Things In Politico That Will Make Charles Pierce Want To Mainline Antifreeze
Shorter Politico: Mitt Romney is likely to lose badly because he’s just too good for America to appreciate his qualities. Wonderful guy, but bad candidate. A Nice Guy who deserves America’s love but won’t get it because the American electorate is a bunch of stuck-up bitches. Your loss!
I especially treasure this bit:
Yet many of the folks who are despairing about Romney would actually love what he would do in office. Romney’s metric-obsessed transition team is fleshing out a “200-day plan” (100 days wasn’t enough time to pass a bunch of big bills) aimed at goosing the recovery and creating jobs by bringing corporate cash off the sidelines in the United States and attracting investment from abroad.
The weapons would include tax and regulatory policy and what one aide called a “very aggressive” series of executive orders, many already on the drawing board. Two of Romney’s friends told POLITICO he would be eager to sign a bipartisan grand bargain in the first four months in office to calm markets and ease partisan tensions.
Yes, if there’s anything the 47% is really dying for, it’s a neurotic misogynist a bunch of confidence fairy gibberish and big cuts to entitlements to finance upper-class tax cuts. It’s just amazing how the American electorate always wants what Politico editors and people employed by Fred Hiatt want, and that they want it is so obvious we hardly need any evidence to back it up!
PolitiCLOWNS:
Paul RyanMitt Romney is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.With Ann Romney as Angela Lansbury.
Oh look I HAVE A DECK OF CARDS
And right now, Paul Ryan might want to play the Sinatra/Wahington role.
damn, i have got to start hitting this place earlier in the day, by the time i get around to it, all the good comments are taken!
Wait, who’s Khigh Dheigh, then?
Karl Rove?
Ann Romney may be the only person who could make Barbara “there’s a person who knows how to hate” Bush look sympathetic.
It must be very strange to be Mitt Romney. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.
.
^win
I can’t wait to see how this works out.
Yes, Hogan, I too very much fear the great comic stylings and timing of Shecky Romney and his ability to deliver memorized “zingers” spontaneously.
President Obama:
“Yes, my Grandfather got his education from the GI Bill, and that’s what got my Mother her College Education.”
Mitt:
“YEAY – YO MAMA! DA BITCH TOOK GOEVERMENT BUCKS AND USED THEM FOR HER DARNED SELF!!!”
I can hardly wait for UpChuck Todd to twist THAT into some positive for Mitt.
Chuckles:
“Mitt Romney did a great job acknowledging President Obama’s points.”
Prediction: just before the debate starts, Romney asks Obama: “May I call you Joe?”
No! “Jerk store”! “Jerk store” is the line!
Ah, a man who appreciates the classics!
The hipsters of Rmoney ’12 can take some small comfort that they were into Mitt before it was cool.
I admit that I haven’t been paying attention to the Big New York Cas1no on Wall Street, but have they been especially jittery lately? Or is that just more GOP bullshit?
They are up (or they were earlier this week).
They’ll be jittery if Mitt gets in. It’s nice for rich individuals when they get everything they want, but markets tend to go crazy when that happens.
First we elect a black president. Then he wins the referendum we hold on throwing him out.
If he beats the upcoming impeachment, I will be forced to conclude that as a nation we’re actually making progress. A 3-0 record means something.
And someday after that, the Civil War finally ends — Happy 150th, Civil War!, by the way.
I’ve actually cooled on impeachment.
I was sure, I mean, would have been willing to bet money sure, that after the 2010 elections the House would find a reason to start serious, no-joke impeachment proceedings by September 2011 at the latest.
The fact that they didn’t materialize has made me think that maybe the Republicans actually did learn some sort of lesson from the Clinton fiasco.
not at all:
they were just way too busy passing anti-women, anti-poor people, anti-everyone not them legislation to get around to it. that kind of shit takes up a lot time you know.
Perhaps the complete lack of material the Obama administration has given them plays a role.
I’m not saying the Clinton impeachment was right or fair, but he actually gave them something to work with.
Barack Obama, and his administration, have been remarkably, uniquely clean.
And I’ll bet that’s no accident. Given the way the GOP has treated his presidency as presumptively illegitimate, plus the popular association between black people and wrongdoing/crime, I’m sure his political team was planning on how to avoid impeachment from the beginning.
Solyndra! Fast n Furious! Ummm ….. hang on a minute ….
Yeah, you’re right. There really isn’t anything with any real substance for them to grab onto.
The fact that a relatively small amount of loan money was given to a green energy company that went bankrupt and ATF agents not being allowed to prosecute illegal gun sales because of Republican DA’s are the two biggest scandals of Obama’s Presidency is disturbing.
I know how hard Republicans are working to unearth things.
