Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The words do not have to be perfect.

We are learning that “working class” means “white” for way too many people.

To the privileged, equality seems like oppression.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

Our messy unity will be our strength.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

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

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Everybody saw this coming.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

I would gladly pay you tuesday for a hamburger today.

There are times when telling just part of the truth is effectively a lie.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2012 / A low bar impossible to cross…

A low bar impossible to cross…

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Fox News was filled with humor on Sunday.

Much has been made of the Paul Ryan interview with Bad-seed Wallace. It had some moments. Like when Zombie-eyes explained how he had no time to explain his plan or when he admitted that tax cuts for the rich were his most important goal.

Good times, but I laughed out loud when the Fox News panel discussed the coming debate, especially when Liz Marlantes of the Christian Science Monitor said this (emphasis added):

But I think Romney could win this debate with one genuinely good human moment, which is something that people have been hungering to see from him throughout this entire campaign. If he could have one moment where he gives voters the sense that he is throwing the talking points out the window and telling them, what he really believes — and it doesn’t matter what the issue is. I just think, you know, he should connect with voters in some way that, that would actually, probably get him a win.

So, all Mittens needs to do is have ONE human moment to win the debate. That is a low bar. And yet, I just don’t see him stepping over it. Do you?

And now an open thread.

Cheers

Reader Interactions

131Comments

  1. 1.

    arguingwithsignposts

    The man has been running for president for what, 7 years now? I’m not seeing it.

  2. 2.

    The Dangerman

    Romney should play to his strengths in trying to connect with voters (i.e. outright bribing them might work; every other human emotion other than blind greed appears to be beyond him).

  4. 4.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @arguingwithsignposts: 7, 20, 60.

    one genuinely good human moment, which is something that people have been hungering to see from him throughout this entire campaign.

    Yes, all across the land, you hear people saying, “I’m hungering for a Mittmoment” I’m sure if he tells that story about writing a will for a sick twelve year old, people will overlook the fact that his entire campaign boils down to “Fuck medicaid, fuck the poors, my 13% tax rate is highway robbery!”

  6. 6.

    Linda Featheringill

    One moment?

    Well, I suspect that Willard is human and has hopes and fears like the rest of us but that’s not enough. I’m human but I’m not qualified to be President of the US.

    It would be gratifying to see Romney come to terms with some truths before his organic brain disorder or some other problem consumes him. Maybe he could understand that you don’t have to be a star to be loved by your wife and tolerated by the rest of your family. That would be good.

    But even a whole self understanding saga wouldn’t erase the picture of Romney as very, very incompetent.

  8. 8.

    jl

    ” But I think Romney could win this debate with one genuinely good human moment ”

    But, very good bet that there will many ‘priceless’ human moments from Romney at the debates. So… not sure the arithmetic works out.

    The debates will be interesting. Ryan has given some horrible interviews, is that the real Ryan. I hope so. And Romney looked good against who recently? Perry? Newt? TPaw? Bachmann?

  9. 9.

    JR

    It will probably take more than one, but Liz isn’t wrong that this is Romney’s biggest need and most glaring shortcoming.

    The President isn’t just the man with his finger on the button and the veto pen in his hand. He’s the man who hands the flag to the soldier’s orphan. He’s the one who comforts the family whose home has been destroyed by a disaster. He addresses the nation with words of faith and reassurance in times of tragedy.

    George W. Bush, for all his shortcomings, understood that part of the job. Obama and Biden are both very good at it. Bill Clinton was a master at it. So was Reagan (it helped that this was also Peggy Noonan’s wheelhouse: that team was incredible at capturing the emotion of major moments). Can anyone honestly say they think that the two men now on the Republican ticket have demonstrated that they’re ready to fill that role?

    If Romney can’t make himself seem compassionate, he doesn’t stand a chance. And he’s sorely mistaken if he thinks having Ann do more testimonials is the way to pull that off.

  10. 10.

    MoeLarryAndJesus

    Is Romney a Vulcan?

