Amidst the calls for Mitt Romney to release his tax returns, Romney tried out a new and utterly ridiculous defense. The “the wife of that dude who ran for president (and lost) eight years ago didn’t release her tax returns!”
Seriously.
Except Teresa Heinz Kerry did release the portions of her 2003 tax return that mattered (the portions showing she was owed a $250,000 refund, which surely meant that John Kerry was a socialist or something), and her husband — the dude who was actually running for president — released twenty years of tax returns.
Southern Beale
Theresa Heinz Kerry would have made such a great president, too.
Oh, wait.
Speaking of … anyone watching “Political Animals”? With Sigourney Weaver as a version of Hillary Clinton? Enjoying it so far …
Steve
Are they even trying? Shoeless Joe was banned on less evidence of trying to throw the game.
Violet
Mitt’s running for First Lady.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Remember when some third-tier Dem operative made a clumsy but accurate observation about The Lady Anne and the Village shut down for a week? I’m sure Mitt will face a similar blowback.
Maude
Theresa Heinz Kerry wasn’t running for office.
Romney should put down the shovel.
On the other hand, it’s a lot of fun to watch this.
dmsilev
Mitt’s certainly been having a bad week or so, hasn’t he? Best sign of that is that his campaign started leaking hints that they’d announce a VP pick this week. Rushing such an important decision by a month and a half, probably before finishing the vetting. What could *possibly* go wrong?
JPL
@Violet: On the previous blog, I mentioned that I was disappointed there was not an ad yet.
Romney/first man.. Truth be known his wife is probably more popular even though she whined about having to sell stock in order to pay for college.
Cacti
Well, I’m convinced.
No way will I vote for Teresa Heinz Kerry in 2012.
dmsilev
Ah, but Kerry only released two years of returns during the campaign. The fact that the previous 18 years worth had already been released is true but irrelevant. Five Pinocchios with flaming pants for you.
MikeBoyScout
I met Theresa Heinz Kerry in 1972 … at a McGovern rally.
I suspect we’ll hear from her soon on this. She’s no shrinking violet.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
also, too, I love the way the FoxBot, Doocey or notDoocey?, gives Romney a “Yeah!” when Our Willard talks bout THK’s “HUN-dreds of millions of dollars”, that weaselly little class warrior, expecting her to apologize for her first husband’s great-whatever grandfather’s success.
Patricia Kayden
No, The Bot is trolling the Repubs and his billionaire supporters, not me.
Since he feels that Mrs. Heinz Kerry should have released her taxes, when will we see Ann’s? Whoops, she’s never worked a day in her life, so I guess never.
scav
More fun banker news: Scathing Report Details Money Laundering at HSBC. You’d almost think they discovered a shiny new meme or something. (especially as it comes with the You Got Regulations in My Banking! You got Banking in My Regulators Both Sides Do it cat-fight pre-wired.)
MikeBoyScout
@14 efgoldman:
Time will tell I guess, but as the wife of a MA pol she ain’t going to take no BS from a troller. She never did while John Heinz was her husband.
the Conster
This has only been day three of the Obama drone strike on the Mittster, and look what Rove’s strategy, when adopted by competent smart operatives on behalf of the truth, hath wrought. I’m going to go out on a limb and say they’ve got this.
Mitt’s been turned into a lying cheating emasculated punch line. Comfort yourself with your BainBucks, Mitt.
NotMax
Shorter version of this inept, inapt and puerile misdirection:
Nothin’ up my sleeve.
Quick! Look!! Over there!!!
NotMax
Hm. Had 3 exclamation points following ‘Over there’ but they were excised.
FYWP.
MikeBoyScout
@18 NotMax:
Your 3 exclamation points #retroactively retired.
kc
Not too smart of the Mittenistas to attack a candidate’s spouse. Makes hard for them to get all huffy when the big deductions on Ann’s “therapy” horses come up.
scav
@NotMax: let’s see if there’s a cheap workaround. !!!
ETA: Coding for the marks seems to work. Ampersand Hash 033 semicolon or just recognize the blobby bit as excitement which is far easier.
robertdsc-PowerBook
@efgoldman:
Zing!
Fuck you, Willard. I’m tired of your shit.
That’s all I’m gonna say.
Scotty
When does someone make the Stericycle ad saying Bain made money off of aborted fetuses? Money that went into Mittens wallet. That should go over well with the pro-life portion of the party.
