Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

We still have time to mess this up!

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Battle won, war still ongoing.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Not all heroes wear capes.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2012 / Open Thread: Romney’s Facial-Recognition Software Failure

Open Thread: Romney’s Facial-Recognition Software Failure

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If this Romney entity didn’t stand a meaurable chance at being the next Leader of the Free World, this anecdote via Paul Constant would be kind of funny-pathetic:

Yesterday, Mitt Romney got emotional about a Navy SEAL named Glen Doherty who died on September 11th in Benghazi. Seems Romney met Doherty at a holiday party a few years back and they made a deep, personal connection. Today, Doherty’s best friend, Elf Ellefsen, remembers the party very differently:

According to Ellefsen, Romney introduced himself to Doherty four separate times during the gathering.
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“He said it was very comical,” Ellefsen said, “Mitt Romney approached him ultimately four times, using this private gathering as a political venture to further his image. He kept introducing himself as Mitt Romney, a political figure. The same introduction, the same opening line. Glen believed it to be very insincere and stale.”
__
Ellefsen said Doherty remembered Romney as robotic.
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“He said it was pathetic and comical to have the same person come up to you within only a half hour, have this person reintroduce himself to you, having absolutely no idea whatsoever that he just did this 20 minutes ago, and did not even recognize Glen’s face.”

Local news reported that Doherty’s mother objected to Romney using her son as “part of his political agenda”, and the Romney campaign says he won’t use the story again. Let’s see how long that promise remains unbroken, shall we?

Reader Interactions

62Comments

  3. 3.

    blingee

    Rmoney could sell oil to the Arabs. A great salesman…and a world class snake in the grass. If America elects this scum bag they will get exactly what they deserve just like they did with G. Dubya.

  5. 5.

    Kadzimiel

    Point of order: Mitt Romney wants to be the Next Leader of the Fee World. Freedom is a very long way from his list of priorities,

  9. 9.

    BGinCHI

    Upon learning the guy was a SEAL Romney said, “I support all forms of marine mammal life form entities.”

  10. 10.

    Lurking Canadian

    Each time I think Romney has finally plumbed the depths of what it means to be a colossal asshole, he finds a way to break his own record.

  12. 12.

    SiubhanDuinne

    So I’m in a place with CNN on but no sound, and Reince Priebus was just on Piers Morgan, and can I just say, Reince Priebus has very untrustworthy eyes..

  15. 15.

    Shakespeare

    This made NBC Nightly News. :)

    But Romney’s abortion contortion LED the broadcast. :) :)

  17. 17.

    jwb

    @JPL: God, what is it about these mostly nameless Democrats whining about the Big Bird ad? Shit, it might not be the best ad ever made, but it did usefully shift the conversation yesterday, and I definitely thought it showed spunk.

  18. 18.

    RSA

    HELLO, I AM THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE. PLEASE DESCRIBE YOUR PROBLEM. SAY ‘RETURN’ WHEN YOU ARE FINISHED.

  21. 21.

    Soonergrunt

    @Baud: Oh, there are others. Of course, many of them are dear to his heart so he won’t stray on the orthodoxy anyway, like taxes and the size of government, for example.

  23. 23.

    mainmati

    What we are seeing is the Republican base holding their nose and knowing he has no principles and so can be rolled + the low information voters who are attracted by a lot of blather and platitudes. But the base hate Obama do much…

    The question I have rather is how many of those low information voters will actually vote? The President has two more opportunities and we know he is pissed at Romney. Let’s see how he plays this: cool enough but slam-dunk. The Town Hall format suits him, I think

  25. 25.

    Anya

    I am not sure where I saw the video but when Romney tells that story he doesn’t seem like he’s telling a tragic story. The way he starts to name drop the slain navy seal is really weird. He starts with a smile “I met some remarkable people,” the audience claps and for some reason they laugh and then he says, “among them is a young navy seal,” a pause and a fake look of sadness. The whole thing looks contrived.

    I loathe that man. He’s devoid of human emotions.
    God. Please America, do not make this man president.

  26. 26.

    max

    “He said it was pathetic and comical to have the same person come up to you within only a half hour, have this person reintroduce himself to you, having absolutely no idea whatsoever that he just did this 20 minutes ago, and did not even recognize Glen’s face.”

