Day: December 14, 2011
Mitt’s Personhood Problem
Mitt Romney reportedly furious that Corporations are not Time’s Person of the Year.
@LOLGOP, aka comedian Pete Nicely
FOX Exploits Their Feckless Viewers by Switching Romney Picture for Obama
In what has become standard operating procedure at the so-called news organization, FOX, a graphic “accidentally” swapped out a photo of someone FOX doesn’t like and replaced it with a photo of a Democrat they like even less. Media Matters has both the original, from Wednesday, Nov. 14, and the “correction,” used later in the day.
Note to Romney: This is how you know FOX hates you. They show a picture of Obama while Megan talks about you. And then, when they announce the error, she says, “As it turns out, Romney and Barack Obama are not the same man.”
Senators Swap Secret Santa Swag
Who says bipartisanship is dead? Well, everybody — but that’s beside the point. Monday 61 senators (22 Republicans, 39 Democrats) held a secret Santa gift exchange organized by Sen. Al Franken (D-MN).
The cost of gifts was limited to $10, which caused the lawmakers to get creative. Well, as creative as U.S. senators can probably get.
Read a rundown of some of the presents here.
Axelrod Predicts Greater Scrutiny for Gingrich as Frontrunner
The higher a monkey climbs on the pole the more you can see his butt.
— Obama adviser David Axelrod, quoted by the Chicago Sun-Times, predicting Newt Gingrich will get far greater scrutiny now that he’s the GOP frontrunner.
Republicans View Candidate Field as Average
51%
Of Republicans view their party’s presidential candidates as average, while 21% view the field as strong and 27% view it as weak, according to a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll.
Obama’s Negative Number Exceeds His Positive for First Time
49%
Of Americans now express an unfavorable opinion of President Obama, while 48% view him favorably — the first time his negative number has exceeded his positive one in this most basic measure of personal popularity, according to the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll.
Of Americans now express an unfavorable opinion of President Obama, while 48% view him favorably — the first time his negative number has exceeded his positive one in this most basic measure of personal popularity, according to the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll.
Thanks for the Resounding Endorsement, Christine!
That’s one of the things that I like about him — because he’s been consistent since he changed his mind.
— Christine O’Donnell, quoted by Politico, on her endorsement of Mitt Romney.
Chait Compares, Contrasts Mitt and Newt
The robotic consistency of Romney’s newfound conservatism does contrast sharply with Gingrich, who lurches between hysterical right-wing paranoia and bouts of bipartisanship. And yet the erratic character of Gingrich’s swings suggests that they’re unplanned, and thus that they spring from actual conviction, albeit momentary convictions. Gingrich actually believes what he is advocating at the moment he is advocating it. Nobody can plausibly say the same of Romney. … Romney is the handsome swindler who plots to win your mother’s heart and make off with her fortune. Gingrich is like the husband who periodically gets drunk and runs off to spend a week with a stripper in a low-rent motel but always comes home in the end. Which one would you rather see your mother marry?
— Jonathan Chait, writing in New York Magazine.
Newt Pledges to Uphold 1996 Defense of Marriage Act – Even Claims Credit for DOMA, Which He Enacted While Having an Affair
In a letter this week to an Iowa anti-gay hate group, Republican frontrunner Newt Gingrich pledged that, “[as] President, I will vigorously enforce the Defense of Marriage Act, which was enacted under my leadership as speaker of the House, and ensure compliance with its provisions, especially in the military. I will also aggressively defend the constitutionality of DOMA in federal and state courts.” (Emphasis added.)
I had promised myself I was going to lay off Newt during the primaries because I don’t want anything to jinx his chances of winning the Republican nomination, which is the clearest path to reelection for Pres. Obama. But this is too rich to resist.
First of all, why would anyone believe anything an old philanderer like Newt would say about marriage? Secondly, what Newt doesn’t say, of course, is that at the same time he was pushing DOMA through Congress, he, was in the second year of an adulterous affair that was as risky to his party — Republicans were still posing as paragons of family values back then — as it was reckless and damaging to his family.