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
@Southern Beale: Too cartoonish for Mrs Pantload and me; it was off after about 10 minutes. ‘Course, this was immediately after the Breaking Bad season premier, so anything that wasn’t complete A game was going to suffer in comparison.
@Violet Ha! Though even the likes of Laura Bush would would end up picking her teeth with his bones.
Roger Moore
@NotMax:
Yeah, FYWP doesn’t like that for some reason. It’s annoying, because they’re sometimes a good way of making a point. The only solution I’ve found to FYWP is to use a character with a different Unicode code point but a similar glyph. Like this‼‼‼‼‼‼‼
ETA: That’s actually a double exclamation point glyph, which is a new discovery for me.
the Conster
@Scotty:
I assure you it’s in the can ready for October. That’s going to be a SuperPac ad, is my guess. If it were up to me, I’d go full metal snark and do an ad sponsored by Incinerated Aborted Fetuses for Romney with his voice over promising to defund Planned Parenthood.
jefft452
“Truth be known his wife is probably more popular…”
I hear this a lot, has there been any polling on Lady Ann’s supposed popularity?
Personally, I doubt she can even clear the low bar of being more popular then the Marquis de Mittens, even on an Austrian Warmblood
NotMax
@Roger Moore and the other helpful respondents.
Thanks. Now I know, and will try to remember to use ASCII code in the future.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@efgoldman: Santorum. I see him as convinced he’s just waiting for his moment (2016) to lead us back to the 11th century. If Romney starts to look weak, Santorum will start trolling from the right.
ETA: also, Santorum is a true believer, not like the majority of ‘pro-lifers’ who just use the issue to get people like my aunts to vote for tax breaks
Sammi
Cindy McCain didn’t release her tax returns either. Romney didn’t have to go back to the 2004 election. He could’ve just gone to the last election.
Lojasmo
@MikeBoyScout:
THC : “Mr. Romney, are you running for president, or First Lady? Senator Kerry released nearly twenty years of returns. My our father released twelve years worth when he ran for president. What kind of man are you?”
ETA !!!!!!
piratedan
jaysus… you’d think with the money he has offshore, Mitt could just go out and buy his own country…
NotMax
@Jim, Foolish Literalist
Santorum, the Father Coughlin of the 21st century, embodies a nervous breakdown waiting to happen.
Roger Moore
@Scotty:
I’ll agree with the other posters that Obama should stay well away from putting out a Stericycle ad. He doesn’t want to wade into abortion if he doesn’t have to, especially if the ads appear to contradict his support of reproductive rights by labeling abortion as something to be ashamed of. If he wants to stir things up, it needs to be a word of mouth/email chain letter type of thing among wingnuts. I’m sure there are plans somewhere on how to do it if the wingnuts don’t do it to themselves, but it’s got to be 100% deniable.
scav
Neither Martha no George Washington released their Federal Tax Forms, in fact none of the Founder Fathers Did So ‼‼‼
jwb
@dmsilev: Surely they can fix anything that goes wrong retroactively.
Yutsano
@efgoldman: US has lots of neat toys already. Also. Too.
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
@NotMax: Yeah, FYWP has a longstanding tradition of rationing the excitey sticks in normal usage. After all, there is war on, you know.
Scotty
@the Conster: I’d actually prefer to see it run before the Republican convention. Just to see the reaction among convention-goers.
NotMax
@piratedan
Post Citizens United, they are trying to buy a country.
Ours.
/statingtheobvious
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@NotMax: That speech where he breathily talks about how birth control is “not okay” is creepy bordering on frightening.
@efgoldman: nice commentary by Steve M, too. I see Romney the same way, terrified and contemptuous of the base like Louis XVI putting on a phrygian cap to appease the Parisian masses. The most interesting explanation I heard of his palling around with Trump (besides the general campaign strategy of lowest-common-denominator talk-radio demagoguery) is that Our Willard is afraid Trump will run as a third party spoiler and siphon off the stupid racist vote.
the Conster
@Scotty:
I like the way you think. Sowing chaos FTW.
ETA: How weird is it to have Bain profit from incinerating aborted fetuses, then profit from a company that makes LifeLike baby dolls. The guy has less than zero scruples. And we haven’t even begun to talk about posthumous baptisms and the Planet Kolob.
pete
A gentleman never discusses money.
