Romney on why he didn’t mention the troops in his speech (via):
When you give a speech you don’t go through a laundry list, you talk about the things you think are important.
When Romney loses an election that a Republican could win, it will be due to a combination of his achingly stupid campaign advisors and his experience at Bain. It’s so goddam obvious that a candidate of the party that used “support the troops” as a cudgel for 8 years has to mention and thank them in his speech. Hell, even after Karl Rove is curled up in a fetal ball in the Alzheimer’s unit, he’ll know enough to whisper that in your ear in return for a quick handie. Yet Romney’s wonder boys fuck shit like that up daily. (Another example: Eastwood says he told them he didn’t know what he was going to say, and these morons let him go on anyway).
His advisors are bad enough, but what really kills Romney is that he just can’t get over his years of being head prick at the prick factory. I’ve dealt with a few corporate consultants in my time, and as a rule they’re the most odious, unctuous assholes you’d ever want to meet. If you catch them out, they’re going to respond just the way Mitt did in this interview. It’s a reflex, and if he can’t tame it by now, he never will.
A moderately competent first-time candidate for Congress wouldn’t make half the mistakes that Romney has made, and he’s been in politics for almost 20 years. What’s even more disgusting is that this was a Fox puffball interview where the reporter was pre-apologizing for even asking the question.
Also, too: Just give up on GM. That pooch is screwed. Your twenty different “What people don’t understand is blah blah horseshit lie blah blah blah” explanations for why up is down and you would have saved the car companies just make you look worse every time you trot a new one out.
lamh35
what makes it even more breathtakingly stupid is that if this that I read this morning was true (see link below) then the lead Obama into a “series of mistakes” strategy is already off to a bad start.
A Month of Mistakes?
Xecky Gilchrist
Is that a flag lapel pin? Some laundry list items are OK.
Matt McIrvin
Sidebar ad is pushing potassium iodide tablets for “radiation thyroid protection”. I assume the word “disaster” did it.
Felinious Wench
Oh…shit.
The gift that keeps on giving.
low-tech cyclist
“When you give a speech you don’t go through a laundry list, you talk about the things you think are important.”
–Mitt
Man, we ought to put that on signs outside every American Legion hall in the country.
different-church-lady
[blink]
(pause)
[blink blink]
(pause)
He didn’t actually say that, did he?
Emma
@different-church-lady: Yeah. I saw this on another thread and had exactly the same reaction.
EconWatcher
You gotta love this guy. All Obama has to do in the debates is make sure Romney has to answer a question that his team hasn’t already completely scripted. He has no innate sense at all.
I was a criminal defense lawyer for years, and the most miserable part of trials is when your client is on the stand (if you can’t talk him out of taking the stand). You know he can’t handle it, you know there’s nothing you can do to help him, and you just have to wait for the crash while trying not to grimace.
Romney’s handlers are going to know that feeling during the debates.
danah gaz
Holy fuck. This is fucking stupid, even by Mitt standards.
Litlebritdifrnt
If OFA don’t have that in a 30 second ad on Youtube by the end of the day I will be very surprised.
catclub
@EconWatcher: well, you gotta love that he is the competition. Obama is a lucky man.
Chris
HOLY SHIT
HOLY FUCKING SHIT
THAT’s why you didn’t mention the troops, because they weren’t something you thought were important? Dear fucking Lord, someone hit him over the head with that quote again and again until he bleeds.
beltane
Last week there was a spoof Romney interview where he said “I was too important to serve in Vietnam.” Some said the spoof was over the top. Well, what the real Mitt Romney just said in a real interview is even worse than what the fake Mitt said in a made-up interview.
As EconWatcher said at #8: “You gotta love this guy.”
lamh35
So is this another part of the Romney camp’s “series of Obama mistakes” strategy?
Romney Endorses Ultraconservative Congressman
Rep. Steve King takes a hard line on issues like ab*ortion and Islam. The Obama campaign seizes opportunity to cast Romney as extreme on social issues
Anya
Okay, so will democrats borrow the wingnut outrage machine? This is worthy of a wingnut level outrage.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Anya:
That is what I said earlier can you imagine the Malkin’s of this world if POTUS had said that?
dmsilev
Lets, as a thought experiment, imagine what would happen if some interviewer asked a Democratic candidate for President why he/she didn’t mention the troops in their big speech and the response was “I had more important things to talk about”.
Fox News would go on one of its patented 24/7 ragegasms, Drudge’s siren would be big enough to be visible from orbit, there would be a literal stampede of GOP congressmen/Senators towards the nearest camera, etc. WIthin about a day, the herd of “mainstream” pundits would be following suit, discussing the controversy and asking why Democrats hate the troops. And so on.
Regnad Kcin
8 years?
AYFKM?
Yellow ribbons since 1979 and Support Our Troops since Poppy Bush’s Excellent Gulf Adventure.
Jingoism is not a recent discovery.
burnspbesq
Sorry for shouting, but I’m pissed.
THAT’S HOW A PREPACKAGED BANKRUPTCY WORKS, YOU DUMB-ASS MOTHER-FUCKER!
nitpicker
Also, the fact he doesn’t understand there’s a difference between “the military” and “the troops” should be a disqualifying issue. As Obama obviously gets (and anyone who’s served knows from bootcamp day one) they are two unique constituencies with sometimes widely varying interests.
Ann Rynd
Is Romney Still around? I thought he blew himself up.
lamh35
Could someone delete the 2 comments in moderation if this one post ok…thanks.
So is this another part of the Romney camp’s “series of Obama mistakes” strategy?
Romney Endorses Ultraconservative Congressman
Rep. Steve King takes a hard line on issues like ab**ortion and Islam. The Obama campaign seizes opportunity to cast Romney as extreme on social issues
Calouste
@catclub:
Shall I remind you of the other contenders in the Republican primary? The ones that made Romney look competent?
