18, 2012 at 12:03 am

    @? Martin: I went to a book signing of President Carter’s a couple of years ago. No one was supposed to get near him or say anything to him. However, when I saw him, I accidentally blurted out, “HI!”. He looked right at me, smiled, and said “Hi” right back. One of my favorite moments.

  65. 65.

    dww44

    September 18, 2012 at 12:08 am

    @TS: Thank you for this. I have long wondered if they ever got the irony of ranting against welfare while all the while taking away access to birth control.

  66. 66.

    dance around in your bones

    September 18, 2012 at 12:09 am

    @Davis X. Machina:

    He’s 3 years old, so I don’t think the pony fly thing applies. It’s his parents (surfer types in SoCal) that kinda flipped on me.

    Dang me, dang me, they oughta take a rope and hang me – hahaha!

    heck, it’ll grow back in two weeks.

  67. 67.

    penpen

    September 18, 2012 at 12:11 am

    @Tonal Crow: Well let’s put it this way, Brooks’ column is titled “Thurston Howell Romney” and includes the following:

    This comment suggests a few things. First, it suggests that he really doesn’t know much about the country he inhabits.

    It suggests that Romney doesn’t know much about the culture of America.

    It says that Romney doesn’t know much about the political culture.

    Romney’s comments also reveal that he has lost any sense of the social compact.

    The final thing the comment suggests is that Romney knows nothing about ambition and motivation.

    Personally, I think he’s a kind, decent man who says stupid things because he is pretending to be something he is not — some sort of cartoonish government-hater. But it scarcely matters. He’s running a depressingly inept presidential campaign. Mr. Romney, your entitlement reform ideas are essential, but when will the incompetence stop?

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/opinion/brooks-thurston-howell-romney.html?_r=2

  68. 68.

    PurpleGirl

    September 18, 2012 at 12:12 am

    @mai naem: Carter is on the conservative side but he does believe and really tries to live his beliefs. He has wider vision of the world and of helping people who need help.

  69. 69.

    dww44

    September 18, 2012 at 12:21 am

    @mai naem: As a lifelong white Southerner resident in the same state as she and of her generation, I’d still bet that Ms. Deen is not that much of a liberal. After all, there could well be a certain amount of native son pride on display in her having the Carters on her show. To be fair, I have no idea what her political leanings are and I happen to think it’s all to the good that I don’t.

    FYI, re the Carters, continuing the budget cutting mode, the Republican governor is trying to figure a way to shutter state parks that don’t “pay their way” and the one in Plains is one of them. God, I do so hate Republicans and their policies.

  70. 70.

    Tom Levenson

    September 18, 2012 at 12:22 am

    @penpen: What gets me crazy about Brooks is the way he thinks that what he thinks = what is real. Seriously: what evidence is there that Romney is “a kind, decent man”? We know he was a high school bully; we know he’s been a risk-averse financial guy; we know he lies a lot. We don’t know that he is either kind or decent, having only the word of his immediate family and/or those wholly dependent on him to attest to that possibility.

    But Brooks has pumped Romney, and therefore, because Brooks cannot fail, Romney cannot be seen to be worse than merely inept. Tosser!

    And then there’s the BS with numbers at the top of the column and the claim that Romney’s proposals, whatever they are, are sound approaches to entitlement changes (i.e., Mitt will f**k the poor in a Brooks approved fashion).

    I truly, deeply, loathe David Brooks and all he stands for, in other words…but I will grant you that this is about as complete a repudiation as that damaged little man is capable of, and it is evidence of the scale of the iceberg that has just cut through a dozen watertight compartments in the RMS Romneytanic.

  71. 71.

    Corner Stone

    September 18, 2012 at 12:26 am

    @dance around in your bones: I’m a little particular about my boy’s hair as well.
    That is to say, it doesn’t get cut without me saying aye or nay.

  72. 72.

    dww44

    September 18, 2012 at 12:26 am

    @Tom Levenson: Thanks, Tom. Great comment. Enlightening too. No equivocation from you.

  73. 73.

    penpen

    September 18, 2012 at 12:28 am

    @Tom Levenson: Agreed, while padded with Brooks’ usual fluff and deceptions, I was nonetheless surprised to see such categorical criticisms, which actually undercut the rehabilitation attempt in his concluding paragraph.

  74. 74.

    Suffern ACE

    September 18, 2012 at 12:28 am

    @Tom Levenson: No sexy time scandal with Romney. Also he doesn’t swear in public. That’s the low bar that gets set by brooks.

