Archive for July, 2007

a Romney hireling who can communicate!?

July 31, 2007 in 2008, argument, campaign literature, election, election 2008, gaffs and pratfalls, mitt romney, republicans, romney, the dark soul of Mitt Romney, triumph of unreason
Tags:

“‘Mrs. Romney was recounting a very real and very difficult emotional reaction to the news about her disease,’ Romney campaign spokesperson Carolyn Weyforth told ABC News,” as reported by Sunlen Miller in a story titled Ann Romney Criticized for Cancer Comment.

“It’s something that many people go through, and it’s an honest reflection about a difficult period of her life. It’s a reflection that has obviously evolved as she has come to terms with the disease” … more

This is a reasonably effective rejoinder, almost elegant what with its rhythm born of anaphora (repeated clause starters), e.g. It’s something … It’s an honest reflection … it’s a reflection … Yes: like most Romney-speak it is laboured, defensive, hedged, and highly qualified, and it fails to conceal its malice. It is, after all, an attempt to smack down a cancer victim.

But the Weyforth rejoinder is also coherent, fairly consistent, and very nearly persuasive—i.e. at least Ms. Weyforth’s claims do not flatly contradict themselves on their face. How unlike any of the clumsy and equivocal messages Romney himself emits. Or how unlike any of the botched signal that gets issued by Romney’s usual ventriloquist-dummy clarifier-for-hire, the unattractive, subliterate, disarticulate, and maddeningly unintelligible Kevin Madden. See:

Are the Romney’s exhausted by now what with putting out all these fires caused by their many gaffs, pratfalls, and miscommunications? You sort of have to wonder.

yours &c.
gilad dotan, phd

P.S. At least the Team Romney thugs didn’t tell the cancer victim to “lighten up.” This is progress of a sort. The sort of progress you make when you decide e.g. that banging your head on the basement floor does not deliver the sort of thrill that you thought it would and you move on to other activities.

Advertisement

could it be true? Rudy ahead in NH and Iowa according to an ARG poll

July 31, 2007 in 2008, election, election 2008, mitt romney, republicans, romney, triumph of reason
Tags:

We are not sure what to make of this Ace of Spades HQ post titled Surpise: ARG Poll Shows Rudy Ahead In NH, Iowa, a post linked to some formerly conservative group called NRO or something (we forget).

If—and only if—it is true, however, then this must count as empirical, verifiable, incontrovertible proof that either

  • there is a G_d and
  • He, or She, is merciful

-OR-

  • Romney is even more titanically incompetent, inept, and indecisive than any of us imagined, especially with respect to the money and, hence, the organization that Romney commands

Pedants will point out that both (a) and (b) could be true. But we are too happy to care.

BTW: we have no brief for the former Mayor of NYC. Our position: we are opposed to Willard Milton Romney. Hence: We are for whomever opposes Willard Milton Romney.

yours &c.
dr. g.d.

not *this* religious conservative; not in a million years

July 31, 2007 in 2008, argument, mitt romney, republicans, romney, the dark soul of Mitt Romney

Recall our post titled Romney fails to persaude pro-life constituency:

“You change the constituency of the party,” Mr. Arkes said — either by showing that [pro-life] voters are not necessary to win, or by showing that [pro-life] voters are willing to subsume their cause to other issues, reports Robin Toner in a NYT story titled [Pro-life] Leaders Size Up G.O.P. Candidates. [Emphasis ours]

Now consider a redolent conclusion from The Bosque Boys, whoever they are:

Faced with a big-name opponent whom they don’t like very much (Hillary Clinton), religious conservatives will be happy to support a person of faith who enunciates conservative values such as Mitt Romney … more

Yes. OK. This is certainly Romney’s fervent prayer. And, yes, Romney has “enunciated” conservative values lately, which is the most anyone can say in support of Romney’s conservative values as Romney has no unequivocal record of governing from the right.

All we really know is that Romney, in advance of a national election, adopted an unreconstructed conservative line and suddenly affects to speak for the conservative movement, and suddenly affects to champion conservative causes.

But how deep do these “enunciations” run in the heart of this unstable candidate? Consider: Romney boasts on the stump that he leads not by precept or principle but by e.g. data analysis and benchmarking.

If Romney wins the GOP nomination—and it is likely that he will—we will cast our vote with the Libertarians.

This is our position.

In sum: there are some things we are unwilling to “subsume.” Romney is chief among them.

yours &c.
dr. g.d.

Romney’s fatal indecision (iii); Romney! Develop ONE lie, and stick with it!

July 31, 2007 in 2008, analysis, campaign literature, election, election 2008, gaffs and pratfalls, mitt romney, republicans, romney, the dark soul of Mitt Romney, triumph of unreason
Tags:

Let us pass in review. Romney’s line about YouTube was first to oppose the format. He didn’t like the snowman.

