Month: December 2011

Dems to Paint Romney as ‘Predatory, Unfettered’ Capitalist

Buck Banks

The Bain years are central to Romney’s narrative. If you think about the arc of his life, on a personal level, he seems to be an exemplary man. He was born with every advantage of wealth, power, and privilege. But he used all of those talents to enrich himself and his wealthy friends — and to screw the middle class. That feeds into his policy agenda.

— Democratic strategist Paul Begala, in an interview with Greg Sargent, on how Democrats plan to paint Mitt Romney “as a symbol of the predatory, unfettered capitalism that landed us in our economic crisis.”

A Message from the President

Buck Banks

I received this email yesterday (Sunday):

Buck —

Early this morning, the last of our troops left Iraq.

As we honor and reflect on the sacrifices that millions of men and women made for this war, I wanted to make sure you heard the news.

Bringing this war to a responsible end was a cause that sparked many Americans to get involved in the political process for the first time. Today’s outcome is a reminder that we all have a stake in our country’s future, and a say in the direction we choose.

Thank you.

Barack

I’ve gotten used to the idea of being older than the American president, but I’m still working on being on a first-name basis with the man. I have to agree with whoever wrote this piece of weirdness about all of us having a stake in the future, but I can’t quite buy in to the “say” part. That would be easier if Obama had closed Guantanamo, hadn’t renewed the Patriot Act and stopped caving to the Republicans.

As First Lady, Marcus Bachmann’s Number One Cause Will Be Hating Gays

Jon Ponder

Jazzy!
Jazzy!
If his wife Michele is elected president next year and he becomes America’s first male First Lady, Marcus “Jazzy Hands” Bachmann says he will not pursue a socialist cause like Michelle Obama’s campaign to improve childhood nutrition. Instead, perhaps not surprisingly, his cause will be preventing equal marriage rights for gays:

“I’ve decided my cause is not going to be happy meals,” he said during a stop at the Family Table Restaurant here, apparently a dig at Mrs. Obama.

“We are going to be the message-givers,” said Mr. Bachmann, who runs a Christian counseling service that has been accused of trying to “heal” gays by persuading them to become heterosexual.

“We are going to get this message across,” he said. “Marriage is between one man and one woman. We are going to promote families.”

Meanwhile, Jonathan Chait suggests that Michele’s presidential aspirations have become such a long shot that she’s now pinning her hopes on being named Mitt Romney’s running mate. “Obviously,” writes Chait, “you’d have to be delusional to think that Romney would put a massive liability like Bachmann on his ticket. Luckily for him, Bachmann is delusional.”

At the Republican presidential debate this week in Sioux City, Iowa, Bachmann earned an astounding twelfth “Pants on Fire” from Politifact for lying when she said, “PolitiFact came out and said that everything I said was true” in the prior debate. Politifact says it said no such thing.