  75. 75.

    jwb

    September 18, 2012 at 12:28 am

    @suzanne: What kind of book signing is that? Seems weird and un-Carter-like.

  76. 76.

    Corner Stone

    September 18, 2012 at 12:29 am

    @dww44: Meh, her son Bobby is as gay as the beautiful rainbow in a Southern morn.
    She may like some cover from History’s Greatest Monster.

  77. 77.

    ? Martin

    September 18, 2012 at 12:29 am

    @dance around in your bones: Shaggy hair is pretty popular here. Most of my son’s friends (9th grade) fit the pony description. My son looks a bit more like a scrawny little Marine. He’s never been a conformist.

  78. 78.

    Waynski

    September 18, 2012 at 12:30 am

    @Mark S.:

    Jesus, has any candidate ever fucked the chicken this hard before?

    Where’s PETA when you need them? That chicken needs saving.

  79. 79.

    ? Martin

    September 18, 2012 at 12:31 am

    @penpen: Shorter Brooks: Romney is so pathetically out of touch with regular Americans, he wouldn’t even know where to find the salad bar in Applebees.

  80. 80.

    jwb

    September 18, 2012 at 12:33 am

    @Tom Levenson: Brooks is right that Romney is a lousy campaigner. What’s not clear is whether he is a lousy campaigner because he has lousy ideas or he would be a lousy campaigner even if he had good ideas. Romney is also a sociopath, but so is Ryan and Ryan is a much better campaigner with, I think, even worse ideas.

  81. 81.

    TS

    September 18, 2012 at 12:35 am

    @penpen:

    This comment at the nyt seems to cover it

    John McBride Seattle, WA

    Mr. Brooks, Romney’s inept commentary won’t stop because he’s preaching to a Conservative choir and that choir doesn’t want to be told documented realities of modern economic America anymore than they want to hear that somehow Noah missed getting the dinosaurs onto the Ark.

    Take for example your opening:
    “In 1980, about 30 percent of Americans received some form of government benefits. Today, as Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute has pointed out, about 49 percent do.”

    What happened in those 32 years? Well, let’s see, Ronald Reagan, George H. Bush, and George W. Bush quadrupled debt and blamed it all on Democrat unwiilingness to do their bidding.

    Middle class income stagnated and then fell; consumer cost rose, including having, feeding, educating, and housing families; taxes remained constant in terms of overall taxation for the middle class, but fell drastically for the wealthy; total U.S. income and wealth have been sequestered by the smallest percentage of Americans since 1928.

    It gets worse. …

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/opinion/brooks-thurston-howell-romney.html?comments#permid=6

  82. 82.

    Tara the Antisocial Social Worker

    September 18, 2012 at 12:41 am

    Who will be the first right-winger to say that this is good news for Romney because he obviously doesn’t use a teleprompter?

  83. 83.

    feebog

    September 18, 2012 at 12:41 am

    At what point does the Village desert the “horse race” meme and simply go all in on the disaster that is the rMoney campaign? I’m thinking we are close to, or even at the tipping point.

  84. 84.

    dance around in your bones

    September 18, 2012 at 12:41 am

    @Corner Stone:

    I understand that – it’s just that many comments had been made about the need to cut his hair, and since I know how to cut hair, I offered several times (in order to save the $14 to get it cut ‘professionally’). Shit, I’ll never do THAT again. Plus, it was only his bangs.

    @? Martin:

    I realize this – most of the kids around here have the scruffy surfer look – which I think is pretty cute – groms and all that – but really, this kid’s bangs were hanging over his nose.

    I guess as a grandparent, I will have to learn the boundaries….aw, fuck it. From here on out, I will do nothing w/o parental approval. It’s hard when you are living in the same house together – where are the boundaries? Especially when you are in charge of the kids half the day?

    I’m just feeling my way through here.

  85. 85.

    Joel

    September 18, 2012 at 12:44 am

    @mai naem: Paula Deen, not one of my idols stylistically, is truly a self-made person. And she did this after her jerk husband walked out on her and her kids. I recall her doing some stuff with FLOTUS as well. She’s as liberal as they come.

  86. 86.

    Suffern ACE

    September 18, 2012 at 12:44 am

    @penpen: so…is he implying that Romney is not a real American? Is this bizzaro whorld?

  87. 87.

    Mnemosyne

    September 18, 2012 at 12:46 am

    @TS:

    What happened in those 32 years?

    You know what else happened that everyone seems to want to ignore? The Silent Generation and Baby Boomers started retiring and claiming their Social Security and Medicare benefits.