We are also blessed with a president who is as clean as a politician can be. It might be that he wasn’t in the business long enough or big enough to be involved with the kind of shady deals that are fodder for the scandal mills.
Reagan was free of personal scandals, too, but his administration was full of crooks like Ed Meese.
Four years into the Obama administration, they’ve got a company that failed after receiving government loans, and a poorly-run ATF operation that never got above middle management.
It’s enough to make you miss the Bush-era Mineral Management Service. Now that was a scandal.
It’s my understanding that the DOE program that funded Solyndra and the ‘Fast & Furious’ debacle both originated during the Bush administration.
Kinda sorta.
The bottom line is, those are the worst they’ve been able to throw at him, and they are both so weak.
Henry Cisneros really did pay off his mistress. Bill Clinton really was misleading during that deposition. They actually had some molehills they could build upon.
While Solyndra and F&F are big nothingburgers, in terms of being scandals.
true, what he should have said is “it’s none of your fucking business! next question.”
Speaking as a lawyer, no shit.
Pfft. Next you’ll be saying Obama wasn’t president when the world economy collapsed.
Surely you mean the World Trade Towers.
Reagan sold arms to terrorists in order to illegally provide arms to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua; some of the money was stolen by administration officials and some was lost by administration ineptitude. Clinton’s actions were of a much more personal nature, but Reagan was far, far more impeachable.
And half the country actively supported his policy. Ollie North became a hero.
Yes, his administration was full of people who kept getting caught in scandalous behavior that gave his opponents openings for attacks. That’s what I said.
So there are quite a few veteran insiders of that era who claim that a deal was made in 1987 – Sen Howard Baker – one of those “trusted by both sides” Senators we used to have – would take over as Chief of Staff and clean things up and the Democrats would set aside impeachment hearings in the house.
Can’t prove it, but in those days when there still was some genuine statemanship in both parties that is the kind of deal that was done. No one wanted a repeat of Watergate.
Then the Newt crowd took power in 1995 and everything changed.
Well there’s the “rocket-docket/robo-signing” scandal and the chicanery surrounding the mortgage “settlement” which stinks in all sorts of ways, but none of our elites, especially the Republicans, are in any rush to hold the banks, or even the individuals in charge of mortgage origination, accountable for their blatant criminality of the last decade or so years.
None of that is a scandal involving figures from the Obama administration.
Though the Right sure tried to make a big deal out of his buying a strip of land next to his house at market rates.
If it were just the right, that would be one thing. It was also the New York Fucking Times.
They tried.
They tried to make Fast and Furious stick, too.
Unfortunately being Black isn’t an impeachable offense anymore.
But I’ll be damned if they don’t try!
Probably the only lesson that they learned (and by “they” I mean the obvious non-mouthbreathers) was the old one about glass houses and stones.
Never going to end.
Scott…it’s satire.
Poorly executed, but satire nonetheless. For some reason, post-Simon’s “The Stench” crud, they decided to try their hand at it again.
When their satire is indistinguishable from what they usually write, it’s time they close down shop. We already have an Onion.
Politico only aspires to have the credibility of The Onion.
Whether Politico intended the article as satire or not depends on the outcome of the election.
Speaking of the Onion…
I find that about 80 different kinds of awesome…
Satire? I only skimmed it, but I couldn’t find anything that might lead one to believe this was anything but straight analysis. Unless my satire detector is irreparably broken (and Simon’s piece did look real to me at first glance, so that’s a definite possibility), This seems legit to me.
The Politico article is not satire, however avoidswork comment is. So, while your satire detector is not irreparably broken, it might need a little fine tuning.
Or it is possible this comment is satire about the state of your satire detector, I am losing track.
my apologies to commie athiest. On second read avoidswork seems to be trying to be serious.
dude, i think you’d best pull out that dusty old dictionary, and look up the word “satire”.
“you keep using that word. i do not think that word means what you think it means.”
no, it’s not satire, at least not intentionally. you see, satire is, well, funny, intentionally. well crafted to give, at least for a brief moment, the appearance of seriousness, while simultaneously and subtly eviscerating the subject of said satire. no, this is simply the sad ramblings of a group of dispirited, intellectually stunted political operatives, attempting, badly, to convince someone that romney isn’t really the absolute, total dick that he is.
if they were honest with themselves and their candidate, the campaign’s official icon would be a vibrator.
Vorshtein?
Back in the days of the Worm-Runner’s Digest, Jim McConnell used to mix up the serious science reports and the spoof articles. People complained that they didn’t know which was which, until he finally gave up and changed to a format with two front pages.
At least the contributors generally knew the difference.
I’ve worked with worms (though never flatworms), and I’d never heard of the WRD. Lovely thing to find out about. Thank you.
