A Few Tidbits On This Frigid Morn

Stephen Colbert went on ABC This Week to launch his exploratory campaign to be President of South Carolina.  I love Jon Stewart, but Colbert might be the finest satirist I have ever seen.

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/updates/4093

Now that Tim Tebow's amazing run at playing QB for a great defensive team is on winter break, I offer you Rick Reilly's take on Tebow, which I couldn't agree with more:

http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/7455943/believing-tim-tebow

And finally, the last word on Tebow is this:

http://www.starpulse.com/news/index.php/2012/01/14/jimmy_fallon_channels_tim_tebow_david

Family Time

For almost a year now, the Most Dedicated Mom and Scrumptious Wife has been reading Harry Potter to the Things at bedtime.  I tended to take a pass on it in the fall, because by the time bedtime came around, I was done with them.  She had been at practice, whilst I was riding herd over the violence prone homunculi.

Now, I'm at practice.  Also, during the Halloween blizzard, we all slept in the living room in front of the fire, while I read from the book.  Turns out I really enjoy doing it.

What's interesting is how - by acting the story out rather than simply reading it in my head, by assuming the voice and emotions of the characters - I become emotionally involved in the story.  Rowling does a great job in creating characters that are both noble and human (even if they aren't technically human), and I'm always a sucker for that.

Anyway, I'm grateful that I have been allowed in to this evening ritual.  Even if now I know why my students refer to me a mix of Mad Eye Moody and Severus Snape.

The PACman Cometh

Bringing home the Bacon.

As several Op-Ed contributors have noted this morning, it is somewhat delicious to watch the GOP get their panties in a twist about Newt's SuperPAC unleashing hell heck on Mittens.  Once again we are seeing something that has been obvious for years.  Republicans are more in love of theories and abstract principles than real world events.

When five members of the Supreme Court upended a century of campaign finance laws in Citizens United, everyone who was even half awake knew that this would lead to a river of cash that eventually would empty into a swamp of nastiness.

McCain/Feingold's "I approve this message.." did work at least in part to tone down the nastier rhetoric and the whole doom and gloom/ominous narrator/dark clouds type of ads, at least by the candidate themselves.  Those got farmed out to other groups.  Now, those groups have more money than they know what to do with.

Again, anyone could have seen this coming.

The fact that the first "victims" of this type of SuperPAC filth are Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney is simply a reminder that the universe loves irony.  Newt pioneered the nastiness - along with Lee Atwater - that has come to typify our political discourse, especially on the Right.  Mitt is the embodiment of Wall Street money and privilege.

But SuperPACs are coming to a race near you.  If you live in Massachusetts, prepare to hear lies and outrages against Elizabeth Warren, as Wall Street doubles down on destroying her.  Money will not be a problem for Scott Brown.  Don't be surprised if all this corporate cash eventually finds its way down to your city council elections.  It's simply a matter of time.

Yesterday, the Times stepped in it, when the public editor asked whether reporters should report within a story if someone lies.  The example used was how Romney always says that Obama has apologized about America being America.  It's a lie.  It never happened.  The comment section erupted.  Of course reporters should call people on their lies.  It's tough, because you have to actually know the facts and you could "lose access", but that's a reporter's job.  At least one would think so.

With the advent of Citizens United slush finds, we're going to see more lies and more innuendo than ever before. We've already seen Mitt's campaign release an ad deliberately and obviously taking Obama's words out of context in the most shameless fashion.  What will the SuperPACs do?

I suppose I could hope that America, as is her pattern, will react to the breaking of her campaigns with reform.  Eventually, it takes a crisis to make anything happen.  I believe it will take a constitutional amendment to deny corporations unlimited spending on campaigns, in order to overturn Citizens United.

But the GOP is already suing to overturn the law that prohibits unlimited direct contributions to candidates.  They are actively working to destroy the vestiges of democracy in America.

When people like Glenn Greenwald or Ralph Nader say there is no differences between the two parties, remind them of this.

Chuckles

http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2012/01/11/haven_t_we_lived_through_this_primary_before_.html

This Seems Important

http://news.yahoo.com/murder-knocked-off-list-top-u-killers-cdc-191845421.html

Murder is now the 16th biggest killer in the US.  Moves off the "list".

WTG American!  USA! USA!

Of course, this is another sign that Obama is prompting the New Black Panther Party to kill whitey in their sleep.

Mitt Romney Is A Crappy Politician

No, he won't get any better.

James Fallows found this.  Click thru and watch it.

One of the fascinating dynamics of the GOP primary has been that so many guys have been vying to be the Not Mitt, that they haven't bothered to really go after Mitt.  Newt's assault on Bain Capital is the first real potential haymaker laid on Mitt's glass jaw.  Of course, it might not hurt Mitt with the GOP base, but it's lethal in the general election.