Obama has simply expanded his opposition-fu to include the entire opposition party.
The Dangerman
This is a spoof, right? No sentient person would say that the “troops aren’t important”. Shit, that’s worse than bragging about Romneycare.
Asshole.
dmsilev
Sort of a side note, but I have to say I’m impressed at how that FoxBot went beyond slow-pitch questions and instead just served up a T-ball “pitch”.
beltane
@Ann Rynd: He did blow himself up but the pieces of him are still around saying stupid and offensive things.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Way to go Mittens you idiot – you just admitted everyone who say what ever shit you think the rubes will buy.
Twit.
Catsy
@dmsilev: And the impeachment papers would be drafted before the segment finished airing.
Hungry Joe
Every time I think he can’t possibly … and then he does … and then I tell myself, No way can he ever top … and then he does … and then … and then …
Never seen anything remotely like this. Seriously. Palin, Gohmert, Bachmann & Co. LTD come out with brain-crushingly stupid stuff, but Romney’s stylings are steeped in a privileged nastiness that should be detectible by anyone north of sentient. The GOP’s best hope is to tie him up, gag him, toss him in a closet, and run ads 24/7.
mdblanche
For those moments when one facepalm doesn’t quite cut it…
And check out the highest rated comments!
comrade scott's agenda of rage
This wins the internets for today!
Rmoney doesn’t care about any of this crap, why? The 100 million dollar carpet bombing of ads just began. He’s approaching the next two months exactly like he worked in the primaries: get backed into a corner by the Republican Front Runner Du Jour, then overwhelm them with negative, attack ads. It worked *every* time in the primary.
And I don’t trust vast swaths of the ‘Murkin electorate to see thru that and pick up on gaffes like this.
I think all the negative talk about Warren’s chances in MA over the last couple of days has got me down.
Anya
@nitpicker: Bombs are people my friend.
mdblanche
@beltane: Mitt Romney: It’s not that I’m important, it’s that you’re not.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
Reciting a laundry list is for you people.
I don’t watch Faux so I’ve never experienced the douche nozzle asking the questions. What a douche nozzle.
Captain C
So, basically:
Q: Hey, Mitt, how come you didn’t mention the troops?
A:
What any journalist to the left of David Brooks would, ok, should ask as the followup:
“So does that mean you don’t think the troops are important?”
Simple math, baby.
The commercials write themselves.
ira_NY
@lamh35:
Another crazy thing about King is that he supports dog fighting.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/31/steve-king-dogfighting_n_1725776.html
priscianusjr
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
Doesn’t the right blow a gasket if someone refers to a marine as a soldier, or something? Does military = troops? I doubt it.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: The 100 bazillion dollar add bombs don’t work. Meg Witman tried that in the 2010 California governors race and ended up hated for her spaming everyone with her crap.
Catsy
Anyway, when I saw this earlier at the GOS my jaw was on the floor for a full minute. A person doesn’t have to be a fan of rah-rah jingoism (and TBH, at times the convention last night got a little too close to that for my liking, but I understand it’s obligatory) to recognize just how shockingly stupid this statement was.
Romney literally just told every single person who has served or is now serving this country in uniform that they are not important to him.
If this country elects Romney after this, there is simply no hope for it.
I’ve loved this idiom ever since I first heard it in The Right Stuff.
[email protected]
Look at his face in the stopped video above. He looks like a boy caught with his hand either in the cookie jar or his pants. He’d have that same look the first time he fucked up big if we ever let him near the White House.
Mitt is a mutt and there’s no frigging way the race should be as close as it is right now.
What is wrong with people?
rea
he’s been in politics for almost 20 years.
And managed to win one election in that time.
lamh35
@ira_NY: ETA: Chuck Todd, Buzzfeed et al are all on twitter wondering why the heck Romney would do this in September. They trying to see what the Obama equivalent would be and all they can come up with is Charlie Rangel…LOL!
Ruckus
but what really kills Romney is that he just can’t get over his years of being head prick at the prick factory
Nice. Truthful as well.
It’s a reflex, and if he can’t tame it by now, he never will.
Tame it? He’s not trying to tame it, he embraces it, no, he revels in it. It’s who he is.
Sterngard Friegen
Mitt Rmoney never makes mistakes. So that explains his failure to mention the troops.
Oh, and troops are the expendable little people. Rmoney is RICH. He doesn’t have to worry about them. Unless they are undocumented aliens working on his lawn or taking care of his wife’s tax deductible horse.
Where are your tax returns, Mr. Rmoney?
quannlace
His handlers should have the phrase ‘What Governor Romney MEANT to say..” in their word programs to save time when they have to send out a clean-up statement everytime Romney puts his foot in his mouth
The Dangerman
After seeing the evidence, the only conclusion I can come to is that Mitt is some form of performance artist, kinda like the carny act that swallows flaming torches or swords. He’s basically Gallagher without the watermelons. Nothing should implode a campaign faster than dissing the troops serving overseas. Maybe dropping his pants at Ground Zero (and he still has lots of time).
Kate520
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Look at his face in the stopped video above. He looks like a boy caught with his hand either in the cookie jar or his pants. He’d have that same look the first time he fucked up big and tried to cover it up, if we ever let him near the White House.
Mitt is a mutt and there’s no frigging way the race should be as close as it is right now.
What is wrong with people?
catclub
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: “It worked every time in the primary.”
And the difference is: a) except to the permanently deranged, Obama is a pretty well known, reasonable figure, so painting him as a monster is not effective. b)Although there is less money backing Obama, it is not the same as the 7 or 9-1 ratio in spending that Romney was able to pile onto Gingrich or Santorum. c)Santorum and Gingrich had no ground game — hell, they couldn’t even get on the ballot in Virginia, their home state.