    Simple demographics means that we will have more people on government programs than ever before because we have more people.

  88. 88.

    ? Martin

    September 18, 2012 at 12:50 am

    @jwb:

    Brooks is right that Romney is a lousy campaigner. What’s not clear is whether he is a lousy campaigner because he has lousy ideas or he would be a lousy campaigner even if he had good ideas. Romney is also a sociopath, but so is Ryan and Ryan is a much better campaigner with, I think, even worse ideas.

    I stand by my original thesis: Romney is a bad campaigner because Romney has never been able to drop his guard with the public. For all of his privileges, he’s a Mormon, and he’s not welcome in broader society. He’s worn a mask his whole life, only dropping his guard around other Mormons, and then around rich people. He’s not even comfortable with the GOP base. What he believes we only learn through these moments of candor. The rest is just whatever bullshit lines Actor Romney Candidate is supposed to say to the GOP base, to us, to the country.

    When you can’t be yourself, you become someone else. Romney’s not a sociopath, but he probably is a narcissist. Shares some same traits: lack of empathy, sense of entitlement, using others, unremorseful, liar, unable to view the world from other’s point of view, despises those that don’t admire him (we’re all envious of his success…).

    Look at how he ran Bain. Look at how he’s managing this campaign. Look at the kinds of statements he makes. It’s really hard to keep the public face going when every camera on earth is pointed at you.

  89. 89.

    Corner Stone

    September 18, 2012 at 12:51 am

    @dance around in your bones: Sure, I get it. But I set boundaries for how things happen. I think that makes it easier for every one.
    Other grandma doesn’t like that sometimes. Meh.

  90. 90.

    ? Martin

    September 18, 2012 at 12:59 am

    @dance around in your bones:

    I guess as a grandparent, I will have to learn the boundaries….aw, fuck it. From here on out, I will do nothing w/o parental approval. It’s hard when you are living in the same house together – where are the boundaries? Especially when you are in charge of the kids half the day?

    Yeah, it’s hard. I’ve had some run-ins with both my mom and dad over stuff with the kids. Sometimes we just forget that having been married for 20 years we instinctively know ‘the rules’ and nobody else really has any fucking clue what weird notions we might have in our heads.”You used the blue sponge to clean the table? What the fuck is wrong with you! How could you think that using the blue sponge was a good idea!”

    Yeah, it’s hard. We apologize.

  91. 91.

    trollhattan

    September 18, 2012 at 1:03 am

    Chait has a go at Willard–worth the read.

    Instead the video exposes an authentic Romney as a far more sinister character than I had imagined. Here is the sneering plutocrat, fully in thrall to a series of pernicious myths that are at the heart of the mania that has seized his party. He believes that market incomes in the United States are a perfect reflection of merit. Far from seeing his own privileged upbringing as the private-school educated son of an auto executive-turned-governor as an obvious refutation of that belief, Romney cites his own life, preposterously, as a confirmation of it. (“I have inherited nothing. Everything I earned I earned the old fashioned way.”)

    http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/09/real-romney-is-a-sneering-plutocrat.html

  92. 92.

    dance around in your bones

    September 18, 2012 at 1:03 am

    @Corner Stone:

    Well, I learned today that the hair thing is out of bounds – who knew?

    Like I said, I live with them, so I am still learning.

    I think he looks cute – like a Dutch boy. But I guess that’s just my impression.

    Fuck, life was a lot easier living in the Baja with my husband. No kids, no grandkids, just….easy livin’. But he dead now.

  93. 93.

    TS

    September 18, 2012 at 1:04 am

    @Mnemosyne:

    As a baby boomer (always call myself a “real” boomer, born 10 months after father returned from war) – I think that is only part of the answer. My parent’s generation (WWII veterans) lived much longer than their parents – most were working/middle class folks who lived through the growth of the 50s, 60s but often didn’t put away much for their retirement. My folks were dependent on SS until their deaths a few years ago – for c. 20 years.

    I don’t deny I benefited from those growth years but I do have more of my own resources available for retirement (always providing the investment world as we know it doesn’t completely implode). I’m sure there are others in a similar situation.

    Thus said, I am amazed that anyone thinks needing SS and medicare in retirement is a bad thing. The alternative is the horror story my grandparents and earlier generations lived when they were no longer capable of working. This is the GOP option – let the poor and working classes die early.