    Will his human moment involve wanting to fuck or smiling when he finds out Jim Kirk is alive?

    Seriously, how sad is it when a 65 year old man can’t provide any evidence that he has human feelings?

  11. 11.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    If he could have one moment where he gives voters the sense that he is throwing the talking points out the window and telling them, what he really believes…

    He already did that in his remarks about the 47%. It didn’t seem to help.

  13. 13.

    shortstop

    Creatures cannot do what they cannot do. You might as well ask my beagle to play Desdemona.

  14. 14.

    Svensker

    tax cuts for the rich were his most important goal.

    My brother has explained to me numerous times that this will cause jobs to be created in an endless fountain of jobbish creation, which sounds simply swell. But when I ask him why, if cutting taxes for the rich causes jobs to be created, the Bush tax cuts didn’t create jobs, I get crickets.

    Well, he did say that there were too many regulations, so THAT squashed the job creation. Gee, said I, this system seems a little sensitive if everything has to be perfect in order to get jobs created. How low do taxes and regulations have to be to accomplish this goal?

  15. 15.

    Ash Can

    That poor dear. She’s so desperate. And the CSM used to have such high standards. What a shame.

  16. 16.

    Montana

    And, given this train of thought, he could spring the answer for dark matter. I do not know about you, but I doubt it. Probably thinks it has something to do with skin color.

  19. 19.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    @Svensker:

    How low do taxes and regulations have to be to accomplish this goal?

    If they were honest they’d say back to the levels both were at during the Gilded Age.

  23. 23.

    shecky

    I agree with Marlantes. Really, all it will take is for Mitt to not fumble completely. Precisely because the expectations are so low.

  24. 24.

    feebog

    They are so fucking desperate at this point. It’s like they are watching all the lifeboats on the Titanic filling up and realizing there aren’t enough seats. The SS Mittens is taking on water and the rats desperately want off but there is no place to go.

  26. 26.

    fuckwit

    This stuff is not hard.

    Jobs are created by people having money to buy shit. Businesses are created when there are customers who want to buy stuff. They die when there aren’t. That’s how it works. It is not rocket fucking surgery.

    No middle class, no jobs. There aren’t enough rich people in the world to employ everyone else in the world, and never can be. End of fucking story.

    We are the job creators. We are the ones who employ each other. That’s how it works, here in America, and anywhere else that there’s a healthy economy.

    Adam Smith understood this. Ricardo understood this.

    Even Henry Motherfucking Ford even understood this– and he was a goddamned Nazi sympathizer, for fuck’s sake! You can’t possibly get any more right-wing than that.

    There should be nothing controversial, nor even particularly liberal or left-wing, about accepting the reality that you MUST put cash into the hands of the middle class in order to get an economy moving.

    Tax cuts for the rich don’t do shit except make the rich even richer. You’d think after 40 years of cutting taxes on the rich, and watching our standard of living keep sinking as a result, we’d have figured this out already.

  27. 27.

    Petorado

    That is precisely what I, as a voter. am looking for: is it an emotionless droid that rejects half this country as beneath contempt and is looking to make the future for me and my family far more bleak, or is it actually a human that is saying this. Because if it’s a human, that would be sooo in my own self-interest. An emotionless droid? Not so much. Thanks CSM for pointing this out.

  28. 28.

    piratedan

    just great, Obama can be passionate, earnest, compelling, empathetic, and engaged for an entire term, showing us that he has a sense of humor, a sense of irony, and a touch of pride; but if the Mittster finally eclipses his Kristen Stewart panoply of emotional range it will be the one shining moment that will define the Mittster for white America and act as if it’s his Fidelity green path to the Presidency.

    sure…. and maybe you’re smoking some bad weed.

  29. 29.

    Roger Moore

    If he could have one moment where he gives voters the sense that he is throwing the talking points out the window and telling them, what he really believes

    I can’t tell people what I really think, I’m running for office, for Pete’s sake.

  30. 30.