Listening to Mitt say that anyone who questions wealth inequality or vulture capitalism is "envious"... Holy crap, were his political consultants hoping up and down behind the camera shaking their heads and mouthing "NO"!  Mitt looks like a TV President.  I got that.  But being handsome is not the same thing as being charismatic.  And being able to articulate a point is not the same as making a good point.  And you can't fake empathy.

I am increasingly convinced that integrity is the most important value a person can have.  I have been giving some thought to integrity since it was my Epiphany gift in church.  To me, integrity is being both true to yourself and being the same person to each person you meet, whatever their station.

I think that Mitt struggles with integrity not only because he's constantly flip-flopped on positions in blatant political calculation.  He also struggles with it, because he's a rich Wall Street prick who knows that people aren't really fond of rich Wall Street pricks.

His "envy" comment was the authentic Mitt.  And that shows me the authentic Mitt is a dick.

I know the polls say that the race is very close, but I can't see people getting to know Mitt Romney and voting for him for president.

The Department Of Unsurprising Developments

Today's big story is that Marines in Afghanistan urinated on dead Taliban.

Sorry, this is not a big story.  The story, really, is that we live in a You Tube world and that this was captured on film and posted.  Don't you think GIs were peeing on corpses in Normandy?  Iwo Jima?

Part of the problem is that we fetishize the troops so that they are no longer allowed to be fallible human beings.  "Support the troops" is a platitude designed to deflect criticism of the on going war, but it also means that we never seem to consider the effect a decade worth of war has on people's psyche.  War messes people up.

The most powerful societal taboo is against killing another person.  You can't strip away that basic rule and expect people to remain obedient to all the other rules.  Once you have trained someone to kill, then encouraged them to do it in actuality, you can't be surprised when they decide to urinate on the corpse.

It's nice, I guess, that John McCain has said how sad it makes him to see Marines behave like thugs.  At least he's not saying it didn't happen.  But if you vote to constantly keep young men in a war zone, they are going become calloused and insensitive to things that look awful to people sitting at home.  McCain and everyone who both initiated a decade of war and refuse to countenance a withdrawal from these wars are just as responsible for the actions of these Marines as the lack of discipline in this particular unit.

Scout snipers have one job.  Go find the enemy and kill them, preferably with a bullet to the head.  Looking through a scope, you get a sense of intimacy with your target, at times, before you pull the trigger.  This is going to create a callous disregard for that person's life.  You have to do it to stay sane.

This is not about a few "bad apples" any more than Abu Ghraib was.

This is about what war does to normal people.

Pierce Lays It Down

Charlie Pierce looks at Mitt's defense of his vulture capitalist past:




It is an altogether appalling spiel. The old, iron millionnaires knew how to talk to the proles. They built libraries while they busted the unions. They planted trees and developed parkland while they bought the legislatures and sublet the courts. And out of all of that we got cars and planes and television sets and an ambitious middle class that demanded political power and succeeded in wresting it away. Now, we have a class of plutocrats who create nothing, but who move wealth around, and they are demanding a return to the days of unaccountable corporate royalism. Willard's entire campaign is based on the notion that we are all in that effort together, even the people who are most likely to get ground up in it. A wink and a nod, and most of us become beggars to our own demise. It used to be that the corporate powers behind modern conservatism had to use misdirection to fool people into voting against their own economic interests. Willard doesn't want to work that hard. Instead, he's going to assert repeatedly that his interests and ours are the very same — that we're all in this great American adventure together. Some of us just have to make the trip in steerage, that's all. Sorry, sport

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/mitt-romney-new-hampshire-primary-results-6637018#ixzz1jACMxbrI

Away Down South In Dixie

OK, Mitt, convince this guy...

So, New Hampshire is over and now we await the Secession South Carolina primary.  It looks as if Mittens did improve on his New Hampshire numbers from 4 years ago.

In 2008, McCain got about 88,500 votes to win NH.  Romney got 75,500.

This time around, Romney pulled in 95,500 votes, whereas Ron Paul - America's Cranky Old Man Somehow Beloved By Young Men Who Drink Pabst Ironically - took home 55,500 votes.

By my math, about 240,000 people voted in the 2008 GOP primary in New Hampshire.  Almost exactly the same number voted in the primary this time.

By contrast, 287,000 Democrats voted last time.

Barack Obama outpolled John Huntsman, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum in an uncompetitive Democratic race that I imagine few people knew was going on.  (He polled about 45,000 votes).

Rick Perry polled 1000 more votes than a performance artist candidate called Vermin Supreme.  Seriously, y'all!