FACT CHECK
You’re being to kind to Romney. “A very aggressive series of executive orders” doesn’t mean lowering taxes and cutting entitlements. You can’t do those things with executive orders. Romney’s guys must be talking about cutting environmental protections, labor standards, non-discrimination protections, anti-fraud regulations, and that kind of thing.
Well, fortunately 40 Democratic senators can singlehandedly stop any of that from happening, so we’re golden.
Was that satire?
Depends — who’s saying it?
Intentionalist!
Surely there would be more than a single hand among 40 senators . . .
When they talk about taking on China, this is what they mean.
Yes, China thinks they have cheap labor!? Republicans can beat them at this game. Just wait until they’re done with our labor policies, and then China will see what cheap labor really is.
Is the only named source in that story Newt Gingrich? And are they actually basing their argument that he would be a good president on the opinions solely of Romney campaign officials?
In fairness, I’m sure it’s also their opinion.
The weapons would include tax and regulatory policy and what one aide called a “very aggressive” series of executive orders, many already on the drawing board.
He’s going to do stuff! Bold stuff! We don’t know what the stuff is, but it’s on the drawing board! Some if it anyway!
Two of Romney’s friends told POLITICO he would be eager to sign a bipartisan grand bargain in the first four months in office to calm markets and ease partisan tensions.
I’m wondering if it would be possible to find a politicians who would say no to the “bipartisan grand bargain”. For politicians it would be like saying you hate your children.
“The weapons would include tax and regulatory policy and what one aide called a ‘very aggressive’ series of executive orders, many already on the drawing board.”
ALEC’s got a lot of free time on its hands nowdays.
He’s going to do stuff! Bold stuff! We don’t know what the stuff is
He is going to shit in the punch bowl.
Our chief weapon is tax policy, tax policy and regulatory policy. Our two chief weapons are tax policy, regulatory policy and a series of aggressive executive orders. Our three . . . Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as tax policy, regulatory policy, a series of aggressive executive orders and shitting in the punch bowl.
+N, for all possible values of N
N!
But “all possible values” include all numbers, both positive and negative, meaning that you’re not going to get anywhere!
I’ll shut up now.
Romney’s numbers are best plotted on the imaginary plane(all values of (i).
As an optimist, I firmly believe there are slightly more positive numbers than negative ones. They’re bigger too.
Then how about:
+ (absolute value of N, for all N)
That should do it.
The winner of the intertubes today.
Actually, if Mitt does win, I kinda do expect a Romney Inquisition,
Nobody expects the Ba(i)nish Inquisition!
I’ve been waiting all day for someone to make this joke.
Really? I thought it was sort of implied by your much and justly lauded comment above – that it didn’t even need to be made.
Shit in the punch bowl? And here I was thinking he already did. x 47.
I think it was: Romney heard “sh!t in the punch bowl”, and said “Don’t mind if I do!”
thanks a lot, i hurt myself laughing! how am i to explain this to the ER doc?
A 200 day plan? I feel that’s sort of like putting 11 on your guitar amp.
Of course, this is after the Republicans argued for months which candidate would do the most in the first 15 minutes of their presidency.
you could do that.
and it would probably have a greater affect than mitt’s “200 day plan”.
You’ve confused “affect” and “effect”.
I only point this out because Mitt so often is displaying an inappropriate affect for the script he’s reading (given it’s Mitt, maybe that should be “for the script he’s running“).
Actually the 11 on the amp would probably also have greater affect than Mitt Romney. So there’s that.
“In the end, it’s Mitt.”
That’s enough to bring back anti-sodomy laws.
Here’s the thing, though: It ISN’T Mitt. It’s what the Wingnutty base/majority of the party has forced him to be. This is not a rejection of Mitt, it’s a rejection of modern conservatism. So actually the whole premise of the article, satire or no, is WRONG.
Who forced Mitt to do or say anything? He’s rich, fuck-you-money rich. He doesn’t have to do or say anything unless he wants to.
Who asked him to run for president?
When I say “forced” I don’t mean that in a literal sense. I just think that if Mittens had believed he could win as a moderate he would have run as one. But the base “forced” him to act the loon.
Why would he bother? Its not like the guy has ever shown actual personal convictions when it came to election time. Being a wingnut benefits him personally, so be it. It wasn’t entirely necessary anyway. Romney did it because he really is a wingnut.
Its not like the crazies want to have a black man in the white house for another 4 years. He could have promised the most left wing radical program out there and still get their votes.
Right. And he could have done a triangulation act that would have had the Village crown him emperor.
I think that would have been harder to do than it sounds. Any step out of line would have his base losing its collective shit.