Suffern ACE
“When you are president, you have to make a lot of life or death decisions, and when you make those, you shouldn’t get too hung up about how those decisions will affect the troops. Otherwise, you end up not making good strategic decisions. One of Obama’s failures is that he thinks about the troops too much. That is unbecoming of a president. You will not have that problem with Romney.”
See how this is laying a trap for an Obama September mistake?
/s
Seanly
Wow… on my work laptop so I don’t dare post my deepest thoughts, but… wow.
Military doesn’t equal troops. Military is a big faceless thing, a budget item, like GM or McDonald’s is a thing. The troops are people who carry out the tasks assigned to the military. The troops are the one who deserve our thanks & our support.
Oh and I hate his stupid “supposed to be jovial but it is just inhuman” consultant laugh. I don’t want the boring brother to the Bobs as President.
Turgidson
@different-church-lady:
If a Democrat had said this, they’d have been convicted of treason by nightfall.
Ash Can
This is about the eighteenth time he’s done something that would have sent a Dem’s campaign straight to Davy Jones’ locker. Mitt Romney is where he is for three, and only three, reasons:
1) He’s white.
2) He’s Republican.
3) The corporate media need a horse race.
japa21
Almost up there with Bush’s “I don’t think about him (OBL) any more”, except Bush had more going for him than Romney does.
Romney excuse that he did talk about strengthening the military and military means troops doesn’t cut it either. He was talking about the military industrial complex and spending money on systems the Pentagon doesn’t even want.
The troops know, understand and appreciate the difference. This unforced error could cost him upwards of 10% of the military vote.
celticdragonchick
I honestly cannot figure out wtf was going through his head when he doubled down on not mentioning the troops, and then said that it wasn’t important.
Wow.
His contempt for “lesser people” is utterly stunning. He really is that fucking clueless.
beltane
Mitt Romney is so cunning that he just beat himself in a game of one-dimensional chess.
Chris
@priscianusjr:
I’ve wondered for a while if he might try to actually run again in 2016 if he loses this time around. He REALLY wants the presidency.
GxB
@Seanly: From the looks of it, Bob is Rmoney’s uncle – the incompetence is staggering.
piratedan
@burnspbesq: hey now, it’s not a REAL bankruptcy unless, there’s a vulture capitalist involved to make sure that the workers are left with nothing and that all of the executives get their parachutes….
runt
Freedom is messy.
Anya
@Litlebritdifrnt: I just checked TPM and no Dem outrage yet. Maybe they’re waiting till Monday.
@lamh35: OFA should make a commercial of King making bigoted and stupid ass comments and then Mittenz showering him with praise.
scav
There’s another subtle entitlement “I’m never wrong” messaging, with the potential to be an own goal stuck in there too, just below the waterline. This man is talking to the media, this man is talking to Faux:
He’s essentially calling out Faux for repeating it, telling them to pull up their Saux and accept blame for for the problem. He did nothing wrong. They’re the source of the problem. More diplomacy in action.
nitpicker
@beltane: Well, two dimensional chess, at least. He has height and width, but what he lacks is depth.
Catsy
@Chris: FSM does not love us that much.
If he doesn’t win, Romney’s career in politics is over after this campaign. Finished. Done. He will be an object of fun and will receive the vast majority of the blame from True Believer wingnuts for the loss of the election.
Aside from the gold mine of oppo research, I can only think of two people who’ve ever run for president after previously being nominated and losing, and the only one of them who actually won was Nixon–who, charmless and odious piece of shit that he was, had more political acumen in his sneer than Romney does in his entire body. And had previously held the office of Vice President.
ericblair
It’s worth watching that clip. I haven’t watched Fox Nooz in a long time, since it’s better for my sanity and blood pressure that way, but holy fuck. “Oh great one, most groveling apologies but some unworthy souls have seen fit to criticize your most worthy self about what you didn’t say, and of course you are completely right and justified in everything you do but please explain just how right you are to your benighted viewers.”
And then he starts in with this stupid chuckling and taking potshots at the Nooz Stooge, which is right out of Top 5 Asshole Boss Behaviors that grate everyone the wrong way, and launches into doing Obama’s oppo research for him. Which by the way, is going to put a bunch of Obama staffers out of work since a syphilitic monkey could do the oppo at this point, so thanks, Mister Job Creator Boy.
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
@Catsy:
And Romney seems hellbent on reminding us ad infinitum between now and election day that those pooches don’t screw themselves.
The Dangerman
@Chris:
He will be torched with “RINO” the day after the election if he loses. Charred. Crispy charred. Lighting charcoal with liquid nitrogen charred (do NOT try this at home unless you live next to a Hospital).
Not a chance.
roc
Yeah, to me, this looks about on par with the faux-outrage we usually get from the right.
Sure, Mitt’s phrasing ‘what you think is important’ is bad. But the context of that soundbite conveys the larger point, which was a perfectly reasonable explanation.
So if we’re just having a lazy friday chuckle over a gaffe, whatever.
But if this is something people are supposed to spend more than 2 seconds thinking about … that’s some serious weak sauce y’all.
var
We need to put Romney saying troops aren’t important on a loop. Seriously.
arguingwithsignposts
There are not enough heads nor desks for the incredible tone-defitude of that statement. My first instinct is “surely he didn’t say that …” or “that has to be out of context, right?” But, as has been proven over and over the last few weeks, my first instincts do not do well with Republicans today.
Balconesfault
Shorter Romney:
You stupid peon – how dare you even mention this to my face? Do you forget I like firing people?
Catsy
@roc: Feel free to opt out of expressing outrage (or lack thereof) at it, then.