There are two things to examine in the tea leaves of New Hampshire.  First, the Granite State took a hard right turn in the 2010 midterms.  The NH state legislature is now inundated with whacko Tea Party types, who have been passing some of the worst legislation in the country recently.  Judging from the lack of growth in the primary electorate from 2008, NH seems a good exemplar of the idea that 2010 was about voter intensity and Democratic voters staying home.  NH also has an open primary system, and without a Democratic race, how many D voters crossed over to vote mischievously?

Put another way, John Sununu was bloviating about New Hampshire voting for Romney in November.  I don't see the demographic shift that allows this to happen.  Obama beat McCain by 70,000 votes (out of 706,000 votes cast.)  If the GOP was really that much stronger in NH than in 2008, where were the primary voters?

The second thing is that Romney came in close to the 40% threshold. This means that it really all does come down to SC.  South Carolina is a winner-take-all primary, unlike New Hampshire.  If a Not Mitt can win SC, they can make a strong case on the delegate math to continue, in that whoever wins SC will automatically assume the delegate lead.

Perry is toast.  He can still cause mischief in a tight race, as he will likely get 5% just because he sounds like a Good Ol'Boy.  Santorum is banking on all the Fetus Fetishists to push him over the top.

Ron Paul is unlikely to do as well in SC, because of his isolationism and anti-militarism.

So, will Romney's 25-30% be enough to win the day?  Will Newt's assault on Bain Capital be Mitt's bane?

Ideally, either Santorum or Gingrich would drop out along with Perry to clear the field, but this is the real deciding moment. Fitting that the party that has embraced the ideas of John C. Calhoun will have his state decide its standard bearer.

Erm, No

What the...

Two things.

Yahoo has a story up: Dolly Parton Wows At 66.  And the NY Times leads with Romney Wins Republican Primary.

OK.  Both I guess are true, if you don't take into account the artificial distortions, the manic desire to slice off flesh to make yourself perpetually appealing and the grotesque mask of human facsimile that is left.

And then there's Dolly Parton.

Mitt may yet crack the 40% barrier, but if Nate Silver is right, Mitt will only have gotten about the same number of votes as 2008.  GOP turnout is DOWN from 2008.  How can that be?  Could it possibly be that Republicans look at their slate and say, "Screw it, what's on Spike tonight?"

Maybe Santorum won Iowa.  I bet he did.  So what.  Mitt won New Hampshire.  So what.

I'm waiting for South Carolina and Florida.  Screw these small lily white states.  I want a state with some meat on its bones.  I want a state a-scared of black and brown people.  I want a state that is progressively losing its teeth.  Bring on the rednecks and the blue hairs!

More than anything, let Newt be Newt.  Let the master slide the shiv in.

Don't empty the clown car just yet.

Please.

No One Puts Newtie In A Corner

Newt fulminates as Ron Paul looks on.

Rather than post a link, I'm just going to blatantly rip off mistermix at Balloon Juice.

Here's Newt's attack line

“You have to ask the question, is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of people and then walk off with the money?” [...]

The former Speaker is making the case that, in contrast to good old fashioned businesses who make stuff, Romney and his ilk have instead gamed the system to create a soulless machine that profits from the misery of others. [...]

“I am totally for capitalism, I am for free markets,” Gingrich assured reporters on Monday. “Nobody objects to Bill Gates being extraordinarily rich, they provide a service.” What he instead is concerned about is when an investor receives “six-to-one returns, and the company goes bankrupt.”

And here's mistermix's analysis:

I haven’t seen a Democratic attack on Bain phrased this crisply. Democrats attack Romney’s math on job creation and they are using Randy Johnson, who was laid off in Bain’s gutting of Ampad, as a spokesman. While it’s true that Bain laid people off, the fact that they did so doesn’t in itself make Bain a bad business. Good companies sometimes lay people off. Newt’s attack has more bite because he’s putting Bain in the same boat as the rest of the hated Wall Streeters who almost took this country to ruin and haven’t been punished for their actions.

If Democrats can make this connection, which seems to be an obvious one, they can harness some of the anger that remains over the mortgage crisis and the resulting Great Recession. I might have missed it, but I don’t see that happening. I wonder if it’s because Democrats are afraid of offending deep-pocket Wall Street donors, or because they are afraid of being cast as socialists, or simply because they’re generally inept. But so far, Newt is doing a better job than the DNC.

Wow, that's kind of the heart of the matter, isn't it?

Romney is incredibly vulnerable in the general election in two ways.  First, he is just not very likable.  He's not genuine.  I would even argue he has no integrity.  Not in the sense of he's a liar and a cheat, but that he lacks the integrity that allows you to be genuine, to be who you are, to be the same person regardless of the situation and who you are talking to.

Second, Bain Capital is just the perfect example of the financialization of America's economy.  This guy is the living embodiment of what #OWS was yelling about.  And while #OWS eventually got smeared by the drum circles and the anarchists, the basic message found real resonance with Americans, because the average American looks at the last four years and sees a system that rewards the rich and punishes everyone else.