“I think the presidency ought to be held at a higher level than having to answer questions from a snowman,” Romney told The Manchester Union Leader, quoted here from the NYDailynews.com.

Then Madden, Romney’s unattractive ventriloquist dummy, insisted that Romney was not opposed to the format. See:

Romney’s Madden flatly contradicts himself on YouTube debate issue

Now the problem is no longer format or scheduling; now the problem is permissiveness, predators, pornography, and Romney’s strange inability to draw distinctions between or among various new media, as reported by the estimable Rick Pearson writing for The Swamp (Chicago Tribune).

“YouTube is a website that allows kids to network with one another and make friends and contact each other,” Romney explained. “YouTube looked to see if they had any convicted sex offenders on their web site. They had 29,000.”

Actually, YouTube is the popular site that allows Internet users to upload and watch a variety of videos. The web site, which is owned by search-engine behemoth Google, also was a co-sponsor of the Democratic presidential debate held on Monday night.

The web site MySpace is the one to which Romney actually was referring. MySpace, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., said this week it had found 29,000 registered sex offenders who had submitted profiles to its site and removed them … more

How many lines has Romney offered now? How many have been immediately discredited? Answer: all of them.

And Willard Milton calls his father George confused and indecisive!?

yours &c.
dr. g.d.

P.S. Romney cannot even decide on a line to explain his indecision! See: Romney tests different alibis for his flip-flopping
P.P.S. Oh, but by all means, make this man our president!

 

Romney lashes out at his father for indecision even as Romney himself vacillates wildly

July 31, 2007 in 2008, analysis, argument, campaign literature, election, election 2008, mitt romney, republicans, romney, the dark soul of Mitt Romney, triumph of unreason
Tags: , ,

Blast from our past:

“My dad really never seems to have made up his mind that he was getting in,” Romney told the Monitor’s Lauren R. Dorgan as reported in abcnews.go.com’s web log entry titled Mid-Summer Dreams A critical stretch for Romney and the GOP, while Democrats tack left

Romney continues:

“My dad really never seems to have made up his mind that he was getting in,” Romney told the Monitor’s Lauren R. Dorgan. “He wasn’t certain. Well, I’m not that way at all. I’ve made my decision, and I’m in it with both feet.” [emphasis ours]

Only what Romney affects to condemn in his own father he embodies in his own person and character. See:

Conclusion: Rather than running away from his father, Romney has become his father.

And: What makes any of us think that Romney’s 15-minute old “conversion” to a quasi-conservative line will hold what with Romney’s unpredictable vacillations and consistent failure of nerve?—there is evidence from the stump that Romney has already walked away from it, if he ever really had it.

Oh, but by all means, make this troubled man our president!

yours &c.
dr. g.d.

Romney’s fatal indecision (ii): Hamlet ponders his Mormism

July 31, 2007 in 2008, argument, campaign literature, election, election 2008, mitt romney, republicans, romney, the dark soul of Mitt Romney, triumph of unreason

Will he, or won’t he? Oh, the ennui.

Does anyone really care about Romney’s invertebrate vacillations on the issue of his own Mormonism?

We sure don’t.

We just wonder why Romney the Risible affects the upright pose of a man of purpose and resolve when the facts emitted by own campaign and campaign staff consistently declare otherwise.

yours &c.
dr. g.d.

Romney’s fatal indecision (i): the Hamlet of YouTube

July 31, 2007 in 2008, election, election 2008, mitt romney, republicans, romney, the dark soul of Mitt Romney, triumph of unreason
Tags:

First, Mitt Romney, who uses YouTube heavily, said he would not participate in the YouTube debate because a clown asked a question in the first one. Then, he said he might debate after all.

Humorless, indecisive, and ungrateful, all in one episode, this, argued by the estimable and brief James Ostrowski in a blog posted titled Romney and Clowns, linked to the Washingpost.com’s campaign diary titled The Trail, only it should be titled the Trial, after Kafka.

Also:

From Greg Sargent of Election Central and his Flashback, a quote from Romney that goes back to April of this year:

“Why is it that the Democrats wouldn’t even go on Fox, but we Republicans are happy to sit there and have Chris Matthews of the Carter administration, former chief of staff to (ex-House speaker) Tip O’Neill?” asked Romney, in a Tuesday evening interview here with The Politico. “We’re happy to sit there and have him dish questions to us, but they won’t even go on Fox.”

So to correct Ostrowski, Romney is humourless, indecisive, ungrateful, and hypocritical.