And Mitty tries so hard to imagine himself as a gentleman. The guys at his prep school evidently knew better …
NotMax
@Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
Heh. Reminded of the Car Talk/Onion Vowels To Bosnia bit.
¡¡¡Grammatical Symbols For The Troops!!!
jwb
@efgoldman: Who the hell wants Mitt on their TV? The man’s ratings poison, and I’m willing to bet that after the election we won’t see him on TV much at all.
Roger Moore
@efgoldman:
No. I think the people on the shows will despise him enough by the time the campaign is over that they would only invite him if he’s actually important. If he loses, he’ll be shunned by everyone.
NotMax
@efgoldman
Would save a lot of time and money. Have him on once, and just replay the mugwump footage of him dodging, weaving and avoiding committing to a position on anything every week thereafter, no matter the topic.
cmorenc
@Patricia Kayden:
Even bigger problem with that idea: it’s as near-certain as the sun will rise tomorrow that Ann and Mitt have been filing JOINT returns ever since they got married way back before Mitt even started Bain.
MikeJ
@efgoldman: I can’t imagine Mitt subjecting himself to being around commoners if he wasn’t running for something.
the Conster
@efgoldman:
Mitt doesn’t need the money, he has no personality, he has no interesting biography, he’s not a POW (did you know that McCain was a POW?), he’s arrogant, he’s not forthcoming, no one likes him, you can’t have a beer with him even if you wanted to, and if he loses to Obama, he’ll just be another loser and no one likes losers, especially stiff simulacrums like Mitt.
maya
The Mittster is standing his quicksand.
ChrisNYC
Always a winner to run against a would-be first lady. Mui presidential.
Anya
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That’s because of the epic butthurt from the Romney campaign and the wingnut freakout. What’s out side doing?
El Cid
Purple heart bandaid!
John Kerry has a long face and is a fancy pants rich Massachusetts ayleet who pursues goofy snob hobbies like windsurfing.
Unlike the Appalachian Spring candidate, Willard “Mitt” Romney.
pragmatism
Galtball: calvinball for the elites. Just make up the rules as you go along slick Willard.
Anya
I’ve read on the internet that Mittenz heavily invested in gay porn and that is why he won’t release his returns. Or was it asian prostitution rings?
Michael G
Forget about the fact that Mittens is being misleading.
My favorite thing about this is that he’s saying “I’m doing the exact same thing AS THE GUY WHO LOST” and thinks that’s a brilliant tactic.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Anya: The right wing drives MSM stories like this. Just a fact of life. That’s why I thought it was so funny when people were asking if Romney on the JetSki would be his ‘wind-surfing moment’. Not the way it works. What we got was a rich wall street democrat complaining that he was offended, because he has a boat.
Rachel Maddow has a story coming up about Senate Dems attempting a little drama about the DISCLOSE Act.
NotMax
Yes, it is a B-grade piece of fluff, but more and more the 30s movie “the Dark Horse” looks prescient.
From the TCM synopsis:
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Harry Ried: If this bill goes through, we may wake up soon and find that 17 angry old white men have bought the country. That’s roughly what he said– Dems are gonna bring the DISCLOSE Act up for another vote at midnight. They’re trying.
Quarks
And how well did not releasing his wife’s tax returns work out for John Kerry, hmm? Last I heard, Kerry lost. Bad example on a number of levels, Mitt.
I wouldn’t look too hard at the Cindy McCain comparison either. Cindy McCain has definitely had her problem moments, but they’ve managed to more or less make her seem like a human being, however flawed, and she does seem to be more aware of the planet in general. Ann Romney just manages to seem completely out of touch, and her methods of dealing with her problems (horsies) are not really as easy to relate to as Cindy McCain’s (drugs). Plus Cindy McCain at least had the guts to admit she screwed up with the drugs.
NotMax
Familiarity breeds contempt.
Mitt can consume ketchup (Theresa Heinz Kerry) but not beer (Cindy McCain).
ChrisNYC
Buzzfeed (sorry) had a piece today about how Mitt’s pretty much exclusively fundraising while Obama is out talking to people, doing rallies, etc. So MR doesn’t answer questions, he doesn’t speak to voters. He’s out there somewhere, behind glass, wanting to be president. That campaign expects that Americans are going to elect someone who can’t be bothered to become known, to explain themselves? Never gonna happen.