If you don’t immediately get why this is a devastating gaffe, I don’t think anyone here can help you get it. And telling a thread full of people–many of whom have either served or have family serving–that they shouldn’t be offended at the slight is, to say the least, something of a dick move.
Chris
@Catsy:
@The Dangerman:
Oh, I don’t disagree. I just wonder if he might be delusional or desperate or shameless enough to try again anyway. I don’t think he’ll actually succeed or even get close to getting the nomination.
Captain C
@Catsy: Three if you count Grover Cleveland (I’m assuming you’re counting Stevenson and Nixon as the other two), but that’s going back 120+ years and he had a) already served a term as president and b) lost his re-election bid with a majority of the popular vote, IIRC, but not the electoral vote.
Not to mention that candidates in those days were picked more by cigar-smoke-filled backroom maneuvering than primaries and caucuses.
Mitt’s not a Grover Cleveland, not by a long shot. The latter could admit to his mistakes, and even turn them to his advantage (cf. “Ma, Ma, where’s my pa?” “Gone to the White House! Ha! Ha! Ha!”)
Captain C
@roc: So, just so we’re clear, you’re saying that it’s entirely reasonable (or that it should be to the average voter) that Mitt basically said that the troops aren’t important, and in a time of war, yes?
Thanks for your concern.
japa21
@roc: Not sure what you would consider a reasonable explanation, but saying that you mentioned strengthening the military and equates to mentioning the troops is not, in any sense, a reasonable explanation, which reading several of the comments on this thread would make clear to you.
MikeBoyScout
Look, this idiot and his Gekko bullshit is hard enough to take.
But this shit is so very f*cking over the line, I’M MAD AS HELL.
I’ll be GD-d if this shit is going to stand. From now until November 7th everyone I see is going to be asked to view this horse shit. Yeah, I got me a smart phone, a tablet, etc.. and I run into (fellow) Veterans and Veteran families every day.
Laundry list? ‘not’ important? Non serving French wine sipping off shore money parking tax evading piece of sh*t. How DARE you say that? How DARE you?
roc
@Catsy: Trying to make an issue out of this is almost exactly on par with the right wing bullshit meme where they claimed Obama called Veterans whiners.
That was effective, too. But that doesn’t make it a thing you should engage nor delight in.
Brachiator
@Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn:
RE: That pooch is screwed
Yes, the servants have to hold them while the pooch screwing happens.
Balconesfault
Romney has already gotten away with a comment back in 2008 that would have been a career-killer for a Democratic Prez Candidate – that his sons were serving the nation by driving their Winnebagoes around Iowa campaigning for him.
Seriously – had Obama, or Biden, ever made such a remark, do you think a day would go by without Rush and Fox sharing the soundbite with their audience?
Chris
@Captain C:
Ovenmitt must have wished so many times during this campaign that that was still the way things worked.
jl
When the real core of your party’s program is to cook up BS to fool, scare, and intimidate voters, then questions about any kind of real reality can get tricky.
Let’s hope the GOP cannot keep up the spin for another two months. Looks like they have a ticket custom designed to accomplish a spin breakdown.
And Dems have a ticket custom designed to keep focus on real reality, which was very prominently and kindly emphasized by a certain big dog last week.
arguingwithsignposts
@roc: weren’t you around here last week concern-trolling making too big a deal out of Paul Ryan’s marathon times? Or was that another one?
different-church-lady
@ericblair:
And then he still blows it!
celticdragonchick
Romneybot2012:
H/T Jaunte
roc
@japa21: Firstly, I don’t care nor perceive it as a slight if a politician passes on mentioning the troops in any speech not explicitly about war.
Secondly, if there’s a way to parse “strong military” that conveys “fuck the troops”, I’m sorry, but it just isn’t automatic to me.
Sure, intellectually, the military and the troops are distinct things. And cynical pro-military people exist who would just as soon gut the VA to save a billion dollar defense contract for a useless weapon.
But if a normal person in plain speech talked about being a “military man” or said he “supported the military”, it would be pretty obtuse to interpret that as being ambiguous as to whether he’s just talking about being pro military-industrial complex, no-bid contracts and mercenaries or some nonsense.
Try not to interpret this as some defense of Mitt. It’s more a defense of being able to speak plainly and a plea to stop interpreting every damn thing said by people you don’t agree with in the worst possible way.
Catsy
@roc: Your concern is noted, considered, and filed in the appropriate bucket.
Attempts at false equivalency aside, Romney’s explanation simply isn’t credible. He claims that he did actually mention “the troops” in his speech, in that he referred (falsely) to Obama cutting “trillions” of dollars from the “military”, and asserted that he would preserve a “strong military”–and that this is the same thing.
It’s not. He did not utter one single word of acknowledgement to the fact that we currently have Americans serving at war, to those who have returned from that service, or to the veterans who have sacrificed for the wars his party started.
Mitt Romney said the word “war” three times in his speech–and all three were in reference to the WW2 era of his childhood.
Mitt Romney did not utter the words “Iraq” or “Afghanistan” a single time, nor did he reference them even obliquely.
The word “veteran” did not pass his lips either.
The issue at the heart of this is that Republicans talk a lot about supporting veterans and our troops serving on active duty, but this rhetoric is as hollow as their claims to be “pro-life”. Veterans and soldiers are campaign props to them.
Romney’s gaffe highlights this fact in that his only mention even of the “military”–let alone the troops or veterans themselves–was to use the military as part of a mendacious attack on Obama and a vague promise of strength. And when challenged on this fact, he doubled down on that omission by implying that mentioning veterans or those serving in uniform just wasn’t important enough to make the cut.
That’s what this is about.
danimal
@Anya: The shelf life of Romney gaffes is short; he’ll say something stupider by Monday. IOW, make “hey!” while the sun shines….