    Gin & Tonic

    I wrote this in a dead thread the other day, but Willard has lost my in-laws, pretty stereotypical elderly white ethnics. They don’t hear well any more, and have never had more than a functional grasp of English, but they are comfortable in their element of people exactly like them — 80-somethings who came here with nothing and worked hard all their lives, and they are probably reflecting the general view at the senior center or in the church basement after Sunday Mass. My MIL said, in her one and probably only statement on this year’s election: “Romney – he wants to end Social Security.”

    If he can’t get those folks to vote for him, he’s in real trouble.

  31. 31.

    Redshift

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate:

    He already did that in his remarks about the 47%. It didn’t seem to help.

    Exactly what I was thinking! The reason Romney uses robotic talking points is that the things he really cares about make him seem even more like an out-of-touch rich elitist.

  32. 32.

    Taiko

    @Ash Can: This was my reaction. WTF happened to the CSM? They were one of the best in their day, in spite of the weird christian science stuff required of their employees.

    I now realize, the better question is why were they so good – then?

  33. 33.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    watching Rachel Maddow’s rerun. This voter-fraud thing may be a bigger deal than I had thought. The GOP now has no voter registration program in NV, FL, NC, VA or CO. I’m sure Karl can mobilize a replacement group fairily quickly–limitless cash and megachurches and whatnot, but they don’t have much time.

  36. 36.

    PurpleGirl

    Romney is stiff, does not have empathy and cannot show human feelings.

    Data, a cybernetic creation, tried for many seasons on ST:NG to be human. I think that cybernetic Data was more human, even without an emotion chip, than Romney is.

  37. 37.

    Another Halocene Human

    @jl: Not in original series. But they do a lot of dissembling in ENTERPRISE, for example.

    Ann Romney talking about Mitt being with her during the worst of it when she got her MS diagnosis was actually pretty affecting.

    Finding out later that they moved to MA to further his ambitions even though the climate was bad for his condition kinda killed the moment, though.

  41. 41.

    Redshift

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: There’s a week more of voter reg in most of those states, and the maximum is two weeks here in VA. “Fairly quickly” even with UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH behind it isn’t going to get anything done in that time frame.

    And if I understand correctly, it’s even worse than that. Because they hired known Republican fraudsters to do the job, the voter registration work that has already been done in those states is crap, so they’re not just losing the results of a final push, but most of what should have been their entire voter registration effort.

    Couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch of grifters.

  42. 42.

    West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)

    Has Ryan taken any heat from conservatives for that whole “I don’t have the time” business? I have not read anything online to indicate as much, but maybe I’ve missed something. He comes across to me like he thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room. Why can’t more people (non-libs, that is) see this?

  43. 43.

    BGinCHI

    If Romney could do just one impression, who should he mimic?

    I’m going with C3PO.

    English robot accent is pure class.

  44. 44.

    Another Halocene Human

    @Taiko: I wonder about that, too.

    I believe they suck now because they’ve been bleeding cash for years and I think the Church sold a stake or the whole thing to somebody else?

    Lord knows the Christian Scientists ain’t got the dosh these days.

  46. 46.

    PurpleGirl

    @Svensker: Keep telling/asking your brother about job creation from the Bush tax cuts. If anything, it seems that the Bush tax cuts only caused more jobs to be lost. Besides, I don’t think individuals really create jobs much beyond personal assistants, maids and such. Every rich person could add a few of these positions and it still wouldn’t create that many jobs, certainly not in the millions.

  50. 50.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Redshift:

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: There’s a week more of voter reg in most of those states, and the maximum is two weeks here in VA.

    Ach, i’m a dope. I was thinking in terms of time till election day, even though I passed a registration table with a big “one week left” sign today.

  53. 53.

    Another Halocene Human

    @PurpleGirl: Well, that’s it, really–the luxury economy these days doesn’t really translate into mass employment or economic group. You need a mass market economy, which means mass employment with middle class wages.

  54. 54.

