Month: February 2012
Romney a ‘Puff of Presidential-Looking Air’
It’s hard to find a single Republican, including those most solidly behind him, who demonstrates true passion for him or can do even a persuasive pantomime of it. They call him effective, not inspirational. They praise his competence, not his charisma. He doesn’t exert any sort of gravitational pull on his party. There’s no full swoon…. Almost all of the presidents elected over recent decades have been propelled by pockets of intense enthusiasm, which can paper over so many specific political predicaments and eclipse tensions with the base. They were saviors before they were disappointments, not disappointments right out of the gate. And almost all of them had something solid — a resonant personal story or an outsize personality or a bold vision — for admirers to latch onto. Romney wafts through a voter’s fingers, a puff of presidential-looking air.
— Frank Bruni, writing in the New York Times.
Does Mitt Romney Dream of Electric Sheep?
In the 2008 presidential campaign, based on no evidence or rational foundation whatsoever, conservative extremists floated the idea that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, rather than his actual birthplace, the nearly as exotic (to them) locale of Honolulu, Hawaii. Right-wing media picked up the story and suddenly, and improbably, this bogus claim became a campaign issue.
Now, four years later, and despite assurances the president was born in Honolulu from Hawaii Republican officials, including the governor, and despite the release of the president’s birth certificate in both its short and long form, Birtherism lives on.
Given that, maybe it’s time we asked an even more serious question about Mitt Romney. Is he a human being?
The Difference Between Investing and Gambling
I love the fact that Sheldon put in about $10 million with Gingrich and I put in a lot less with Rick. I like to say I’m an investor and Sheldon is a casino guy.
— Santorum Super PAC financier Foster Freiss, in an interview on Bloomberg TV, poking fun at Gingrich Super PAC backer Sheldon Adelson.
Gingrich’s Money Line Drying Up
$11 million
Amount the family of casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his family have donated to Newt Gingrich’s super-PAC in the past two months, according to interviews and Federal Election Commission records. The Adelsons don’t plan to deliver another big check to a Super PAC backing Gingrich’s presidential campaign, Bloomberg reports.
Santorum Doesn’t Need to Go Neg on Romney
Santorum doesn’t even need to run negatives against Romney, which is telling.
— GOP strategist Alex Castellanos, quoted by The Hill.
Romney Doth Protest Too Much
I was a severely conservative Republican governor.
— Mitt Romney, quoted by the Washington Post, attempting to convince a convention of right-wing activists that he’s one of them.
By New Birther Standard, Romney and Santorum Are Ineligible to Be President
In desperation to deligitmize the presidency of Barack Obama, America’s first African-American president, a birther in Pennsylvania named Thomas Barchfield is trying to establish a new standard of eligibility for the presidency, based on a ruling by the Supreme Court in 1875:
Weak Leaky TV
We thought when he founded Wikileaks
That his fame and his fortune had peaked.
But for Julian Assange
The show must go on —
Now he’s hosting a talkie on Russian TV!