Obama is brilliant in the ‘selecting your opponents’ aspect of electioneering.
NonyNony
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
Now let’s just hold on there a minute pardner. Let’s remember who Romney was running against in the primaries. This is key to why his “carpetbomb the airwaves with negative attack ads” strategy worked so damn well in the primaries.
Seriously. He had a mess of people who were running for the grift against him. Not a single serious opponent in the bunch. NONE of them were taking it seriously. The closest one was Rick Santorum – and come on. Rick Santorum? Seriously? Why would you need elaborate negative attack ads to get rid of Rick Santorum? Just putting his face on the screen and playing an excerpt of him speaking would be considered a negative attack ad for anyone outside the 27%.
He had no real opposition – and it STILL took him UNLIMITED CAMPAIGN CASH to seal the deal in the end. Because Republicans hated him so much. If any viable option had been dangled in front of them they would have snatched it.
I’m not saying that we should be complacent about it but come on – comparing this year’s Republican primary battle to the general election is like comparing a round of miniature golf to the World Series. Not only are they not the same league, they’re not even the same sport.
roc
@arguingwithsignposts: Nope. And I’ll thank you to not assume that I hold the same positions as other people you’ve disagreed with on other issues, simply because we disagree on this.
mdblanche
@Captain C: Also Thomas Dewey who took on the hopeless task of running against FDR in 1944, and then got to run in a winnable race against Truman who still managed to beat Dewey despite facing a hostile press and party revolts on both the right and the left and sunk the Congressional Republicans along with him.
Mitt Romney’s rhetoric is as substantial as Dewey’s was, but less articulate.
schrodinger's cat
Mitt is kind to his kind, the rest of us are just “you people”.
LanceThruster
[hearty Ed McMahon laugh] BWAA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!
Mnemosyne
I think President Obama would completely agree with this statement — and he would encourage people to read their respective speeches so they can see for themselves what each candidate thinks is important.
Chris
@mdblanche:
Harry Truman, the fucking man. Pretty sure it was that election even more than the previous four ones that convinced the Republicans and Wall Street that it was now impossible to be anti-New Deal (hence the moderate takeover of the party for the next twenty/thirty years).
Mark
I’m beginning to think that if Inspector Clouseau got into private equity instead of police work, he’d have become a billionaire.
CarolDuhart2
Captain C: Don’t forget Dewey, 1944 and 1948. Dewey seems understandable: FDR didn’t really campaign due to the war and his illness. FDR also was serving a fourth term, and Dewey must have figured that with the war ending (or going on a bit too long) and a fourth term, the voters would get weary enough.
So did his fellow Republicans. The bet would have been on a combination of a weaker VP, war weariness, and term weakness. It would have been a “change” election. Unfortunately for him, there was Harry Truman instead of Wallace, the war ended, and FDR never served out his fourth term.
LanceThruster
@danimal:
Oh, please,…please don’t throw me in the briar patch with Mitt Romney!
BWAA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!
scav
So, Mr. “Corporations are People” also confounds Troops and the military. Cogs in the wheel of warfare. Heartbeats count for nothing special in a spreadsheet. Coming from the party that unleashed Rumsfeld’s transformation of the military, I’d find cause for concern at having another venture capitalist throw money at the armed forces where it could be routed to weapons programs (biznezz! shareholderz!) over mere heartbeat people in boots.
hoodie
The Chicago boyz didn’t do rapid response on this one because it’s fucking awful and it’s electoral gold, and why not make Romney sweat as to what they’re going to do? He’ll likely freak out and go into backpedal mode tonight and may make an even bigger fool of himself. Plouffe and Axe will have something good up by Monday, full of flag-draped coffins, wounded warriors, military widows, etc., you know, the laundry list of unimportant things. They’ll drive it up his ass and break it off. Couldn’t happer to a nicer guy. What a fucking asshole.
mistermix
@roc: Just in case it isn’t obvious, one among dozens of politically OK answers to that question would be:
If he had said that, or some variation, it would absolutely be nitpicking to call out his lack of distinction between the troops and the military. That’s because this statement doesn’t include a self-justifying, prickish mention of the importance of the topic.
A merely decent politician learns to deflect criticism in a positive way like that early on in their career. Harvard grad Romney apparently cannot master that simple tactic. He has to be a fucking prick about being criticized, always.
jl
@Catsy:
I am not a fan of making too big a deal over isolated gaffes.
But is this really any kind of gaffe, in the same way that Biden’s (maybe overly dramatic but that’s all) ‘chains’ remark was made into a gaffe? Or Romney’s insensitive and goofy insults of donuts and cookies are gaffes?
When you make a list of substantive things the GOP did not talk about much at the convention, it gets pretty long, and covers important issues that they pretend to talk about in their big fright shows and diatribes, like the economy and foreign affairs and military. And by then it concerns an important issue: whether they have any actual proposals to put in front of the voters, rather than mass quantities of BS.
mclaren
So now Romney is equating U.S. troops with dirty laundry. Throw ’em out, dump ’em, they’re filthy and unsightly, get rid of ’em.
Payback’s a bitch, Republicans. SWIFT BOAT, motherfuckers.
Mary G
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: This. She outspent Jerry Brown by orders of magnitude and he just put up a commercial where she and the Governator, who was extremely unpopular at the time, said the same shit in the same words. Between this and being sick of her barrage of mailers, commercials, and phone calls, even Republicans I know wouldn’t vote for her.
She was another snotty, tone-deaf corporate overload just like the MittBot. I am so hoping Obama’s ad guys are researching this with Romney and GWB. It would be all kinds of win.
replicnt6
I think I’m going to be trotting this one out a few more times between now and November: http://imgflip.com/i/2a63
roc
@Catsy:
So you’re upset when they’re used as props in political speeches, but you’re also upset when they’re not used as props?
