Month: September 2012

Hate Group Spokesman for GOP Base: Romney Has Put a ‘Bag Over Ryan’s Head’ and a ‘Sock in His Mouth’

Jon Ponder
Congressman Paul Ryan, Republican vice presidential nominee, reading his speech to a hate-group rally from teleprompters
Republican vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan -- whose head appears to be unbagged -- reading his speech to a hate-group rally from teleprompters

The fringe dwellers that comprise the Republican base met in Washington this week for the Values Voters Summit, which is sponsored by the Family Research Center, which is on the hate-group list maintained by the Southern Poverty Law Center. At the conclave, FRC spokesman Bryan Fischer launched the campaign to pre-blame a Romney-Ryan loss in November on Mitt Romney’s insufficient ideological purity — but note how he uses analogies based on kidnapping and violence (or, more aptly perhaps in Fischer’s case, BD-SM):

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A Look Inside the Al Qaeda-Style Attack on the U.S. Compound in Benghazi in Which Ambassador Stevens and Others Were Killed

Jon Ponder

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Mitt Romney’s deliberate attempt to big foot the news coverage of the protests and violence in North Africa elsewhere this week obscured the most important aspect of the story from a parochial American perspective, at least: the organized assault on the U.S. compound in Benghazi in which Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others were killed. In the video above, Rachel Maddow provides a tick-tock of the al Qaeda style attack in Benghazi .

Wrong, Mitt, George W. Bush, Not Pres. Obama, Was America’s ‘Apologizer-in-Chief’

Jon Ponder

With his poll numbers sinking, Mitt Romney took desperation action earlier this week by falsely claiming that the U.S. Embassy in Cairo had issued a statement expressing sympathy for protesters who were agitated by a YouTube video allegedly produced by right-wing anti-Islamic activists in the suburbs of Los Angeles that besmirched the Prophet Mohammed.

The lie that Pres. Obama went on some sort of “apology tour” has been debunked multiple times.

The embassy issued the statement at 6 a.m., East Coast time, before the protests in Cairo had turned violent. After 10 p.m. in the East Coast, fully 16 hours after the Cairo embassy’s initial statement — during which Team Romney had plenty of time to deliberate and discuss what to do — they issued a statement condemning the embassy for expressing sympathy with “those who waged the attacks,” even though they knew the attacks had not begun when the embassy released its statement.

In a subsequent press availability, Romney deliberately used the word “apology” or variations of it five times to describe the embassy’s statement — which did not include the word “apology” or any variation or sentiment thereof. During the news conference, Romney also made it clear that he held Pres. Obama accountable, not only for the embassy’s “apology,” but for anything and everything anyone who worked for administration said:

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Mitt Romney’s Problem: Ambition with No Conviction

Buck Banks

And the lesson is clear: If we want to win the battle of ideas in the long term, we should be willing to face the fact that Mitt Romney is likely to lose — and should, given that he’s neither a true conservative nor a courageous moderate. He’s just an ambitious man. Nothing wrong with that, except when you want to be president. Great leaders combine ambition and ideas and conviction.

— Right wing talking head Joe Scarborough, in an opinion column on Politico.

The ‘Unprecedented’ Just Might Be ‘Precedented’

Buck Banks

There is a good reason why The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage calls ‘unprecedented’ a ‘dangerous word that should be avoided.’ There is really nothing new under the sun, except, perhaps, the Internet. So for much of this year, when even some of our smartest pundits suggested it would be unprecedented (or all but) for Barack Obama to win re-election with the job-approval ratings, unemployment figures, and right-track/wrong-track polling numbers with which he’s been saddled, I couldn’t help thinking: There’s a first time for everything.

— Todd Purdum, writing in Vanity Fair.