A very Republican week
By the way, have you seen the trailer for that "anti-Islam film" that supposedly triggered the violence? You can view it here (scroll down to "Muhammad movie trailer"). This thing makes Plan 9 from Outer Space look like Blade Runner. It looks like it was made by hiring random drunk vagrants off the street and having them read cue cards in front of blow-ups of somebody's vacation photos of a camping trip in Death Valley. And people rioted over this?
Rank-and-file Republicans showed that the dumbth is strong in them when 15% of Ohio conservatives polled declared Romney, not Obama, the man most responsible for killing bin Laden. And we wonder why these people vote for stupid and evil politicians? We should be grateful they're not writing in Lord Voldemort.
As often happens with Republicans, the gaffes are piling up so fast that we don't have time to digest each one properly before being distracted by the next one. But don't overlook Romney's previous gaffe before the Libyan one, when he said he'd keep some parts of Obamacare instead of repealing the whole thing. This touched off a minor firestorm among the teabagger right, for whom the total repeal of Obamacare is a driving passion -- these people won't be happy until little Zoe Lihn and thousands like her are cold in their graves. Expect Romney to double down on teh crayzee soon in an effort to restore his cred with "the base". (Did you know that al-Qâ'idah literally translates as "the base"?)
In the meantime, a Republican spokesman suggested hurling acid at female Democratic Senators, Rand Paul compared the US government to the Nazis, and Putin said Russia needs to beef up its defenses in case Romney gets elected. I wonder whether our country can survive if these people get elected.
Cartoon at top found via Progressive Eruptions.
posted by Infidel753 at 5:08 AM
15 Comments:
Actually, after Romney made his comments about Obamacare on Meet the Press, it didn't take him but a few hours to backtrack in another interview. Sorry I don't have the link.
The Republicans are in free fall and the landing is going to be very hard. They get what they deserve. When you think about how they have prostituted themselves with the Tea Party and religious extremists and the clowns who threw their hats into the ring early on, it's easy to understand why not one single half-way qualified Republican was willing to run for president. Who in hell wants to be tainted by that mob?
What keeps me awake at night is, however dumb Romney is, Bush was dumber... and Moron America elected him TWICE!
Add to this all the people who say they voted for Obama "last" time but won't vote for him again because: [who the fuck knows?].
LP: Are you thinking of this?
I think the better candidates knew they couldn't get anywhere, given the extremism of the Republican base these days. Huntsman was right -- even Reagan wasn't right-wing enough to get nominated now, if he were running.
RtS: I think a lot of Bush's re-election was due to fear of terrorism (don't forget that the Beslan attack was just two months prior) and thus a preference for the perceived "tough guy", plus the fact that Kerry was such a weak candidate. Romney, however, comes across as more of a sociopath than a tough guy; aside from that, he actually has a lot of similarities with Kerry if you think about it.
I guess one could use the analogy of the slow motion car crash (or is it train crash? Geez, I wonder if I got it wrong?) to describe the Republican party this week.
Honestly, if seeing what they did this week does not convince people that both parties are vastly different (as in the distance between the Milky Way and Andromeda), I don't know what else will.
And yet I still read that some consider both Romney and Obama to be two sides of the same coin.
No wonder my head hurts--slamming it into a wall in frustration certainly doesn't help.
It was about his statement on Obamacare but I was only partly right. It was one of his spokesmen who backtracked later:
"Hold it, breaking news, this just in: After the "Meet the Press" appearance, a Romney aide clarified that Romney didn't actually intend to guarantee that people with pre-existing conditions could get insurance. Rather, he would somehow encourage the free market to provide such coverage — "
http://www.postbulletin.com/news/stories/display.php?id=1508288
The wingnuts continue to blame Mr. Obama for Romney's inappropriate and craven reaction to the deaths in Libya. They've twisted themselves into a pretzel trying to make it into something it isn't.
The good news is that Mr. Obama is gaining in the polls and Romney is not.
MM: Only the most obtuse and thick-headed extremists could still think that there's no real difference between the parties. There will always be some people like that, but probably not too many, judging by how polarized the country is.
LP: A spokesman. So he's out-sourcing his flip-flopping. At least that leaves him free to generate fresh gaffes full-time.
