State We’re In
We’ll leave it to the historians to take the long-term view
About the difference between what presidents say and do.
But once every year
The pundits long to hear
The mellifluous rhetorical relish of POTUS’s SOTU.
Month: January 2012
Even (Neo) Conservatives are Tired of Low-Information Republicans
Conservative columnist and neocon Bush II speechwriter David Frum wrote recently that he is tired of being surrounded by dumb people. At least, that was basically the point of his article, “When Did the GOP Lose Touch with Reality?” in the November New York magazine.
On a recent CNN appearance, Frum tried to expand on the harmful affect of FOX News on American discourse although CNN’s Howard Kurtz seemed determine to err on the side of championing FOX.
Note: We wrote last year about the example Frum cites, a story that first surfaced broadly on the Drudge Report web site and was then taken up with fervor by FOX.
Santorum Froths It Up with Tea Partyist Who Claims Obama Is an ‘Avowed Muslim’ Who Has ‘No Legal Right to Be President’
In this cycle, the Republican Party’s ever-dwindling tea bagger base demands a candidate for president who is an angry, practiced liar who will go to any rhetorical extreme to smear Pres. Obama.
Rick Santorum is doing his best to prove that he is their guy. Case in point is this episode, played out in the two videos above, from a Santorum campaign stop in Lady Lake, Fla., yesterday.
His performance in these two videos shows, once and for all, that he lacks the intelligence, decorum and stature to be president, and that, were he to become the Republican Party’s nominee, he could never get the votes of moderates and independents that are required to win the presidency.
Transcript for video on the left:
If Callista Becomes First Lady, What Will You Tell Your Kids?
During the impeachment-driven midterm elections in 1998, then-Speaker Newt Gingrich commissioned a series of ads designed to try to reverse growing public support for his nemesis, Pres. Bill Clinton, whom Gingrich and congressional Republicans were trying to hound out of office because he had been caught lying during a lawsuit deposition about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
One of the ads, titled “What Did you Tell Your Kids,” specifically targeted suburban women who might be wavering in their support for the GOP by referencing the ickier parts of the scandal — the “not sex” sex, stained blue dress, etc. — without mentioning them outright. The ads don’t appear to be available online today — 1998 was well before the YouTube era — but writing for Slate.com in October 1998, William Saletan, supplied this review:
It features one young suburban mother talking to another. “What did you tell your kids?” asks the first woman. “I didn’t know what to say,” answers the second. The first woman replies: “It’s wrong. For seven months he lied to us.” Like the finger-wagging scene in One Person, this ad reminds viewers not of what Clinton did to [Paula] Jones or [Ken] Starr but of what he did to us. It doesn’t say his lies were criminal; it merely says they were wrong. This isn’t an abstract matter of law, the ad suggests. It’s about your kids.
This ad, and the theme of explaining a politician’s sexual misdeeds to children, has renewed salience now, in light of Gingrich’s surprise victory in the South Carolina primary over the weekend. As a caller into C-SPAN’s phone-in show, “Washington Journal”, put it in a rhetorical question to women Republican voters last week: Have you considered the fact that if you elect Newt Gingrich president, his first lady will be this homewrecker who broke up his marriage?
What will you tell your kids, indeed.
Mitt Believes in an America Where Millions of Americans Believe in an America That’s the America Millions of Americans Believe in – That’s the America He Loves
I believe in an America where millions of Americans believe in an America that’s the America millions of Americans believe in. That’s the America I love.
– Putative GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, explaining his rationale for running for president.
Mitt paid some guy to write this insipid pap. And he paid others to approve it. Not only is it bland and generic, it’s lethal to him in a way that it wouldn’t be to Gingrich or Perry or Bachmann or Paul because it plays to his caricature — as a synthetic, stage-managed hollow man of no fixed beliefs.
– Right-wing writer Mark Steyn reacting to Romney’s rationale for running.
Carville: ‘Republicans Are in the Midst of a World Class Disaster’
James Carville, or as I think of him, Mr. Mary Matalin, penned an open letter to Republicans and it’s a doozy. Carville looks back at the lowest high points of the race so far and concludes it’s a “world-class disaster.” Since right now that particular description brings to mind captain-less ships unable to float, it’s not a bad analogy.
But Carville is just getting warmed up.
Carville on Newt: ‘You guys have to deal with a $1.6 million Freddie Mac consultant who has been married three times’
…most people thought it was kind of a watermark when your Tea Party gang booed the golden rule. You know, I’ve spent some time in Philly and they have always thought they were pretty radical because they actually booed Santa Claus and Willie Mays. Philly, I’ve got news for you — you ain’t got nothing on South Carolina Republicans. They just aren’t buying any of that do-unto-others garbage.
It’s hard to tell from the clip if the audience was booing Jesus or Ron Paul or peace. No matter, they were clearly not interested in anything but kicking Iranian butt.
But Paul, as we know, is not a front-runner. For the two of them, Carville saves his best shots, starting with Mitt Romney.
Andrew Sullivan Debates Obama’s Record with Bay Buchanan
The venue for this debate is Anderson Cooper’s show on CNN. Meanwhile, Fox is signaling that it is terrified of this story. The network’s spokesmodel hosts have been trashing Sullivan’s article while refusing to invite him on to debate it. (They even blurred his name on a graphic of the Newsweek cover.)
The biggest surprise is that Andrew Sullivan is surprised that the GOP’s propaganda network won’t allow its viewers to hear a dissenting view:
I knew from afar that they were a propaganda channel. Now, in this close-up personal interaction, you realize just how deep the rot goes. This is a channel dedicated to money, power and entertainment, in that order.
Romney Has Millions Stashed in Offshore Accounts
Although it is not apparent on his financial disclosure form, Mitt Romney has millions of dollars of his personal wealth in investment funds set up in the Cayman Islands, a notorious Caribbean tax haven.
A spokesperson for the Romney campaign says Romney follows all tax laws and he would pay the same in taxes regardless of where the funds are based…
Official documents reviewed by ABC News show that Bain Capital, the private equity partnership Romney once ran, has set up some 138 secretive offshore funds in the Caymans.
Romney campaign officials and those at Bain Capital tell ABC News that the purpose of setting up those accounts in the Cayman Islands is to help attract money from foreign investors, and that the accounts provide no tax advantage to American investors like Romney. Romney, the campaign said, has paid all U.S. taxes on income derived from those investments.
In New Interview Set to Air before S.C. Primary, Newt Gingrich’s Second Wife Says Newt Wanted an ‘Open Relationship’
Newt Gingrich’s ex-wife revealed for the first time today that the GOP presidential hopeful had asked for an open marriage so that he could have a wife and a mistress.
Marianne Gingrich, his second wife, said she wanted American voters to know his true moral character. There have been fears that her explosive television interview could end her former partner’s campaign for the White House.
Regarding the claims, Marianne told ABC: “And I just stared at him and he said, ‘Callista doesn’t care what I do.’ He wanted an open marriage and I refused.”
As of early Thursday morning, ABC News had not announced when it will air the interview, but it will presumably be Thursday or Friday night, on the eve of the South Carolina primary on Saturday.
Marianne Gingrich’s last interview was with Esquire, for an article published in August 2010. What was apparent then was that she has neither forgiven nor forgotten. She has obviously timed this interview so that it will air just before a potentially make or break primary in a state that is hotbed of Republican “values voters.”
In the 2010 interview, Marianne Gingrich confirmed one of the more paradoxical rumors about Newt’s marital history.