    Might explain why he’s constantly getting way out there and then having to reel it back in. He wants people to be happy with him, but he can’t remember. In business, it was all on the QT anyways, so he could get away it with it. (And what is there to remember? ‘Well, Blank Face was complaining about something so I told him I’d do something about that but then Blank Face reminded me that we had said we’d do that, so I guess we’ll just have to talk to Blank Face and see if he can help out Blank Face.’)

    max
    [‘Who?’]

  28. 28.

    Fluke bucket

    Saying Romney is a great salesman is like saying Obama got trounced in the debate. I don’t get it but to each his own I guess.

  29. 29.

    Tehanu

    @Baud:
    Wouldn’t Voight-Kampff be more appropriate?
    @RSA:
    The Firesign Theatre’s “I Think We’re All Bozos on This Bus” has an audio-animatronic President saying, “Many busy people ask me, what about the job displacement situation?” They always were prescient about this kind of thing.

  32. 32.

    SatanicPanic

    You see! This is the Mitt Romney we were counting on, one debate performance won’t erase that

  34. 34.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @SatanicPanic:
    The media desperately wants a big, strong Daddy who can slap down the Usurper Obama. Now they’re waking up after the debate next to Romney and remembering that no amount of darkity dark presidents in the world can make them want a four year relationship with this loser.

    Hopefully the Tea Party will do the same, but they’re so screamingly insane they can be hard to predict. What we CAN be sure of is that Romney will continue to be an unlikable incompetent.

  35. 35.

    zzyzx

    I actually have face blindness and it’s really frustrating in general. I’m not going to hold the first part against Mitt. Name dropping him OTOH…

  36. 36.

    Montana

    So Willard Mitt Romney tells us that he is a success, its easy when you start with Dad’s money and dad’s contacts (kinda like Trump) and did not do it on your own, but ok, success.

    Willard Milton Romney tells us that Bain was his first success, a company without a product (unlike Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison among others who created jobs by the success of their products). What’s even funnier is Bain owns “Clear Channel” who has under contract both “Rush Limbaugh” and “Glen Beck”, how do you think they will do after the election. Bain preyed on weak companies and their goal was to take these companies into bankruptcy (Willard still gets a check from Bain) not to mention the jobs that were outsourced or their dealings with RED CHINA, but ok maybe Willard did not know that Bain was in to that, sure, why not, right?

    Willard Milton Romney then tells us that his second success is 2002 Winter Olympics. All 2002 Winter Olympics financials have been destroyed, but ok lets take his word, success.

    This is Willard Milton Romney calling card that what our country needs now is someone like him a supposed successful business man. This “Business Success” and how that will translate into “Public Sector” success has already been tested in Massachusetts.

    But what did we see he was governor of Massachusetts, his one and only public sector job? If you look at the majority of his statements as to why he should be governor of Massachusetts, they almost mirror his current ones, mainly “I am a successful business man”. But when we look at Massachusetts, it was an ordinary mediocrity, to the point that he could only survive one term, that how good this guy was, but ok according to him he was a success.

    Did you catch his foreign policy chicken hawk speech, priceless.

    Now he wants the top public sector job, hmmm, no not on my watch!

  38. 38.

    lamh35

    RT @milbank: House Republicans, aiming for Obama, blow the CIA’s cover in Libya. wapo.st/SSIRRw
    — Ben Smith (@BuzzFeedBen) October 11, 2012

  39. 39.

    El Cid

    Your vote is important to me. Please stay in the line and your vote will be pandered to in approximately…. 12 minutes.

  41. 41.

    Chris

    @Fluke bucket:

    This. I’ll agree that he’s a snake in the grass, but a good salesman, nor so much. And this anecdote illustrates why. You’re a pretty fucking shitty salesman if you can’t remember the face you were talking to just ten minutes earlier (four times in a row!) It doesn’t make you look slick, it makes you look like an absent minded toolbag living in your own bubble or, at best, someone who’s drunk/high. I’m not saying I can’t be fooled, but I sure as shit wouldn’t buy a car from someone after a performance like that.

    But as you say, to each his own.

  43. 43.

    sherlock hound

    I am not face blind, but I have poor vision and worse hearing and I am mortified when I fail to recognize someone. (I have too many memories of family screaming at me because I didn’t recognize Aunt Whoozis off the bat.)

    Romney would have told me to learn personal responsibility if I did what he did, to him. FU to that.

  45. 45.