    FlyingToaster

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate: As a resident of the Bay State during both of Mitt’s runs for office (’94 against Ted and 2002 against whoever Tom Finneran picked), that 47% tape is the most natural he’s EVER appeared on camera.

    He’s a creepy old grifter, and I just want him to sell off the Belmont condo and move back to Utah or California or Lake Winnepesaukee already.

  56. 56.

    Violet

    This Liz person says “I think” twice in that paragraph. Whenever a pundit says “I think”, what follows has no resemblance to truth. Show me actual, meaningful data or STFU.

  57. 57.

    Another Halocene Human

    @FlyingToaster: Really? That’ll go well….

    My local CoC decided to jump start the economy in 2008 by handing out dollar coins.

    It was such a success when I went to McD’s with my dollar coins (because I’m a mean old weirdo) the young clerk gave me a face like it was funny munny. (That $1 next to the statue of liberty does look like Arkade Ka$h.)

    Yeah… tons of local business went out of business. But thanks for the “leadership”.

  58. 58.

    Violet

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Yes, all across the land, you hear people saying, “I’m hungering for a Mittmoment” I’m sure if he tells that story about writing a will for a sick twelve year old, people will overlook the fact that his entire campaign boils down to “Fuck medicaid, fuck the poors, my 13% tax rate is highway robbery!”

    Mitt cares. He’ll help all those sick people he’s going to kick of Obamacare write their wills.

  59. 59.

    Redshift

    I caught a bit of Lawrence O’Donnell tonight, and he had a clip of some pundit-ish person with an assessment of the “monumental challenges” for both candidates. It boiled down to, and I’m only paraphrasing a little, “One candidate has to show he’s not arrogant, and the other has to show he’s human.”

    The only sane way to finish that statement is to add the punchline, “and they’re both named Mitt Romney.” But no, she was actually saying with a straight face that Obama’s “arrogant.” I didn’t see who she was, but this wasn’t a Fox clip presented to be mocked.

    It may just be buying a little of the wingnut crack to seem “objective,” but these attempts to portray Obama as uppityarrogant, or “cold and professorial,” which is all too common, I find pretty bizarre. These people have any number of clips of Obama cracking jokes, being adorable with children, displaying his mystical ability to calm crying babies, etc., but because he’s serious and presidential behind a podium, rather than a Bush-style goofball, he must be “cold” and “professorial.”

    Idiots.

  60. 60.

    amk

    Now that’s a zinger.

    Wayne Powell to Eric Cantor- “I’m not attacking you, I’m describing you.” Now that’s a working #Zinger. #Vote Cantor OUT!

  61. 61.

    Another Halocene Human

    @Mark S.: The 3way in ME is scaring me. Last time ME had an election like that, LePage became Gov and declared war on labor.

  63. 63.

    Linda Featheringill

    @Redshift:

    Fraudulent voter registration:

    You’re saying that the work already done by this firm will have to be thrown out? Oh! That’s going to hurt.

  64. 64.

    Redshift

    @FlyingToaster:

    The Chamber of Commerce is already mobilizing its GOTV in those states.

    As I read the article, their “GOTV” consists of TV ads and a website. The AP article (in what I’m guessing is a rewritten press release) states as fact that they’ve launched an “extensive” GOTV effort, but it doesn’t actually mention any components except for those two.

    I’d tell them they’re doing it wrong, but I don’t want them to know.

  66. 66.

    Mandalay

    @PurpleGirl:

    Every rich person could add a few of these positions and it still wouldn’t create that many jobs, certainly not in the millions.

    Exactly! The “trickle-down” justification for low taxes on the rich is completely bogus.

    The question I would most like Romney to answer is this:
    You are very rich, have a very high annual income, pay low taxes, and you have not worked for several years. Given that, how many jobs have you personally created in the past five years?

    Apart from a few people to clean up the horse shit, lube the car elevator and provide pool boy services for Ann, my guess is that his honest answer would have to be: “Er…not very many at all”.

