There isn’t much to add about last night’s Epic Bow Tie Fail other than what TNC has to say:
It’s interesting that Carlson’s claimed that he was offering a big reveal, despite the fact that many in the media covered the video at the time–including Tucker Carlson.Carlson’s descent from reasonably credible magazine journalist to inept race hustler is well mapped territory. He has not been the same man since Jon Stewart took him down. The ethering reverberates through the years with such force that we now find its recipient slathering yesterday’s nothing-burgers in weak sauce, and serving them up as the daily special.Even those who would like to be fooled are not.
I will add however that Romney’s internal polling numbers must continue to be absolutely horrific if the Tighty Whitey Patrol here is resorting to what is actually a really damn good speech by then Senator Barack Obama as some sort of secret instructions to us black folk to rise up and…build…infrastructure in…primarily minority neighborhoods…to benefit…minority owned local businesses. Or something equally fabulously offensive. I don’t really know, honestly. Either way, it’s desperation piled on so thick you could armor plate a truck in it and probably add enough internal baffling and bulkhead structure to make the truck amphibious to boot, which would be really neat. You could call it SUBMOTRUCK 4000 and you could avoid tunnels and floods and Headless Horsemen and crap. Really awesome except for the fact that it’s covered in thick sheets of ablative desperation, which would make the interior smell terrible, like what I imagine the “war room” at Romney HQ smells like about 5:45 in the afternoon.
Anyhow, just drop ni-CLANG and get on with it guys, you’re running out of time here and I’ve got bets to win.
To the SUBMOTRUCK!
f space that
Good one. SUBMOTRUCK 4K, needs to be a tag.
srv
“from reasonably credible”
Wracking brain here… I’m pretty sure that google search might blow up their mainframe. Somebody ask Siri.
beltane
It would be especially satisfying if it turned out that this dud was unearthed by Romney’s opp research team, thus revealing their sad, sad desperation.
People monitoring the RW blogs said the disappointment was palpable. Anything that makes the Freepers sad, Drudge and Carlson look ridiculous, and Romney look impotent is OK with me.
Now on to tonight’s zingers.
The Moar You Know
I just keep thinking that if I’d just gone ahead and punched Tucker in the face at that party back in 1985 (true story) that maybe we wouldn’t be where we are today as a nation.
Lesson learned: hit the bastards when they’re young.
General Stuck
I couldn’t stop laughing at the breathless wanking how Obama “criticized the Katrina response” . It’s like criticizing Al Capone’s celebration of Valentine’s Day.
Foregone Conclusion
People who talk about racism are the real racists.
hep kitty
Aw, and then the Paul Ryan 30% video thing. What a doggone shame.
Raven
@The Moar You Know: God I wish I could get a crack at that punk. With a fucking drone if possible.
Scott S.
These schmucks used to run the whole country. They used to have everyone in the media jumping to their tune. Now they smash themselves in the face with hammers and declare it the Ultimate Victory. It’s a hilarious time to be alive.
dmsilev
@General Stuck: No kidding. There are several tens of millions, quite probably north of a hundred million, Americans who would agree with the statement “George Bush’s government botched the Katrina response”. It’s not exactly a controversial statement.
some guy
Breaking News, Must Credit Drudge: President Obama Still Black!
The Moar You Know
Won’t be watching. I find it agonizing to watch people utterly humiliate themselves, and Romney just can’t do funny. I’ll call it a “win” for the Mormon if he manages to not step on his own dick, again.
PS: To be clear, I don’t even think Romney’s going to make it over that very low bar.
Maude
@General Stuck:
Apt comparison. A garage band name.
hep kitty
I look back to 2008 and can hardly believe that John McCain is beginning to look like a profoundly principled, almost saintly human being.
The Moar You Know
@Raven: I had him up against a wall. He was such a sniveling little piece of shit that I just couldn’t go through with the rest of it – it would have been like punching a really annoying toy poodle.