That’s really an aside. It’s fair enough to say we disagree. He absolutely didn’t explicitly acknowledge the men and women who have served and are serving. If you were looking for that, I understand where you don’t see it as sufficient that he mentioned a commitment to a strong military in general terms.
LanceThruster
@roc:
Even from the side that will crucify someone over a American flag lapel pin (or it’s size)?
I think it’s a valid dig in that, just like a psychiatrist or psychologist will tell you, people bring up those things, however seemingly trivial, that are important to them. The same goes for omissions.
It’s like a couple in marriage counseling where one spouse mentions the other exclusively or not at all.
Villago Delenda Est
@quannlace:
They would have no time at all for anything else if they adopted that strategery.
“I don’t remember what I said, but I stand by it.”
Mnemosyne
@roc:
Actually, no one here is saying that. You made that strawman up in your head.
What people are saying is that Romney is basically arguing that the fact that we currently have 84,000 servicemembers in Afghanistan is so insignificant that he didn’t feel it was important enough to mention in his speech. You know, the speech that he made because he’s running for President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief of the US armed forces.
Romney thinks that it’s not even worth mentioning that we have people on active duty fighting a war in a foreign country right now. As I said above, I think President Obama would agree with Romney’s statement that people pick and choose the things they think are important to talk about in a speech. Romney thought that talking about the war in Afghanistan wasn’t important enough to put into his pitch about why he should be elected President of the United States.
Betsy
@nitpicker: Yeah, Romney wants to spend fourteen scrillion dollars on MILITARY equipment the Pentagon doesn’t even want or need. That’ll really help “the TROOPS.”
Geoduck
@MikeBoyScout:
Now you’ve gone too far. He does not sip French wine!!
roc
@mistermix: Like I said, if we’re just having a lazy friday afternoon laugh at the spectacle that is Mitt Romney, I’m in.
I just can’t imagine caring about this exchange, say, tomorrow morning.
WaterGirl
@hoodie: If The Obama campaign jumped right on this, the right would just say they are politicizing the military.
Much better to wait a few days and create a simple video of Romney saying this — something that speaks for itself.
LanceThruster
@Mnemosyne:
And that’s on top of the fact that he wants to get the US into another war with Iran.
He might as well be Col. Cathcart raising the number of bomber missions in his quest to become a general as in the novel “Catch-22.”
How many fvcking redeployments can these invisible troops do?
jl
@Mnemosyne:
I think what is really going on is that the GOP has to concentrate so completely on designing a very intricate and delicate BS snare for the voters, that they are forgetting to cover some very basic political bases. Like common courtesy of acknowledging sacrifice of military and their families, doing basic fact checks to makes sure their BS is not blown out of the water as soon as it is emitted, etc., even going through motions of discussion of actual policies, foreign or domestic, to pretend to support.
Catsy
@mistermix:
While I agree that your suggestion could’ve been an effective way of helping defuse this controversy (though really, just about anything would’ve been better than what he did say), I don’t agree that it would still be nitpicking to criticize it.
As I wrote above, the lack of distinction here isn’t trivial. Romney only mentioned “military” twice in his speech–once to make a completely false attack against Obama for “trillions” of dollars of cuts to the military, the other in a vague assertion that he would fund a “strong” military, which in this context translates as “funnel more money to military contractors”, not “fund the VA” or “fund research into PTSD treatment”.
Neither of those even obliquely qualifies as an acknowledgement of those currently serving or those who have served or sacrificed. He didn’t mention “the troops”. He mentioned funding “the military-industrial complex” and used the military as a cudgel to dishonestly attack Obama.
What makes this an important moment and an important gaffe is how it fits into the context of the right’s hollow rhetoric on “supporting the troops”. The GOP likes to use them as props and political attacks, but beyond that they really don’t act like they give a shit.
different-church-lady
@roc: The really amazing thing is that any one of those statements would have been better than the one Romney himself actually gave.
I think you’re missing the entire point here: Romney himself indicated he didn’t think the troops were important enough to mention. He didn’t just say, “Hey, I can’t mention everything,” he specifically indicated that the troops weren’t important enough to mention. He may have misspoken, but nobody here is twisting his words, and if you don’t think people ought to make hay out of that kind of sunshine then you really are just concern trolling. He gave the worst possible answer he could give.
Catsy
@roc:
No. If you don’t understand the argument I’m making, please ask for clarification rather than making one up that sounds pithy but has nothing to do with what I said.
Uh, yeah. That’s sort of the problem.
If you don’t get why that’s not okay even after it’s been exhaustively explained by multiple people, I can’t really help you get it.
burnspbesq
@piratedan:
That’s what the Secured Creditor’s Committee is for, except that in the GM and Chrysler negotiations Steve Rattner looked them straight in the eye and told them to go fuck themselves.
Rattner is the unsung hero of Obama’s first term.
roc
@Mnemosyne: No, I’m pretty sure I tried to explain my position on why I think it’s fair to equate a colloquial statement of “strong millitary” with “i support the troops” in direct response to japa21, who was trying to explain to me that they are not the same thing.
I’m not building straw men. I’m trying to explain myself.
And that is, again: if anyone in the country says they support a strong military, my default assumption is that they also support the troops. If I have reason to doubt the veracity of that statement, (say, a history of saying anything the audience wants to hear; or a history of trying to shirk our responsibilities to vets) my suspicions will hinge on that data. And not some imprecision or insufficient effusion in their statements.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that in dealing with any mature American, I will go ahead and assume they support the troops and vets by default, simply because the overwhelming majority of us do. So at no point am I going to assume that anything short of explicit statements or deeds that demonstrate a lack of respect for any service member, past or present, is reasonable grounds to suspect that a person does not actually respect or appreciate the troops. I think that’s fair. But maybe that’s just me.