    Or perhaps he’ll blurt the real truth, and brag how his tax free offshore Aggressive-Asia-Growth Account in Bermuda has funded the creation of gazillions of low wage manufacturing jobs in Bangladesh and Cambodia.

  67. 67.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Another Halocene Human: from what I’ve seen/read, King is almost a lock, and more likely to caucus and vote with the Dems, but he strikes me, based on what I’ve seen and read, as a pompous buffoon, likely to spend a lot of time preening over his independence, being a new Lieberman, but I doubt he’ll get the media attention. I believe he was a Republican before he ran as an indie

  68. 68.

    mbss

    god knows i’ve ripped into dnc democrats over war, neoliberalism, and rahm style labor bashing, and more! but fuck, i’m on a rampage to destroy not only this current cycle of republican drone soldiers but to discredit fundamentally their entire platform of discredited, bankrupt, racist, stupid ideas and smite their fucking faces into the earth.

    and that includes all my family who love rush limbaugh and war.

    romney and ryan you barely human shitstains, when i look at you i seem something missing, something human, something i relate to. to be perfectly honest i see less of this in ryan than i do in romney. romney i feel sorry for you, you plutocrat cumstain.

    ryan, fuck you, you ignorant pile of shit. ayn rand disowns you and so does logic. if you are the future of conservatism then…GOOD. i will conquer you with logic from this day on. america this “center-right” country rejects your plan and so do i. you will be relegated to the dustbin of history. you have more pixie dust than tinkerbell and more of an ability to lie earnestly than baghdad bob.

    fuck scott brown, too. also.

    plus 3 and gonna smoke a bowl. goodnight.

    tunch consumes the earth. brimstone and fire.

  69. 69.

    FlyingToaster

    @Another Halocene Human: The national CoC has been buying up airtime all over the place for “issue” ads against Democratic congressmen; they’ll likely be hiring all the temps that Sproul used for his “registration” effort. Of course, since they’re merely evil (as opposed to evil and criminally stupid), they’ll set up their registration tables at church socials and bingo parlors.

    I’ve stopped watching broadcast TV; I have to stick with preschool stuff (WarriorGirl just turned 5) or Discovery/Science/PBS. At this point, I may crack open that box of The Sweeney; it’s certainly less depressing than the political ads on OTA television.

  70. 70.

    Mike G

    because he’s serious and presidential behind a podium, rather than a Bush-style goofball, he must be “cold” and “professorial.”

    Obama can think and speak in complete intelligent sentences and express ideas that don’t sound as if they sprang from a comic book, which puts him one-up on the last two Repuke presidents and all of their 2012 clown-show candidates; so of course they find him threatening.

    Fux is heavily pushing the idea that there’s this brilliant, popular secret real Romney just dying to emerge any second, being held back by…who knows what. If Mitt told voters what he really believes, Obama would pick up Arizona, Georgia and a half-dozen other red states.

  71. 71.

    Redshift

    @Linda Featheringill: No idea if all of it will be thrown out, but apparently the reason they got caught is that they turned in forms in Florida with suspiciously similar signatures, incomplete forms, etc. So it seems pretty likely that they haven’t actually been doing much of the work anywhere.

  74. 74.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Yutsano: I know AZ isn’t as retiree-heavy as FL, but I wonder if the pledge to gut medicare/medicaid will pull Romney down. I would love to see John McCain’s state go to Obama, and Carmona win the Senate seat.

  75. 75.

    ? Martin

    So, looks like the sanctions on Iran is crashing their currency. Value of the rial is down by 1/3 in a week. Food prices are skyrocketing. They better get a handle on it soon. Another week or two like that and they’ll have full on rioting.

  76. 76.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    @Mandalay:

    Exactly! The “trickle-down” justification for low taxes on the rich is completely bogus.

    As is “Investment income should be taxed at a lower rate because it’s already been taxed once at the corporate level.”

    So, what makes hourly wages or worker salaries any different?

  78. 78.

    trollhattan

    Hey Zeus, Silver has Willard’s chance of winning down to 14.3%. It was over 20 going into the weekend.