We threw him and his buddy’s asses out instead. I’m sure it wasn’t the first time that had happened to him.
eric
the calculus is simple, there is no way the RWNM is going to get people to not vote for Obama, they simply have to make sure that their minions vote for Romney or else they will lose the House. Everything you see from now in will not be directed at the compassionate conservative independent voters on main street but toward the rank and file GOP to make sure they dont give That One total control of the government. I think that is what you are going to start hearing more and more — the scary socialist, communist, fascist, dictator, imperial president must not be allowed to gain control over the government to put his radical coastal policies into effect.
jwb
When did conservatives get so bad at this basic stuff? I’m also wondering when the Obama campaign is going to drop the next bit of stuff they have on Romney. I figure they are waiting until after the debate, but it’s about time for another round of what’s in Romney’s tax returns.
Ash Can
@beltane:
Maybe they came across it on YouTube while digging up that anti-Islam trailer.
gelfling545
@General Stuck:
Didn’t everybody?
Raven
@The Moar You Know: Damn!
Villago Delenda Est
@The Moar You Know:
The story is, that Karl Rove became a fuckface GOP do or die asswipe when some girl punched him in 1964 because he was wearing a Goldwater button.
Another lost opportunity there…to do more than punch the little fascist shit.
hep kitty
@The Moar You Know: More details, pls?
catclub
@General Stuck: I saw the difference in response between Louisiana and Mississippi
as a double win for Bush, but motsly political rather than racially motivated. The governor of Miss was GOP
and the governor of Louisiana was a Democrat. The predominant race of those afflicted in each state was just a bonus. [Actually, I am not even certain the predominant race
in Louisiana was black, but in Miss there are far fewer blacks on the coast than whites.]
As soon as Jindal was elected (2007?) the Bush admin was more favorably attuned to its needs.
MikeJ
@jwb:
They’ve been fat and lazy since Reagan.
barath
@hep kitty:
What’s this Paul Ryan 30% video?
hueyplong
I’m also hesitant to watch tonight. Just can’t see how I’d enjoy it. For all my talk of the wonders of Schadenfreude, I prefer to get it in print and not via grotesquely awkward real time video transmission.
And that’s if it goes the way I can most reasonably hope it will.
If it goes poorly for Obama any reason, then it will truly be a miserable viewing experience.
Not sure why the debates are ever fun for anyone who is in no way “undecided” at this point.
So it’s Orioles and Yankees games for me, with the subsequent fun of reading people’s posted commentary here after the fact.
The Moar You Know
@hep kitty: I’m not going to go that far but I will say that 2008 could have been a lot closer if:
1. McCain hadn’t been so lazy. He was. Obama worked a lot harder and it paid off.
2. (very related to 1): Sarah Palin. I know quite a few Republicans who switched in 2008, and she wasn’t the major reason; she was the only reason.
Principled? Eh, maybe. He did tell the birthers to shut their pieholes, that was more than you could get out of any Republican candidate today.
Villago Delenda Est
@jwb:
Every single time a Rethug operative (even Kkkarl Rove) dares to look at things objectively, they’re brutally taken down by the crazies. Remember Newt calling the Ryan plan “social engineering” and then being taken to the woodshed, followed immediately by stating that anyone who quotes him as calling the Ryan plan “social engineering” is a liar?
These are the people Orwell was warning us about.
MikeJ
@hueyplong:
I’m with you. I’m one of those people who could never enjoy The Office.
Violet
@barath: Paul Ryan 30% video: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/02/paul-ryan-30-percent-welfare-state_n_1933730.html. He says 30% want the welfare state; 70% want the American Dream.
Punchy
Considering the race baiting involved, isn’t “SAMBOTRUX47%” a more apt moniker?
jwb
@hueyplong: It’s like watching sports or theater, and you either find that tension exhilarating or not.
catclub
@dmsilev: Having lived in a heavily affected, but not devastated, area, my feeling is that Katrina was a once in a lifetime event, that no government which we would accept, would be big enough to respond to adequately. Bush just made it worse, rather than a less adequate response by anyone else.
For example: there are many more people than you might think, living out in the country, who get either oxygen or drugs that need to be refrigerated, delivered on a regular basis. That all broke down, but it was entirely private companies, and the government was not big and powerful enough to just take that over.