MikeBoyScout
@108 Geoduck: Not the kind of French wine we’d sip. It’s worse! The bastage sips non-alcoholic French wine!
hoodie
@Catsy: Roc’s missing the point because he has rocks in his head. This stuff should be ingrained reflex for anyone running for President — he’s running to be the Commander in Chief. It doesn’t matter whether or not he actually feels the emotion (even though one hopes that he would), it’s part of the job description, and he just bombed the interview. Could you imagine this clueless freak writing letters back to the spouse or parents of a dead GI? For all the talk of what whizbang manager this guy is, he could fuck up a wet dream. Biden was dead on – Mitt is a balance sheet kind of guy who should be working in the accounting department, not the Oval Office.
aimai
@roc:
There’s something incredibly disingenuous about this remark, roc. The issue here for actual politicians and the future president is precisely the difference between a “strong military” which we pay for in order to protect the country, and supporting the troops and the veterans which we do after we have asked them to risk life and limb to protect the country. Every single person who is paying attention knows that there is a huge gap between paying money for the techno/industrial/military parts of the defense budget and the struggle to appropriate enough money for the labor and human capital parts of the defense budget–especially after the many varities of returned veterans are discharged and begin to face life without military socialism and health care.
Everybody who is serious about this issue knows that one of the battles Obama has been fighting has been to actually fund the veterans and their health care at a level appropriate to a post war/post service level. This has nothing to do with Romney bragging that he wants “the strongest military” by which he means, given his plans, merely overpaying for the toys and refusing to pay for the boys (‘n girls).
I would say that Mitt’s “strongest military” belongs in the same category as his other attempts to sound like just plain folks–such as the infamous “many of my closest friends are nascar owners.” Mitt’s strongest military spending is, indeed, going to be spent on his friends who are military contractors and corporations–it is not going to be targeted at the little people such as the vets.
aimai
Villago Delenda Est
@different-church-lady:
And he did it in a very casual, no muss no fuss manner.
Which only serves to deepen the damage he’s doing to himself.
Catsy
Explicit deeds like starting a war of choice for political benefit? And then exploiting that war and those actually fighting in it to attack the patriotism of those who opposed the war? Or perhaps deeds like cutting funding for the VA, or ignoring the growing crisis of PTSD in veterans? Or rattling the sabers for another war of choice with Iran with no consideration of the Americans who would pay the price for that mistake? Or perhaps you mean any of the other dozens (at minimum!) of examples of the ways in which the respect Republican politicians demonstrate towards those who serve is lip service at best?
At this point, the onus is on the GOP to demonstrate that they actually do value veterans and active duty troops beyond their utility as campaign assets, or the military in general beyond jingoistic sloganeering and a cash cow for funneling money to military contractors in their district. Because their track record over the last decade demonstrates anything but, and they have surrendered any right to the benefit of the doubt.
@aimai:
Just so.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@roc:
Oh, I’m not outraged, faux or otherwise; I’m not even particularly shocked. I’m just amazed that the GOP in general and Romney in particular are willing to alienate yet another potential voting bloc (although my understanding is that enlisted tend to lean Democrat anyway, so it’s probably not that great a loss).
Seriously, if this race is anything other than the Reaganesque landslide it deserves to be, it won’t be because of Romney’s mad campaigning skillz.
roc
@Catsy: I understand that you’re offended. I explicitly said so.
What I don’t understand, in the tangent, is how you can be upset that service-memebers are used cynically as political props but you can still become offended when they’re not used as a political prop.
It seems you’ve set an impossible bar: a person is damned if they do mention the troops and damned if they don’t. The only escape is if you judge them to be sincere in saying what you demand everyone say.
Which is, I would imagine, a judgment you’re going to base more on statements and deeds outside of the speech at hand.
Which forces me to again wonder: why do you care if they don’t mention the troops in any given speech? You almost certainly already have an opinion on whether they sincerely support the troops or not. So any given inclusion or omission seems irrelevant.
roc
@Catsy:
I absolutely agree. And I wouldn’t be remotely convinced otherwise even if Mitt had explicitly mentioned them.
So 1 speech isn’t proof of support and there’s already no shortage of proof of borderline contempt. So why does this omission matter, when the same line spoken by anyone else would be interpreted as neutral at worst?
Betsy
@roc: Maybe it’s that the service members are routinely used as props by the GOP, yet they don’t actually give a fuck about service members. Thats what we mean when we say we hate to see them left out.
Maybe it’s that when Romney “dings” Obama for downsizing the military, it’s because he means his own plan is buying the pentagon eleVenty killion bucks worth of crap they didn’t even ask for. And, you idjit, that’s VERY different from supporting the troops. You’re full of shit. Period.
different-church-lady
@roc:
roc
@aimai: The issue here is whether it makes sense to judge a person for their omission of an explicit statement that the overwhelming majority of the country believes as a matter of course.
And I think it’s weak sauce to pretend like adversarial parsing of a general statement to be evidence of a belief counter to what the overwhelming majority believes.
There are good reasons to doubt Mitt Romney’s sincerity on… most any topic. There’s no need to suggest that it’s reasonable to pick apart speech in this way, just to find more.
Beauzeaux
@mdblanche: They always said Dewey looked like the little man in top of a wedding cake.
The only explanation for Mitt’s campaign people is that they were picked first for their Mormonicity and political skill was much further down the list.
Catsy
@roc:
Because I don’t accept the way you’ve repeatedly framed this. It’s a false dichotomy.