    Maybe I don’t understand maths, but I’m holding out for a negative # before November.

  81. 81.

    Mandalay

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate:

    As is “Investment income should be taxed at a lower rate because it’s already been taxed once at the corporate level.” So, what makes hourly wages or worker salaries any different?

    Of course there is no difference at all. It is just another specious argument advanced by the rich to benefit only the rich.

    They might as well argue that there should be no tax on gas because it is paid for with money that has already been taxed.

  82. 82.

    Linda Featheringill

    http://news.yahoo.com/ohios-white-working-class-voters-want-071822131–election.html

    White voters, employed, no college.

    The article is mainly anecdotes but included these numbers:

    “Nationally, Romney holds a strong edge among white voters with jobs and no college degree: Sixty-three percent favored Romney, compared with 28 percent for Obama, according to an Associated Press/GfK poll conducted Sept 13-17. But the president does much better in union-heavy Ohio, where Obama’s auto bailout has helped keep unemployment a point below the national rate. Fifty-one percent of white voters with no college education preferred the president, compared with 45 percent who backed Romney in a recent University of Cincinnati/Ohio Newspaper Organization poll. The margin of error was plus or minus 6 percentage points.”

  84. 84.

    Spaghetti Lee

    @Mark S.:

    That graphic makes me a happy man. I was honestly terrified about the Senate going into this year, for sheer math if nothing else-defending 23 seats!-but it’s entirely possible that the only Dem-held seat we lose is Nebraska. Remember, Montana and North Dakota almost voted for Obama in ’08-they were the 2nd and 3rd closest red states behind MO. I think two likeable candidates in Tester and Heitkamp could absolutely win even if Obama doesn’t take their states.

  85. 85.

    Another Halocene Human

    @FlyingToaster: But the article didn’t say anything about them hiring field organizers or temps or recruiting volunteers.

    It said they were going to launch this killer website.

    Seriously.

  87. 87.

    different-church-lady

    Is there an open thread around here?

    God, tax time is depressing. Can I start drinking yet? No, gotta do one more round of numbers before I quit for the day…

  94. 94.

    Or something like that.Suffern Ace

    @Redshift: Bush had swagger I tell you. That gore was just mr know it all. Since thy ours is the third or fourth reference to Obamas Arrogance problem going into the debate, I’m thinking that’s what their going to run with post debate. Romney will win the human and Obamas poise is going to be a failure of humility. 500 words by brooks and will is already being written.

  95. 95.

    Roger Moore

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate:

    As is “Investment income should be taxed at a lower rate because it’s already been taxed once at the corporate level.”
    __
    So, what makes hourly wages or worker salaries any different?

    Corporations are taxed only on their profits, not on their income. Wages and salaries (with the exception of some very large salaries for executives) count as an expense that reduces profit, so the corporation is not taxed on that money. Dividends and other forms of direct corporate payment to stockholders are made from profits, which the corporations are supposed to pay taxes on. So there really is a difference between wages and capital gains.

    In theory. In practice, of course, very few corporations pay anything close to the nominal corporate tax rate. Many big companies pay no corporate taxes at all, or even have big negative tax liability. If you want to talk about an opportunity to lower rates while broadening the tax base, corporate taxes are a really good place to start.

  96. 96.

    WaterGirl

    If he could have one moment where he gives voters the sense that he is throwing the talking points out the window and telling them, what he really believes—and it doesn’t matter what the issue is.

    We already had that moment – that’s a perfect description of the 47% video.

  99. 99.

    suzanne

    I hate my job so unbelievably much. My coworkers are leaving in droves. Ugh. Going in tomorrow makes me want to throw up.

  100. 100.

    Roger Moore

    @WaterGirl:

    We already had that moment – that’s a perfect description of the 47% video.

    So what you’re saying is that it does matter what the issue is, or at least what Romney has to say about it. If he sounds really sincere but people don’t like what he has to say, it’s going to hurt him worse that being insincere would.

  101. 101.