And that is just one example I know of.
Mike Lamb
My takeaways from the release of this tape:
Message No. 1: See, GOP voters, you were right to trust your racist instincts.
Message No. 2: Romney’s debate performance is going to be so horrific that they are trying to drown out coverage by any means possible.
hueyplong
I’m with you, MikeJ. Whenever my channel-changing wife puts it on a syndicated episode of The Office, I flee the room within a minute.
Cassidy
@The Moar You Know: you are a better man than I.
Waynski
I’m positive the MSM has got plenty of ni-CLANG moments from Republicans that they refuse to air or print. After almost four years of an AA President, there’s not a local party person in the South or elsewhere that hasn’t been caught using the word? Millions of people and not one fucking slip up in front of a camera or microphone? Please. No horse race, no money.
Violet
Went to Google News to see where the tape was in terms of links. One mention of the tape. Everything else is about the debate. I don’t think this tape is going to help them the way they think it will. If you’re a white person all scared of Big Black Obama, then you’re already voting for Romney. If you’re on the fence, this tape isn’t going to do much.
jwb
@Villago Delenda Est: As late as 2004, conservatives were really good at this basic messaging stuff and even 2008 they didn’t seem utterly incompetent, even if they had lost a step. I guess this is payback for unleashing the crazy. I think we might see attempts to bottle the crazy after the election, but I wouldn’t bet on them being able to do it.
Neldob
Wait a minute! What does ablative mean?
Svensker
Well, don’t get too uppity, Obummerbots. Wait until ALL OF AMERICA hears that Barry Sotero said that the Katrina response wasn’t so great and that poor black kids should get a good education. The blowback will be AWESOME! VICTORY!
Violet
@Waynski:
Wouldn’t surprise me if the Obama campaign has some videos too. They may be waiting until, say, just before one of the debates to drop one of them. Not by the official campaign, of course. Via someone else. It will be “discovered.”
The Moar You Know
@hep kitty: The usual. He was going to a small private school, my buddy was having a party (we always had parties) he heard about it and showed up and was a antagonistic little jerk, just like he is on television.
We prided ourselves on having parties with a lot of women around, and I gotta be honest…he just didn’t seem comfortable with women, if you get my drift. To this day I will swear he’s deep, deep, deep in the closet.
Regardless of orientation suspected or publicized, he does not like women.
He’d said something that pissed off some girl and so the girls left. Bad move on his part. I’d say my response was pretty restrained given that he’d just cock-blocked about 15 guys.
rlrr
@Violet:
1. His numbers are bullshit
2. The welfare state and the American dream are not mutually exclusive
geg6
@eric:
This is what they truly fear. Polls are showing that people actually understand now that the GOP congress is what is holding up so much of what could be a more robust recovery and that they continually focus on things that either aren’t very relevant to people’s lives or will make people’s lives markedly worse. When you have a majority of poll respondents saying that they want one-party control of Washington rather than the divided power that they have said they wanted for decades now, you know that the GOPers have really shit the bed for good.
Sadly, even the liberal WSJ says so:
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/10/02/wsjnbc-poll-majority-favor-one-party-control/
feebog
Objection, assumes facts not in evidence. Carlson was once a reasonably credible journalist? On which planet, certainly not this one. The little shit has always been a smarmy, entitled no-nothing. And he can’t dance.
Legalize
This is about blaming the media for Rmoney’s loss when Jim Lehrer doesn’t ask 30 questions about the black guy being racist against rich white guys. If Lerher does ask enough questions about a 5 year old tape that everyone reported on in 2008, sufficient to assuage winger but-hurt, they will then scream that the blackity black tape negates the 47% tape, and therefore something something, purple banana, telephone, liberal media, CNN (Communist News Network), center-right nation!!!
Bookmark it, libs.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@hep kitty:
__
The Iron Law of Republicans is that each one is worse than what came before. Call it the GOP Limbo.
Eisenhower > Goldwater > Nixon > Reagan + GHB > GWB > McCain > Romney
Romney’s set an awfully low bar this year, but I imagine that Santorum will somehow find a way to slither underneath it in 2016. It may require industrial strength excavation equipment but he’ll do whatever it takes.
