Mitt Romney and the Republican Party's Janet Jackson Strategy
Okay, so now it's official. Mitt Romney, the monied Mormon, Republican, Ken-doll presidential candidate, who recently blew off a wheelchair-bound voter inquiring about Romney's stand on medical marijuana, is not only an insensitive jerk.
He's a nitwit.
What follows is a blog entry by Eric Schulze. It's such an unbelievable post, I'm reproducing it in full here -- along with (of course) my response.
Mitt Needs Some Rest.... - October 23, 2007
Mitt made the unbelievable slip yesterday, not only of mixing up Obama and Osama briefly in a sentence -- that would be understandable -- but of actually confounding their positions. Somehow he tangled in his head Osama's call for to reinvigorate the stalled jihad in Iraq and Obama's insistence that we should bug out of Iraq yesterday.
"Actually, just look at what Osam - Barack Obama - said just yesterday. Barack Obama, calling on radicals, jihadists of all different types, to come together in Iraq. That is the battlefield. ... It's almost as if the Democratic contenders for president are living in fantasyland. Their idea for jihad is to retreat, and their idea for the economy is to also retreat. And in my view, both efforts are wrongheaded."
On its face, the mistake is either hilarious or pathetic, but it's understandable in a weird way. First, it is not, as his spokesman later claimed, a mere slip of the tongue. A slip of the tongue is mixing up names. Suggesting the a U.S. presidential candidate is calling for Jihad in Iraq is a slip of the brain. A very weird slip for a Harvard JD/MBA universally acknowledged to be brilliant.
But like so much humor, intentional or un, it is funny partly because it rests on a grain of truth. Who is mad as hell that we are in Iraq? Obama and Osama. Who would have us pull out without waiting to stabilize the country? Obama and Osama.
Well, kind of. On the last point, Obama has waffled a bit, acknowledging at times that US troop presence will be needed for some time. But here's what his campaign spokesman had to say about Mitt's slip:
Obama spokesman Bill Burton said, "Apparently, Mitt Romney can switch names just as casually as he switches positions, but what's wrongheaded is continuing a misguided war in Iraq that has left America less safe."
Look, I give props to Obama for having opposed going in. I think he was right, in retrospect. But once we are there, the real question is when and how we get out. He appears to have no answer to this question. At least no answer with which Osama would not agree.
Okay. His blog over. My turn.
Take a seat, Schulzke.
You're looking about as addle-brained as Romney. You've tried so hard to twist, wring and contort some semblance of logic out of Romney's incredibly incoherent ramblings about Obama and Iraq, you've clearly spun yourself senseless. It's hard to judge what's worse -- Romney's stupidity or your own mind-numbing logorrhea. The fact is Romney's comments are more worthy of that half-wit on "The View," Sherri Shepherd http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/09/18/new-view-cohost-sherri_n_64864.html , than of a candidate for this nation's highest political office. And that's got nothing to do with Barack Obama's stand on the U.S. in Iraq or anything else.
You're right about one thing, though. Romney definitely needs a rest -- something the American people will be all too happy to provide him in a few, short months.
If you had better judgment, you'd have ignored this humiliating incident in the hope that it simply would have blown over (not!), perhaps eclipsed by the growing scandal surrounding Giuliani's embarrassingly tacky domestic situation and his retention of Monsignor Alan Placa, a disgraced pedophile priest, as a close personal advisor. Now, that's a story worth commenting on, but it's easier for shallow, cynical political hacks like you to pander to the ignorance and xenophobia of American voters by make witlessly facile, off-point remarks about a man of integrity like Obama than to spin a candidate playing footsie with a sexual predator -- isn't it?
The upshot, though, is you've accomplished nothing but to further publicize Romney's appalling incompetence and place on full display the Republican party's desperate flailings. Mitt Romney for President?!! Come on, guys. That's the Janet Jackson strategy: one boob out, another boob in. The nationwide paroxysm of despair over the "assault on family values" mounted by the halftime follies of Super Bowl XXXVIII has been nothing compared to the sh*t storm of pubic and international outrage over the Iraq War, Abu Ghreb, rendition and the Alberto Gonzalez Justice Department. The Republican party, apparently not sufficiently chastened by eight years of a corrupt, amoral, utter moron at the helm of American government is now trying to sell us another fundamentally clueless dolt.
Write what you will, lipstick on a pig is still a pig.
Mitt Romney for President? Give it up Schulze, baby.
When pigs fly.
(Desperation. It ain't pretty.)