    West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)

    I’m sorry that I have no link, but did anyone see the photos that popped up yesterday of Sarah Palin, who claims she is now writing an exercise book? She looks positively gaunt now. I think her own toxicity is perhaps eating away at her mostly-hollow core. Bristol is now on a second go-round of some dancing show and now Mama Grizz is apparently looking to fleece more fools. Are they perhaps beginning to fade into well-deserved obscurity? (I mean, what else is there after a second DWTS season? Has Bristol’s Life’s a Tripp show been canceled yet?)

  54. 54.

    West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)

    @Calouste: Good call… to me, she looked like someone who would appear on The Real Housewives of Stockton, California: monied, feral, bitchy….

  56. 56.

    Joseph Nobles

    Oh, but you see, even though Mitt Romney broke his pledge to not refer to Doherty later on, it’s OK. Really. Because Hot Air is all over it.

    http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/10/romney-wont-tell-story-of-meeting-former-seal-killed-in-benghazi-after-seals-mom-objects/

    See, Romney didn’t use Doherty’s name. And just “purely from a human interest angle,” it’s told with “respect and good faith,” and it’s a “remarkable coincidence” that Romney met this young man before his death.

    And then Hot Air points out that the wife of a SEAL killed in Afghanistan is very happy Romney mentions him in his speeches. In fact, that SEAL told his wife a few days before his death that the only thing he wanted was a new President. She even considers it the “greatest honor” that Romney still remembers and talks about him. So I don’t know what we are so upset about.

    In fact, I’m so sure these statements are the true opinion of all right-thinking conservatives everywhere, I think I’ll do a test on Facebook. I’m going to post a story about this where the actual words at Facebook aren’t exactly clear about Mitt Romney’s part (although his name is in the smaller description), and pretend it was Barack Obama that did this. I’ll use exactly the same phrases that Hot Air uses to defend Romney, and I’m quite sure all the Alabama and Tennessee relatives I have will see the truth in them as applied to Barack Obama and admit there’s nothing untoward and unseemly in these actions at all.

    That is what is going to happen, right?

  57. 57.

    Joseph Nobles

    Oh, I’m a stinker. Mitt Romney’s name was in the short description of the link as I was composing the post, but when I posted it, that description was shortened even further and Romney’s name disappeared.

    Here’s what I wrote:

    Has Barack Obama gone too far this time? I don’t think so. I think his story about a personal knowledge of Glen Doherty was told on the campaign trail out of respect and good faith. It’s a remarkable coincidence, I think, that Obama met this young man before his death, and purely from a human interest angle, he’s right to talk about. He has promised not to tell the story again after this, although he did slip up and mention Glen Doherty in a speech after the promise. I mean, Obama didn’t even mention Doherty’s name in his campaign speech! Furthermore, the widow of another SEAL killed in Afghanistan considers it the “greatest honor” (her words) that the President mentions her husband in his speeches. I don’t see what all the fuss is about.

    I am so bad. I’m afraid, though, that my many left-leaning friends are going to blow the cover of the story worse than Issa and Chaffetz’s witch hunt blew the CIA’s cover in Benghazi today. Maybe they will actually click through to the story and see what I’ve done, though.

  59. 59.

    serr8d

    A politician being a politician? Imagine that!

    I suppose it was OK with leftists that Mr. Obama latched onto ‘Big Bird’ as a lifeline, but when Mr. Romney mentions meeting Mr. Doherty, it’s a terrible thing, because Mrs. Doherty would rather promote Mr. Obama. Now, we’ll always associate Mr. Doherty with his mother’s politicizing.

    As for Mr. Obama? Let him rightly lose his job, and join Team Big Bird. His performance over the past four years has been abysmal. He’s failed to do anything he promised to do; his inattention to detail got Ambassador Chris Stevens raped and murdered in Benghazi, and his only defense is to trot out an eight-foot cartoon character.

    Please. Let this man join Al Gore on Current TV.

  60. 60.

    El Cid

    @serr8d: I don’t think you have any idea what the post at the top of the page said.

    GIMME MAH 15 CENT I MADE A POST ON THE LIBTARD SITE GIMME MAH MUNEE I NEED MAH FUNYUNS

  62. 62.

    Joseph Nobles

    I’m very happy to report that no one bit. Either everyone already knew about the story and knew it was Mitt, or clicked on the link to get more information before posting. YMMV.

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