This gentleman is supposed to be presidential!?

yours &c.
dr. g.d.

the conservative interregnum

July 31, 2007 in analysis, argument, election, election 2008, republicans, romney, triumph of unreason

“Ain’t gonna happen [i.e. a genuinely conservative agenda]. It was, after all, a conservative who said that politics is the art of the possible,” opines the blustery John Derbyshire at great length in an article titled “That Old Time Religion,” by which Derbyshire means the conservative movement.

Imagine, for example, President Ron II trying to push his bill to abolish the IRS through Congress. Congress! — whose members eat, drink, breathe and live for the wrinkles they can add to the tax code on behalf of their favored interest groups! Or imagine him trying to kick the U.N. parasites out of our country. Think of the howls of outrage on behalf of suffering humanity from all the lefty academics, MSM bleeding hearts, love-the-world flower children, Eleanor Roosevelt worshippers, and bureaucratic globalizers!Ain’t gonna happen.

It was, after all, a conservative who said that politics is the art of the possible. Ron Paul is not possible. His candidacy belongs to the realm of dreams, not practical politics. But, oh, what sweet dreams! … more

So Willard Milton Romney is the best that we can hope for? See:

BTW: We have no brief for Dr. Ron Paul. (We did not even know he was a doctor.)

We are for whomever opposes Willard Milton Romney.

yours &c.
dr. g.d.

 

Romney well behind other Republican candidates in head-to-head matchups with Democrat candidates, pollster.com as reported by Schaller

July 30, 2007 in 2008, analysis, argument, election, election 2008, mitt romney, republicans, romney
Tags:

Thomas Schaller hammers out a gleeful but grimly accurate assessment of the Republican candidates titled Why the Republicans don’t like their candidates; The GOP front-runner isn’t Fred Thompson or Mitt Romney. It’s “none of the above.

With McCain and Giuliani fading, the backstretch belongs to Romney, he of the utterly fungible belief system and utterly immovable coif. But just how much are Republican primary voters willing to bet on the former Massachusetts governor? White evangelicals hold special sway during GOP primary season. They constitute 31 percent of the Republican base in Iowa and 39 percent of GOP voters in South Carolina. How many of them will grit their teeth and vote for a candidate whom they believe to be a religious cultist? If Ralph Nader was capable of siphoning enough votes from a putative Democratic majority to put Bush in the Oval Office, imagine what a disgruntled white evangelical base can do to a Romney-led Republican ticket. And Republicans picking Romney because they care first and foremost about keeping the White House should take a moment to peruse the head-to-head matchups on Pollster.com between the top three declared GOP candidates and the Democrats’ trio of leading contenders. Against Clinton, Obama or John Edwards, McCain and Giuliani are competitive or, in some pairings, run slightly ahead; Romney is well behind all three … more [Emphases ours]

So far the Evangelicals have largely held out against Romney’s lies, deceptions, flatteries, and bribes. See:

But will they continue to do so?

yours &c.
dr. g.d.

Romney fails to persaude pro-life constituency

July 30, 2007 in 2008, analysis, argument, election, election 2008, mitt romney, republicans, romney
Tags:

“You change the constituency of the party,” Mr. Arkes said — either by showing that [pro-life] voters are not necessary to win, or by showing that [pro-life] voters are willing to subsume their cause to other issues, reports Robin Toner in a NYT story titled Anti-Abortion Leaders Size Up G.O.P. Candidates.

More accurately, find-replace the term [pro-life] with [conservative]: “You change the constituency of the party,” Mr. Arkes said — either by showing that [conservative] voters are not necessary to win, or by showing that [conservative] voters are willing to subsume their cause to other issues” … This is consonant with themes we introduced with in:

Romney abandons conservative line; reverts to previous line

Toner’s melancholy account:

WASHINGTON, July 29 — After 30 years of political organizing within the Republican Party, the [pro-life] movement has won a series of victories in legislatures and courts and stands tantalizingly close to winning even more. But these are anxious days for the movement.

Six months before the Iowa caucuses, abortion opponents are trying to adjust to a strikingly different political landscape. For the first time in a generation, they face in Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, a front-runner for the Republican nomination who supports abortion rights.

Abortion opponents are dividing their support among several other candidates, including Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts and a relatively recent convert to the cause, and Fred D. Thompson, the former senator from Tennessee … more

 

Does anyone remember how Romney begged and pleaded for Dr. Dobson’s support and failed to get it? See:

Romney courts Dobson, fails miserably to persuade

 

yours &c.
dr. g.d.

PS: Romney Says Wife’s Donations to Planned Parenthood, “Not Relevant.” Comment: but they are relevant, Mr. Romney. They really, really are. What theory of personal integrity could compel you to believe otherwise?

« Previous Entries