So weird, unless they completely drank the redstate koolaid on how unacceptable Obama is. Dumb dumb dumb.
nepat
@Violet:
Oooooo, that’s good. Someone get Stephanie Cutter on the horn. That needs to be the stock Obama surrogate response every time the issue comes up.
Elmo
@efgoldman:
I’m telling you, same thing i said on the other thread – his tax returns might very well show that he shorted American Airlines on 9/10/11.
It’s irresponsible not to speculate.
Nellcote
@jwb:
Rmoney’s new ad got shut down for copyright violation!
BWAHAHAHAHAHA
NotMax
Worked for Garfield, McKinley and Harding, sad to say.
karen marie
Fast and Furious? That’s where Romney goes to “prove” the president has a transparency problem? I guess he knows the Fox audience.
JPL
@Elmo: not only that, he claimed NH on tax returns but voted in MA elections. You know what, if Mitt committed voter fraud, he had a picture id..
jwb
@Nellcote: Yes, I saw that. I’m disappointed, because the ad was so lame I’d hoped it would be up for awhile. In fact, I almost wonder if someone at the campaign realized the ad totally sucked and asked for the takedown notice. In any case, that was a very weak infringement case and it the campaign would have almost certainly won if they’d chosen to fight it.
muddy
@NotMax: I thought it was tremendous on Rachel Maddow the day Rmoney did the round robin of denial interviews. She was saying how he did 5 interviews, but not 6, no love for msnbc. So she was showing the 5 different screens at the same time, and here is Rmoney with the exact “disingenuous” face, saying versions of the same sentence over and over. The multiplication really showed the lying face, because they were all *exactly* the same.
I can imagine him practicing it in front of the mirror. “Open the eyes wide, lean back, looks so honest. Yeah, I can totally freeze my face like this, I rule.”
jwb
@jwb: The Romney campaign says they are going to fight the takedown notice. These people are so tone deaf they don’t know when they’ve received a gift.
Violet
@muddy: Mitt’s eyes do not match the rest of his face. He looks like he’s somewhat frightened and angry at the same time. I think he’s affronted that anyone questions him. It makes him look like he’s lying, which he probably is, so at least his face is honest in that regard. He doesn’t look like a normal person.
NotMax
@muddy
Bing-freaking-O.
Amen to that, along with his coy teeth and dimple flashing.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@jwb: jeebus, they’re gonna fight for that POS ad? I am really trying not to get over-confident, but they do seem snakebit and stupid. I’ll be interested in seeing where the polls are in a week.
Fluke bucket
@El Cid: the Appalachian Spring candidate is being Swift Yachted.
JPL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: They just want to play the victim card. They don’t care if they win. whine..whine..whine.. woe is me…
danielx
And Teresa Heinz Kerry’s tax returns are so relevant to the 2012 election.
Was Mitt’s fraternity nickname Flounder?
Elmo
@JPL:
And of course I meant 9/10/01. Duh. But I like yours too.
shortstop
@the Conster: Was it baby dolls? I just assumed they were sex dolls. No, really, I did.
@Elmo: You laugh, and I laugh with you, but I really do wonder whether he might have shorted Enron, AIG, GM, etc.
karen marie
@jefft452: So far she’s only slightly sympathetic as a victim.
Mnemosyne
@JPL:
Turns out that all of those complaints about liberals having a “victim mentality” was yet another example of Republican projection.
mdblanche
@jefft452: Do you know who else was from Austria? No, not him.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@efgoldman:
Yeah.. Asian gay prostitution porn rings, with, with flying Japanese sand tigers!. Yeah, that’s the ticket!
Bruce S
From Sports Illustrated back in 2002, on the Olympics that Willard “rescued”, using, of course, his “private equity” genius:
Can we afford to have this disingenuous douche-bag attempt to “rescue” the US economy with that Olympics/Bain “expertise”?
Romney is managing to disgust me even more than Rick Santorum did – because Santorum was just an intellectually incompetent crank who actually believed in shit, no matter how puke-worthy. Romney is the most dishonest, most self-absorbed, most shallow phony ever to run for President IMHO – and that’s saying a lot!
Montarvillois
While mentioning Teresa Heinz Kerry, Romney added that the Democrats wanted to see his returns to make a mountain out of them. It appeared to me he was about to use the phrase “make a mountain out of a molehill”, but for once caught himself and shut up.