Davis X. Machina
@Neldob:
In noun morphology, the case used for prepositional or adverbial ideas of separation.
In engineering, something that does its function by separating, falling off, eroding away, like the heat-shield on a re-entry vehicle, or reactive armor.
Linda Featheringill
This particular “bombshell” is actually quite amusing.
Barack Obama has had dark skin for a long time. The Republicans think we haven’t noticed that?
A lot of people have wondered why the response to Katrina was so abysmally bad. A lot of questions have been asked and no good answers given. Racism seems to be as good of an explanation as any.
And since I’m not running for political office, I can say this. I rather admire Rev. Wright. He’s kind of a cool dude. Not always right but then neither am I. Live long and prosper, Reverend.
SBJules
Why are they in this time warp? They must be desperate.
Redshift
This was probably mentioned in an earlier thread, but I’ve just been marveling at the fact that the Romney campaign is incompetent or desperate enough (or both) that they thought it was good for a Republican to remind everyone of Hurricane Katrina. Yeah, we get it, they need as many racist white votes as possible, but as usual, they apparently gave no thought to the cost.
Tripod
I’m watching tonight. From what I’ve seen so far, RMoney is very likely to blue screen in the middle of the debate.
MikeJ
@Davis X. Machina: And accusative when the separation is motion. But you know all that better than I do. You could probably get “Romani ite domum” right while I was getting my ear twisted.
maya
Fawn Brodie’s ghost is publishing a new book on Willard M. – No Man Knows My Tax Returns.
rea
Since we elected a back president for one term, we now live in a post-racial society, which means that no white man can ever be accused of racism for treating black people like shit
Redshift
@Linda Featheringill:
Ah, but he’s been a black man who talks like a white man! Surely if we saw that he’s really a black guy, we white suburbanites would realize we’ve been fooled! Or something…
I dunno, that’s my best guess at the thinking of “I’m not a racist, but…” wingnuts.
Davis X. Machina
@MikeJ: Accusative for actual or implied motion to a place — with a preposition for common nouns, and the accusative alone for the proper names of places.
A similar distinction holds in other Indo-European languages, c.f. Greek and German.
Just Some Fuckhead
Well of course you’d be playing down the imminent black uprising, Zandar.
catclub
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: 1. not sure that Goldwater > Nixon
2. I think the difference is the field from which they are drawn is getting Much Worse. Jack Kemp, Lindsay, Bob Dole
(not in the progression), John Anderson started out as GOP,
for heaven’s sake.
I think all the troglodyte Dems of 40+ years ago became GOP, so they stink up the field for the GOP.
hep kitty
@barath: Oh, it was on the usual MSNBC lineup last night, RevAl, Ed & Rachel, and I think Tweety.
“30% of Americans don’t believe in the American dream and just want the welfare state” – Ryan to donors
Jay in Oregon
@beltane:
He looks like he’s auditioning for a role in an ED drug commercial; does that count?
Violet
@rlrr: Oh, I agree. I was just posting the video in response to someone’s question as to what he said. That’s what he said. He’s an entitled, ignorant boy.
Jay in Oregon
@Just Some Fuckhead:
From the classic Crazification Factor post over at Kung Fu Monkey:
hep kitty
@The Moar You Know: Ugh, as insufferable as he is now, I can’t imagine what he was like back then. I just enjoy the image of him being thrown out onto the lawn by the seat of his pants, rolling down a hill, getting grass stains all over his bow-tie. (Even if it didn’t really happen – don’t spoil it for me). I’m really sorry to know you didn’t cold-cock him.
And no, I can’t really imagine him “kicking it” with the ladeez. At all
Jay in Oregon
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Santorum is the candidate who came closest to the ni-CLANG Event Horizon this go-around with the “blah people” comment. We’ll see how far he’s willing to go in 2016.
hep kitty
@Violet: And he also talks about a nation of “takers” and “makers”
What has Ryan or Romney ever made?? Except money, I mean.