SK: I've seen that myself. It's quite amazing what a hermetically-sealed bubble their alternate reality of disinformation is. Many of them have even convinced themselves that Obama's sinking in the polls because they insist only Rasmussen is right and all the other pollsters are wrong or bribed or working for the Democrats.
It looks like it was made by hiring random drunk vagrants off the street and having them read cue cards in front of blow-ups of somebody's vacation photos of a camping trip in Death Valley. And people rioted over this?
I doubt the number of rioters who watched it amounts to more than a fraction of 1%. All they know is that someone in America made a film that insulted Mohammed, which therefore in their minds makes every single American responsible.
As for Mitt Romney, I think it was Tbogg who pointed out Romney's eerie similarity to Patrick Bateman from American Psycho.
I have all the characteristics of a human being: blood, flesh, skin, hair; but not a single, clear, identifiable emotion, except for greed and disgust.
TK: As the story develops, it's becoming more doubtful that the video is the real cause of the violence. It was posted on YouTube on July 2 and is said to have been made a year ago, so why all the sudden violence just now? If the Islamic world has only just become aware of the video, we need to be looking at who publicized it there and why.
I realize I wouldn't be too astonished if we learned that Romney had been a serial killer at some point in his life.
Infidel, I think the translation of the "film" into Arabic and it's release in or around 9/11 is what garnered so much attention in the Muslim world.
It's apparent, to me at least, that this was done with the full intent of doing President Obama harm, politically. The right wing nuts who did this should face the full force of the law.
This latest round of violence inspired me to write a post about it too.
Infidel: "It was posted on YouTube on July 2 and is said to have been made a year ago, so why all the sudden violence just now?"
Not for the first time, my scent is drawing me toward the thought that maybe, just maybe, there is something ugly in the state of Denmark -- meaning our own united states and GOP operatives with deep pockets who will go to any lengths to create an international incident in an effort to get the black man out of office. Paranoid? Maybe . . .
The insult to their religion may be rallies the protesters but my guess is that the initial anger stems from a more tangible reason like perhaps a steep rise in food prices and the attendant frustration of seeing their political liberation stifled by many of the same players or new players playing the same old games.
Cthulhu: I was not aware it had only just been translated and released there. If so, that would help explain it.
About "the full force of law", I totally disagree. This is exactly the kind of situation we have the First Amendment for (expression that doesn't offend anyone needs no special protection). As crappy as it is, if that movie could be prosecuted for "incitement", my blog and half the atheist blogs in existence probably could be too.
The gibbering religio-morons trashing the embassies bear 100% of the responsibility for their own behavior. Our government should not be pestering the film-makers. It's setting a very disturbing precedent.
TK: I'll take a look.
LP: That wouldn't surprise me. It has also occurred to me that the jihadists themselves have an interest in whipping up a fuss closer to the election in hopes of getting Obama out of office. A jingoistic ignoramus like Romney would be much more likely to wreck US relations with Islamic countries, which would help the jihadists' cause to gain adherents among Muslims.
Anonymous: That's quite possible too, and factors like that often do play a role in civil unrest. If so, cutting off aid -- as some right-wingers are now suggesting -- would be counterproductive.
What we're witnessing is the fishtailing and flailing of a presidential candidate who is in this thing because he wants to be president. It's not about him wanting to solve the people's problems, make government smaller, bigger, more efficient or responsive, or anything like that. It's about Romney getting to sit in the White House, be saluted by generals, fly in Air Force One, hobnob with foreign leaders and speak in front of cheering crowds — the ultimate ego trip.
With winning the election so he can achieve his goal being the only thing Romney truly cares about, it's easy for him to say whatever he thinks will get him what he wants. And it makes it just as easy to go back on something he just said, whatever it was, if at this particular moment he thinks doing that will help him win.
Think of it as a political demolition derby in which Romney doesn't care who gets bashed or hurt bad, doesn't care what happens to the car he's driving or anything besides winning so he can have what he wants.
The scary part is that if he does win, Romney will conduct himself as president the same way. It's all he knows how to do. And what will Romney want if he wins? He'll want a second term, of course.
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