  94. 94.

    trollhattan

    September 18, 2012 at 1:08 am

    @dance around in your bones:
    I’m forever seeing toddlers in mullets and modified mohawks and it’s enough to make me know where you’re coming from.

    Thing is, it would be my inlaws who’d give the mullet to my kid, not vice versa. Probably a hunk of pipe in her earlobe for good measure.

  95. 95.

    dance around in your bones

    September 18, 2012 at 1:11 am

    @? Martin:

    Heh, I know about the sponge thing – the green/yellow one is for cleaning the counters, and the blue/floral one is for washing the dishes! Who knew?

    Ok, whatever. It took me a month to distinguish where to put the three boys’ clothes (they are 6, 3 and 2) in the appropriate drawers.

  96. 96.

    penpen

    September 18, 2012 at 1:12 am

    @Suffern ACE: I think even Brooks knows this sort of language is poison for his brand as a reasonable conservative, so he’s half abandoning ship/half staging an intervention. Ok maybe its more like 70/30.

  97. 97.

    ? Martin

    September 18, 2012 at 1:13 am

    @TS: The boomer wave hasn’t really hit. You’re only 66. You’ve barely hit Medicare. The biggest wave is still a few years out.

    I think the bigger problem is that Medicare is paid for by payroll taxes, which have a cap. They’re paid by the middle class, and middle class incomes like yours started going to shit with Reagan. The median income fell off the mean – and guys like Romney took all of the money, and paid nothing in, and left nothing for you to pay in with.

  98. 98.

    burnspbesq

    September 18, 2012 at 1:16 am

    @Tonal Crow:

    Thurston Howell Romney. Unbelievable.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/opinion/brooks-thurston-howell-romney.html?_r=1&hp

  99. 99.

    dance around in your bones

    September 18, 2012 at 1:17 am

    @trollhattan: LOL.

    A kid came over here the other day with a wild Mohawk (prolly 3-4 yrs old?) and all I could say was “Cool ‘do, dude!” (while thinking OMFG!)

  100. 100.

    ? Martin

    September 18, 2012 at 1:18 am

    @dance around in your bones: Heh. You sound exactly like my dad the night we got drunk at the pool and he unloaded on me. He’s walking around on eggshells trying to help, trying to do right, and we’re constantly annoyed that he can’t read our minds. I felt terrible.

    Get your kids drunk and unload on them – worked for us.

  101. 101.

    burnspbesq

    September 18, 2012 at 1:22 am

    @? Martin:

    I think the bigger problem is that Medicare is paid for by payroll taxes, which have a cap

    There’s no cap on the Medicare portion of FICA, only the Social Security portion. It doesn’t show on your pay stub unless you make more than the social security wage base ($110K this year), but if you do, the rate of withholding drops from 5.65 percent to 1.45 percent.

  102. 102.

    dance around in your bones

    September 18, 2012 at 1:26 am

    @? Martin:

    Darlin’ – my kids are drunk(ish) much of the evening – it’s the only way they can cope w/3 kids (boys). They deal with it pretty well.

    It’s ME who’s tryin’ to cope, feeling my way through the kid thing, which I had left several decades ago. I sometimes just feel like I’m too old for this shit.

    Oh well, life is what happens when you’re making other plans, no?

    ETA: I can’t unload on them, I am living on their largesse.

  103. 103.

    TS

    September 18, 2012 at 1:28 am

    @? Martin:

    Maybe – my best earnings/savings came in the Clinton years – died in a very large hole thereafter – which was why I couldn’t help my folks more – and why my kids needed more – but I still think the boomers are blamed for much that has not/will not happen – hopefully I shall live to find out.

  104. 104.

    ? Martin

    September 18, 2012 at 1:29 am

    @dance around in your bones: LOL. I’ve been offering to color my daughters hair pink or blue or something since she was about 5. No, daddy! Can we pierce your ears? No, daddy!

  105. 105.

    MCA1

    September 18, 2012 at 1:32 am

    JHC, he’s lost Bobo?

    I just watched the presser. Romney was oozing desperation like a pus-filled wound. Who’s the guy who asked him the third question, which was basically “How come you say one thing on the campaign trail, and a whole different set of shit behind closed doors?” Give that guy a “Real American Journamalist Award” because he just got Mitt Romney to walk out of a press availability.

    Lawrence O’Donnell’s pushing all the right buttons tonight. He’s just absolutely skewering this guy. “The worst thing any major party candidate for President has ever said.” Wow.

  106. 106.

    ? Martin

    September 18, 2012 at 1:36 am

    @burnspbesq: How did I never know that?! Well, so much for that theory.