Maybe it's just that Newt knows better than anyone how to stick the knife in, but that last line about free markets versus predatory capitalism... Man, that's brilliant.  Succinct and believable precisely because it comes from a Republican.  Maybe Obama has more trouble leveling that line of attack because he's been attacked for four years as being a "Socialist," but if this becomes the narrative, Romney is doomed.

Calvin Coolidge, that most conservative of Presidents, said that, "A man who builds a factory builds a temple."  What do we say about the man who shutters that factory and lays off the workers?  What do we say about the money changer in the temple?

Today In Mittens

The Internet is abuzz with the various attacks being leveled at Mitt Romney.

There is a "film" out from Newt's Super PAC that, as someone said over at Balloon Juice, could've been made by MoveOn.org.  Perry is going after Bain Capital, too.

I wonder why they waited until now to level this attack.

The simplest explanation is that it has taken them this long to realize that "vulture capitalist" is not a good thing, people don't like them and therefore, contrary to Gingrich and Perry's personal beliefs about Wall Street, they are going to unload on this angle of attack.

I think it's a good angle.  Of course, I think this as a Democrat and economic populist.  I do think this message could resonate in South Carolina, but it might have even had some traction in New Hampshire, if the freaking primary wasn't tomorrow.

The more people get to know Mitt Romney, the less they seem to like him.  The press doesn't like him, the other candidates don't like him, McCain hates him so much, he accidentally endorsed Obama the other day.

This is exactly the sort of scorched earth tactic I expected from Newt earlier.  And for Perry, it makes the most sense, since he can somewhat plausibly run as a populist, since he's clearly not an intellectual.

Tomorrow night, it's all about 40%.  I think that's the magic number for Romney.  Over 40%, then someone else has to win South Carolina.  Under 40% and the conversation becomes "Why can't Romney seal the deal?"

Missed Opportunity

Polar Bears have not drunk the Kool Aid.

As we scan the weather reports of the nation and world, I think the thing that saddens me most is the lost opportunity to address climate change.  We've gone from a foot and a half of snow at Halloween to record warm days in January.

The future of the world is drought and hurricanes and eventually mass starvations in the developing world and wars over water.  The long term impact on our economy and way of life is probably beyond measure.

But it will be the Great Unmentionable during the 2012 presidential campaign.  If Obama mentions it, it will be in the context of "Green Jobs".  If Romney mentions it, it will be to denigrate scientists and pointy headed intellectuals as a cheap throw-away to his mouth breathing base.

It will be climate change, not the deficit that will make us medieval Rome.

Tell Me A Story

OK, we can be pretty sure Mitt Romney will be the nominee after, once again, all the other Not Mitts spent another debate attacking each other rather than the putative front runner.

Politics.  How does it work?

If even Newt can't summon up an attack on Romney, then no Republican can.  Is it Reagan's Eleventh Commandment?  Some sort of force field?  We may never know.

So, the only open question is whether the Not Mitt vote will resign itself to voting for the Mormon Cyborg or coalesce unexpectedly around one of the few remaining figures.  Gary Bauer is trying to rally people around Santorum.  Some billionaire has just dumped a ton of money into Newt's PAC.

But the broader question is whether Romney can win the general election.  After all, given the supporting cast of crazies around him, he has always been the most electable (aside from Huntsman who has too much pride to pander as shamelessly as Mitt.)

One of the guys at Booman says it won't matter that the press has come to hate Mitt the way they once hated Al Gore.  (Shorter version: Mitt's phoniness and hauteur have everyone who spends time with him - ie the press - hating him.)  He also used Mitt's statement this morning that only people who don't need a government paycheck should run for office.  He says it's not a disqualifying statement in the GOP (true) and won't work in the general (false, I think).

He's right that it's not a bumpersticker, but I think people come to view people a certain way.  They construct shorthands in their mind.  And Mitt is definitely, subtly and consistently defining himself as a phony rich guy.

Once you get defined by people, nothing you can do can undefine yourself.  Al Gore, perhaps the living embodiment of stolid, boring public servant became a serial liar and nothing he could do could change that.  John Kerry, a genuine war hero who spoke out against a war he fought in, became a two-faced panderer.

People have defined Obama and they generally like him personally.  The GOP efforts to define him as a Socialist have only worked with their base.  Ineffectual is a much more damaging label for him, but if the economy turns around...  Plus, bin Laden's dead.

All that's missing for an easy Obama victory is a revolt by conservatives and a renegade third party challenge.

UPDATE: Anne Laurie makes the same point: http://www.balloon-juice.com/2012/01/08/open-thread-romney-the-uncanny/

Sports Suck

As an Atlanta sports fan, I can honestly say there is more pleasure in getting kicked in the nuts by an angry mule.