Acknowledging those who served and are still serving–to say nothing of the fact that the latter are still fighting a war as we speak–isn’t about wanting them to be used as political props. It’s about expecting the bare minimum of respect and acknowledgement of the gravity of their sacrifices in a speech accepting the nomination as a candidate for President of the United States.
I don’t expect Romney or any other politician to pander to this constituency by mentioning soldiers in every speech.
But in this speech of all speeches, one in which Romney is supposed to make the case to the American people about why he should be elected, what the candidate chooses to include in their speech says a lot about what their priorities are. It would have cost him nothing–nothing at all–to spend an extra couple of seconds to so much as minimally acknowledge the sacrifices of veterans and active duty soldiers. Or acknowledge the fact that he wants to be elected to an office that will have to make decisions about a war that we are still fighting.
Either it simply didn’t occur to him, or he considered the inclusion and rejected it as not important enough. His answer suggests the latter. I’m not sure which alternative is worse, but neither reflects well on him or neutralizes the slight.
It is astonishing that anyone who has been paying even the slightest attention to the right wing outrage manufacturing industry for the last decade could write the bolded line and actually believe what they’re saying. If you’d like to advance this discussion to the “farce” category, by all means, please try to argue that a Democrat making the same gaffe would be treated neutrally.
I think at this point a better question would be: why are you fighting so doggedly to defend Mitt Romney against this criticism, long after so many people have articulated perfectly sensible explanations that don’t involve fake outrage for why they are making a big deal out of it?
Hal
Romney is such an idiot on the GM bailout. He
s so incapable of picking a POV and sticking with it, he has no idea how to respond on his feet. Just fucking own it. “Yes I opposed the bailout because I didn’t believe in using tax payer dollars yada yada yada.” He might earn more respect if people believe he believes in what he says.
satby
@roc:
Do you even KNOW any vets?
scav
dingbat just seems congenitally unable to distinguish living people (outside his bubble, one would hope for the sake of his grandchildren) from abstract nouns — ‘just one more example of same ol’ same ol’ and it’s no wonder he appears a robot himself.
Cacti
Is roc the latest incarnation of SteveinDC?
Catsy
@Cacti: I don’t think so. Nor is he/she a right wing shill. This roc person has been around for a while and normally doesn’t post this kind of knee-jerk contrarian bullshit.
Steve in DC’s mendacious “both sides do it” schtick is pretty distinctive. This person ain’t it.
LanceThruster
@Cacti:
Or Spatula?
Catsy
@LanceThruster: I’d say no again. Spatula is just an out-and-out troll, and a relentlessly dishonest one at that.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
If this really was an election that a Republican could win, Romney never would have made it out of the primaries.
Maude
For those serving in Afghanistan, this should put a chill down their spines. The thought that this man could become the CiC is frightening.
Cacti
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
This.
If the GOP power players thought a lot of their chances, Jeb would have been out there representing the Bush crime family.
wrb
@Maude:
“Those people” are to be deployed to fight the war in Iran that Sheldon Adelson paid for, fair and square.
johnny willamette (rhymes with godammit)
@Xecky Gilchrist:
The symbol is always more important to goopers than the real thing.
Wearing a symbol of the country, shrunk to convenient lapel pin size: Important!
Mentioning even once the actual men and women who fight, bleed and die for the actual country: Not Important.
The damn funny thing is, they started their flag pin fetish as a way to show how awesomely they supported teh troops, and to give them yet another way to attack anyone who didn’t do the same as unamerican.
C’mon you people. He doesn’t need to mention the troops. He’s got the pin. That’s what counts. It’s always what counted.
It’s only lately the goopers have dropped a lot of their pretense. I think swilling the teaparty tea has done that.
Maude
@wrb:
Exactly.
LanceThruster
@Catsy:
Thx. That’s good enough for me. Though I often foolishly disregard the warnings, I agree it serves no purpose to feed the trolls. It seems others are certainly able to handle ‘roc’ so I’ll just play it by ear when I feel I have something to add.
RSA
Someone could parse Romney’s speech to argue that he’s not against the troops, but listen to him talk about the military in general. For example, when he was talking about military spending, he said
He occasionally mentions “troops” and “veterans” as groups, but he tends to treat them as being no more than anonymous contributions to some number in a spreadsheet. I honestly don’t think he cares much about people.
SiubhanDuinne
@Chris:
You know what? I really don’t think he wants the presidency AT ALL.
I think he has calculated that being the Presidential nominee of a major party will add tens or hundreds of thousands to his speaking and consulting fees. In fact, winning the presidency would be a big step down for him.
I think if he were to win in November, he’d be horrified. And would demand a recount.
Betsy
@RSA: ya think??
(I know, I know. Couldn’t help myself)
Geoduck
@Cacti:
Nah, the Bush name’s still too toxic. 2016, maybe. If they were serious, they’d have gone with someone like Huckabee.
Mnemosyne
@Cacti:
Nah. SteveinDC’s new persona showed up in another thread, and he doesn’t seem like someone who would have enough patience to sockpuppet.
(mechawarrior somethingorother is his new identity, if you hadn’t figured it out yet.)
Mnemosyne
@Geoduck:
Huckabee has too many dead cops and dead rape victims on his record to be elected president.
pattonbt
I havent read the comments yet, but with these clowns so close in the election and the nastiness of their campaign at disguating levels, I think its time the Democrats say “fuck it” and use this line like no ones business.
O’s campaign should have ad’s running up around the clock saying how Romney thinks “the troops arent important”. They have done with with taking O’s words out of context, etc. And if O had said this hey’d be screaming from high heaven and would crucify him (with full support of the media).
Fuck these asshats, go for the jugular.
Rob Eberhardt
quick and dirty:
http://imgur.com/y0Vyu
Nancy Irving
@Mark: That kinda happened, actually–did you see Being There?