Violet
@Jay in Oregon: There may yet be a video along those lines from someone close to the Romney organization. Someone who says something like, “Mitt’s going to get this ni-CLANG out of our White House.” Something like that. Release it just before a debate.
Just Some Fuckhead
Why all the hate on Tucker? The entire right wing is a clown show now because they got to put all their conservative theories into action and they all failed miserably.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@catclub:
During the 1968 campaign Nixon schemed with his high-level contacts in the South Vietnamese government to sabotage the Paris Peace Talks so that no progress would be made until after the election. Goldwater may have been crazy but he was too much of a patriot to do something as borderline treasonous as that.
Rheinhard
I just want to say that the phrase “thick sheets of ablative desperation” is one of the most beautiful metaphors I have encountered in my several decades on this sphere.
Librarian
He has not been the same man since
Tucker Carlson is a “man”?
GregB
We know the liberal media is in the Obama tank. If it wasn’t the debates would be moderated by Dinesh D’Souza, Rush Limbaugh and Hank Williams Jr.
Also, Mike Allen and Politico are pimping “Romney resurgence” is just so fucking lame.
hep kitty
hep kitty
There was a typo in the title but I just checked again & it has been fixed
Tone In DC
@hep kitty:
My outrage fatigue is kicking in again. Zombies?
Zandar, great post.
Paul
@gelfling545:
Yes!
But apparently it is now “racially charged” to criticize Bush’s Katrina response.
I used to be a Republican. It is beyond me what happened to that party. They have been taken over by people who claim they are Christians but without living by its preachings, by people who are not show about showing their racism, and by less intelligent people who for example have literally no clue what the word socialism means.
hep kitty
I’d venture to say Romney and Ryan would be one of those takers. Romney taking jobs away from Americans and getting paid by the citizens of MA, and Ryan sucking off the gov’t teat to get his education and then becoming a politician who gets paid by We the People. What have they made.
I’d say those two are the definition of a couple of “takers”
gvg
@catclub: Disagree. Florida managed 4 hurricanes in 2004 and didn’t fall apart. Katrina watching was torture for us because we could see so much incompetance and non planning. couldn’t believe that after all Florida had had happen to it, apparently other states didn’t bother to learn and plan. I’m talking about Andrew. It was Hurricane Andrew which left south florida devestated and mostly deserted for weeks that cause Florida to put together plans working WITH the Clinton version of FEMA with professional management. All the years between Andrew and 2004’s 4 major hurricanes I wondered if those plans would actually work in the real world and if they will still be funded by the time we had another major event. Well they worked great. then Katrina (which also flooded south Florida first, but we handled it)showed the rest of the country hadn’t done anything.
Florida’s plans for hurricane come down to a lot of public and private conferences every winter. If you watch the local events part of the newspapers it will mention seemingly boring things like a convention of utility companies for hurricane planning, another conference for city governments etc. Different aspects and different industries will work things out ahead of time. With Utilities, some companies are private for profit, some are public, they have to work out who does what and negotiate mutual aid agreements. It doesn’t have to be the feds doing everything but they have to practice and make decisions ahead of time. When a hurricane might come, the TV’s and radio are covering it, the citizens care enough to watch, contingenciy plans cover closing schools inland so that folks on the coast can emergency shelter there, toll roads get their tolls lifted by the govenors order, highway patrols turn big evac roads into all lanes same direction AWAY, supplies both for governments AND businesses like grocery stores and hardware stores get trucked NEARBY but not actually in the danger zone to wait till after….all of that is planned in the winter not just before it hits. Every year too. Did you know Walmart and Home Depot do their own plans? Private companies develop plans just to keep contact with employees to tell them to stay home or come in even if they evac to relatives houses and decide who calls which company to put up hurricane window coverings on each local stores. That doesn’t have anything to do with government but it happens here because the state and the old FEMA under Clinton pushed everybody to do things like this. It works fine too. Bush fired the clinton FEMA people and put in a rich donor with no relevant experience. This in spite of the fact that Florida voted Clinton over Bush 1 at least in part because we thought Bush 1 screwed up the response to Andrew. Obama by the way hired away Florida’s FEMA director to run the national FEMA. And before that when Clinton took office, because of the conventional wisdom here about why we picked him, he put in professionals too. Government has a role in encouraging this stuff, and has to make it’s own plans but a lot of it is private, just encouraged by government. Awareness adds, hosting conferences etc so it’s not as much big government as you might think.