There’s a story on TPM to the effect that some conservatives have finally decided if Romney needs to say slightly nice things about Romneycare in order to win, well, maybe that’s OK.
That makes sense. At some point he had to talk about something.
Honestly, I think that if Romney had pulled a “Sistah Souljah” moment with his base, told them to go pound sand openly, and tacked to the center, he wouldn’t be doing any worse than he’s doing right now.
But he’d never do that because he actually agrees with his base on pretty much everything when it comes to policy. I’ve read up more on how “Romneycare” got enacted in Massachusetts and Romney got credit for it in exactly the same way that Clinton got “credit” for Welfare Reform – it was obvious that it was going to happen anyway with the legislature that he had to work with so instead of fighting it tooth and nail he got out in front of it and claimed credit for it.
He was a moderate through pragmatism, not because of any belief in moderation. And given a situation where he doesn’t have to moderate himself he has chosen not to.
Also, like Clinton and welfare reform, jumping on board allowed him to change the outcome incrementally in his direction.
That’s my sense, too. He would have pissed off the rank and file, but their leaders would have seen it as a winner and dampened that down by the convention. The rank and file would have gone along with it because there is no greater cause than putting the White House back in white hands.
Do we know this with any degree of certainty? Isn’t it just as likely that the Massachusetts electorate (and legislature) “forced” him to run (and then govern) as a moderate? I’ve seen very little evidence for the notion that Mitt Romney (Governor of the Bay State Edition) was the “real” Mitt Romney.
I never commented on which Romney was real. Did I?
Daddy
“Dammit, woman, its your fault I have to beat you up,”
Alternatively, the [Mormon] devil made him do it.
Mitt is like tofu: he take on the flavor of whatever he’s sauteed with. During the primaries, he was sauteed with wingnut. Hence, moo goo nutty white gai.
We have our daily toobz winner right cheer!
Yup; no contest.
I actually do occasionally like snacking on plain tofu. Does that make me a natural Romney voter?
Nope. If you felt like snacking on a filet mignon, extra well done, paid for by lobbyist, then…
I was promised a T-bone steak.
I am looking forward to said White Gai getting Panned in November.
That’s not fair to tofu. It’s actually pretty hard to get tofu itself to taste like much of anything except tofu, unless you do a serious pressing and marinade. Romney’s more like…. tilapia.
And tofu’s quite nice plain, especially cold on a hot summer day, with a little soy sauce and grated radish.
Damn, now I’m hungry.
I make a Thai coconut-lime soup with tofu–YUM!
Very true. But in Politico’s world, politics is a soap opera and the only thing that explains any shifts is the personal appeal of the candidates.
If they didn’t frame it that way, there wouldn’t be a Politico. It’s Entertainment Tonight for ugly people.
That’s an insult to Entertainment Tonight.
If that’s possible.
This is true too. I mean, Romney’s pretty terrible, but he meets the minimal standards under which a guy selling attractive policies could win; he won a statewide race in Massachusetts as a Republican. But even a good candidate would have trouble selling a shit sandwich hold the bread.
Especially if less than half the voters are sewer rats. The GOP’s problem is that they constitue a very sizable majority of its primary electorate.
a “very aggressive” series of executive orders, many already on the drawing board.
Aggression! Boldness! Edicts! Unitary executive!
So the latest shake of the Etch-a-sketch features Peremptory Romney, CEO of America, governing by willpower and diktats… is this Politico’s idea of what will appeal to people?
If they’re so great, clearly he should talk about them in great detail. NOW.
You’re confusing the trailer with the movie. “From the makers of JOBS comes an epic so stupendous, we can’t even begin to do it justice with actual details. BOLD! AGGRESSIVE! IN-CHARGE-Y! Coming soon to a polling booth near you! ROMNEEEEEY!!”
I have to admit that “many already on the drawing board” does read like satire. “Many of our ideas have already progressed to the point that we’re thinking about them!!”
Will Make Charles Pierce Want To Mainline Antifreeze
I heard that all the cool kids are buttchugging it.
I guess if you really want to be Cool, Antifreeze might seem to make sense.
No evidence of that. It’s all innuendo. So to speak.
That may be the worst pun I’ve seen all week.
Is that a challenge?
Mmmmmm, Prestone!
Go easy, Beethoven, that was your fifth.
When Politigoat goes pre-post-mortem in advance of Kabuki Debate Theater Part 1, its too late to sell.
I like the way C Pierce eviscerates A Sullivan from time to time while being so nice about it.
Don’t worry, Charles, Sully will figure it out some day!
He has figured it out. He is a narcissist par excellence, and he loves to link to prominent reactions to his Newsweek cover story. You’ll note one he didn’t link to, though.