  107. 107.

    ? Martin

    September 18, 2012 at 1:39 am

    @dance around in your bones:

    ETA: I can’t unload on them, I am living on their largesse.

    Doesn’t matter. You still deserve to not feel like an outsider, and it’s not like you aren’t trying to pull your weight there. You just need a little understanding from them is all. Sometimes we don’t listen until someone smacks us in the head is all.

  108. 108.

    dance around in your bones

    September 18, 2012 at 1:39 am

    @? Martin:

    When my daughter wanted to color her hair I did it with food coloring – easily washed out, spiky, too!

    Actually, I did that myself a few times back in the 80’s…..caused some consternation in a hotel in Seattle along with my “Eat The Rich” t-shirt.

    Maybe I was a bad mama.

  109. 109.

    burnspbesq

    September 18, 2012 at 1:40 am

    When someone like Rod Dreher writes something like this, it is officially over for Romney:

    And I think about what President Romney, whose idea of America is what Brooks derides as “a country-club fantasy,” would do in office with a Republican Congress behind him. That, plus the foreign policy crew he has on board, raises what is for me a stunning prospect: That boring old Mitt Romney might be a significantly greater risk as president than Barack Obama.

    http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/brooks-on-thurston-howell-romney/

  110. 110.

    DPS

    September 18, 2012 at 1:44 am

    I still don’t see what votes will be moved by this. Any undecided voter out there who enjoys some sort of government-administered benefit will not see themselves as a moocher and won’t think Willard is talking about them. There’s nobody who will be offended by this who isn’t already voting for Obama.

    Can anybody point me to a group of people whose votes will be moved in the Obama direction by this?

  111. 111.

    trollhattan

    September 18, 2012 at 1:46 am

    @burnspbesq: Zounds. Maybe the vessel for peak wingnut is a robot? Sound I’m hearing is the entire Republican machine collapsing under its own improbable weight.

  112. 112.

    ? Martin

    September 18, 2012 at 1:50 am

    @dance around in your bones: I’ve offered with food coloring as well. I may have ruined that though. When I was in college my advisor used to play pranks on me. In return for a fairly nasty one, I broke into his office one night where he kept his pet pure white bunny and colored it a lovely robin’s egg blue with food coloring in a spray bottle.

    I’ve threatened to do the same to my daughters hamster over slights real or perceived.

    Sounds like you were a great mama.

  113. 113.

    dance around in your bones

    September 18, 2012 at 1:55 am

    @? Martin:

    You know, I think they are bending over backwards to make me feel welcome. I just didn’t know the hair thing was so Gawd-damned touchy.

    Live and learn, I guess.

    Breathe in, breathe out. DEEP breaths. I just feel bad that I made a SITUATION, ya know?

    Thanks for your comments and support :)

  114. 114.

    ? Martin

    September 18, 2012 at 1:55 am

    @trollhattan: Yeah, that’s just stunning. I’m not shocked that Drehrer would criticize Romney here because, well, how could you not – but you still back your man in the pages of The American Conservative. To suggest that voting for the Kenyan Usurper, Enemy of Religion, Socialist Abortion Provider would be a better choice, even with a qualifying ‘might’ is simply unbelievable. And ‘significantly greater risk’, no less.

    Unreal.

  115. 115.

    Mnemosyne

    September 18, 2012 at 2:03 am

    @dance around in your bones:

    Parents are weird about hair. My ex-sister-in-law actually had it written into the divorce decree that my brother could not get their two kids’ hair cut without her express permission.

    Not sure why it’s such a battleground, but it is.

  116. 116.

    penpen

    September 18, 2012 at 2:09 am

    @DPS: I know what you’re saying but I think more important than the substance of all these gaffes is that they feed the narrative that Romney is feckless, sketchy and to be blunt, a loser. Americans want to vote for a winner. I’m hoping the debates only make the contrast more clear.

  117. 117.

    dance around in your bones

    September 18, 2012 at 2:43 am

    @Mnemosyne:

    Parents are weird about hair.

    Yes, I have just found that out, to my dismay. Jeebus, this kid’s older brother came home w/a professional haircut that looked like crap to me. Prolly paid megabucks for it, too.

    All I did was trim the middle kid’s bangs, and you’d think I cut off his foreskin (actually, they already did that when he was a baby).

    I can’t go on, I’ll go on.

  118. 118.

    Elliott

    September 18, 2012 at 1:39 pm

    I think you mean “by the utterance of which.”

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