Kay
I think they succeed in one area, conservative (and, more generally, political) media. They make people stop paying attention out of frustration and extreme boredom, as an act of self-preservation.
I had to drop out for a bit during the “lipstick on a pig” thing in 2008. It was so stupid and insane and the cumulative effect of weeks of stupid and insane made the downside of “paying attention” exceed the upside of “knowing what’s going on”. I don’t really blame people for tuning out.
Patricia Kayden
“Tighty Whitey Patrol”
Must remember that one.
Rachel Maddow, who I usually find to be very very serious, had me in stitches last night when she talked about this “newly released” video of President Obama’s 2007 speech, which has been on the internet since 2007. The Righties are losing it.
Yutsano
@hep kitty: The peace symbol at the end really makes that. Wow.
quannlace
It’s ironic when I hear Romney’s take on US foreign policy, “We’re only reacting to events…”
His whole campaign is just one big exercise in reaction. His TV ads are reactions to Obama ads. All their themes and sayings are just a word salad of something Obama’s said, “You didn’t build that!” I can’t think of anything original they’ve come up with.
And now it’s ‘Okay, they released a secret video. So we’ll release our OWN super, secret video.” Escept that it’s not so secret. oops.
Suffern ACE
@jwb:
I don’t think they have changed. They looked good because the Democrats sucked at this game for two decades. Remember when Dick Morris played on our team?
Kittehs to the rescue
If only Jon Stewart would do the same to other vacuous media personalities and politicians. But no, those get invited on his show to plug themselves and their books and tv-shows. Tom Brokaw, Michael Steele, Herman Cain, Brian Williams, Colin Powell,…
And he’ll happily keep up the pretense that Bill O’Reilly is a fine human being, completely ignoring things like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IwIRNM5noY
James E. Powell
@quannlace:
All their themes and sayings are just a word salad of something Obama’s said, “You didn’t build that!” I can’t think of anything original they’ve come up with.
I was thinking that today as I was reading kos’s post on “You didn’t build that” at the GOS.
If it hadn’t been for Obama dropping a word or two, what would they have been talking about? Everything else has been the standard Republican bullshit from the last thirty years: Democrats are weak on military/foreign policy and Democrats will raise your taxes and give the money to the [insert racist epithet]. Not one new thing.
Mnemosyne
@Linda Featheringill:
I think they’re still in denial that anyone, anywhere could honestly think that a black man could be more competent than a white man. As I’m sure people are sick of me saying, these are people who honestly believe in their hearts that any random white man walking down the street is more qualified to be on the Supreme Court than former federal judge Sonia Sotomayor. In their minds, there is no such thing as a woman and/or minority who is smarter or more qualified than any white man anywhere.
@gvg:
Just wanted to highlight this because it kinda got lost in your giant block of text. Bush hired his horse-breeding buddy to run his FEMA; Obama hired the guy who improved Florida’s emergency response system to the point that even Bush’s FEMA couldn’t screw it up.
This is why the last thing we need is another “CEO President” — CEOs hire people they like and are comfortable with, not necessarily the people who are the best at their job. After all, if the CEO’s underlings are great at their jobs, they might outshine the CEO, and that cannot be permitted.
(Of course, good CEOs know that having great underlings makes them look brilliant for hiring such brilliant underlings (look how often Steve Jobs publicly sung the praises of Jonathan Ive) but good CEOs aren’t going to leave their businesses behind to take the thankless job of being POTUS.)
Original Lee
Gotta love the SUBMOTRUCK 4000, especially the thick sheets of ablative desperation. I had no idea ablative desperation came in sheets. I wonder if we can export it.
Ruckus
@hep kitty:
He didn’t make money.
He hustled money. Or if you like he stole money.
And if you don’t like saying he stole money, how about ‘He stole lives while hustling money’.