    Redshift

    @Or something like that.Suffern Ace: Yeah, no doubt that’s the predetermined Village narrative. They’ll furiously pimp it, but in the age of YouTube and thousands of partisans pushing their own perceptions online, their narrative will fall flat in a couple of days. Then they’ll grumble and admit the outcome was what everyone already knew on Wednesday night. (Well, not Brooks and Will, but the rest of the Village.)

  102. 102.

    Radio One

    Most in the media believe that Romney will clear that low bar and will emerge as a legitimate challenger to the President in the first debate. I have no doubt that this will happen, but it’s not going to matter.

  103. 103.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    My BJ page is showing three anti-Obama ads, the same ad three times, from something called the American Future Fund. Earlier today it was five. I made a google, can’t find out who they are or who’s funding them. Not that it matters, really. If I click through it and vote ‘yes, I am in fact better off after four years of Obama’ a few times, and give my name as Karl Rove, I’ll cost them a few pennies, no?

  106. 106.

    different-church-lady

    Now playing: Eno & Lanois, Apollo.

    Tonight I realized I’m going to be so damn sad when Eno dies.

  111. 111.

    different-church-lady

    @trollhattan: I’m ashamed to say I had to Google that. I think I’ve listened to my copy of Warm Jets maybe no more than twice. But Another Green World is such a unique masterpiece.

    The tape (tape!) reversed and it’s on Music for Films. I miss the days when I had all the time in the world to just lay on the floor with my headphones on and stare at the moon while listening to this kind of stuff.

  112. 112.

    trollhattan

    @different-church-lady:
    It’s “Before and After Science” that does it for me, but there’s so much to survey over these many decades. Through it all he’s remained (as best as I can tell) a warm, engaging and even humble persona. Doesn’t even consider himself a musician–he does “treatments.”

  117. 117.

    different-church-lady

    @trollhattan: Yeah, BaAS is a close second.

    And oddly, I really like Nerve Net, even though it’s so completely different and aggressive.

    Ever heard Jon Hassell’s CITY? It’s almost like he said, “Oh, so you think I’m New Age, do you? Well, I show you.”

  118. 118.

    Ruckus

    Human moment?

    After all these years of running for pres and he hasn’t been able to show one yet? Isn’t a definition of insanity to keep doing the same thing over and over hoping for a different outcome? So why would I expect an insane person to try something different? Ok one moment might happen, anything is possible, after all monkeys are supposed to be able to type novels given enough time. But I’m only good for about 30 seconds of holding my breath so I’m not going to try for the next 7 years either.

  119. 119.

    Sly

    All Palin had to do was refrain from foaming out the mouth or spontaneously combusting at her podium in order to be declared the winner, so I guess this is a step up in Republican debate expectations.

  121. 121.

    Or something like that.Suffern Ace

    @trollhattan: What. Just like I might enjoy a world that had been reconfigured to have calorie free fried chicken, I dream of a coulter free punditry.

  122. 122.

    wasabi gasp

    Romney would risk fashioning a duck out of aluminum foil and having a Hunan moment instead.

  123. 123.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Sly:
    Declared a winner by the television pundits. Among the actual voting population she was a laughingstock. The Village =/= America, no matter how much they think they do. From what I’ve seen they’re great at hiding information, but not changing people’s minds.

  125. 125.

    SFAW

    @shortstop:

    Creatures cannot do what they cannot do. You might as well ask my beagle to play Desdemona

    “Mr. TBogg on Line 2. He says a Mr. ‘Fenway’ would like to have a word with you.”

  128. 128.

    gogol's wife

    Responding to the original post, probably repeating something already said, but I just have to say: He already showed us his human moment, when he wasn’t doing talking points but just saying what he really believes. It was 47%.

  130. 130.

    Bruce S

    “Liz Marlantes of the Christian Science Monitor”

    I’m pretty cynical about journalists, especially those from “mainstream” media who appear on FOX panels, but this woman sounds, literally, like one of the dumbest people on the planet who gets her words printed by something other than a crayon.

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