MCN Blogs
David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

RNC 2012 – Mitt Romney: A Human Who Built That

Be Sociable, Share!

67 Responses to “RNC 2012 – Mitt Romney: A Human Who Built That”

  1. tbunny says:

    Leonard Nimoy!

  2. Ryan says:

    DP, if Eastwood coming to the Republican National Convention and making an ass out of himself is the saddest thing you’ve ever seen, you should probably get out more.

    Hyperbole aside, Romney gave a speech that only could have helped him. All he has to do to win the election is get his base to the polls, and convince the people who voted for Obama (like myself) that Obama doesn’t deserve another four years. I’m not saying he did this in my case, but if he keeps hammering home points like this (“The president hasn’t disappointed you because he wanted to. The president has disappointed America because he hasn’t led America in the right direction.” ), it might be enough to win.

  3. Paul D/Stella says:

    “All he has to do to win the election is get his base to the polls, and convince the people who voted for Obama (like myself) that Obama doesn’t deserve another four years.”

    Not as easy as you make it sound. Will people really remember and be talking about Romney’s speech a week from now? Did the convention serve to convince skeptical independents/moderates that Romney deserves their vote? What about tea partiers and conservative evangelicals who don’t really like either candidate? Are they now firmly on Team Romney? Was this the type of convention that really sways undecided voters?

  4. Ryan says:

    Like I said, Romney doesn’t need the votes of the moderates/independents to win-he needs them to not show up at all.

    Can’t speak for a whole nation, but all I hear around me in Iowa is “Obama is to blame for (insert any problem you can imagine) and can’t run the country”. I’m not talking about just people I know who vote Republican or people who I assume would lean that way-I’m talking about a lot of people who just don’t feel like Obama has done anything to deserve another shot at fixing the economy, whether it was his fault or not (nevermind that these people completely ignore the fact that Congress should be taking way more blame for a lot of problems-that’s another debate).

    Does it even matter if you’re not on Team Romney as a tea-partyer? Those are probably the most motivated people to go the polls to cast a vote against Obama.

    The key for Obama in 2008 was to turn out people who don’t normally vote (young people and people sick of politics in general) with a message of change. Romney needs to sell those people that the change never occurred, and they have no reason that it will occur in the next four years with another vote for Obama. If they stay home, and the tea-party/GOP faithful who hate Obama show up, it seems like game over for Obama.

  5. Paul D/Stella says:

    Isn’t turnout vital for Romney too though? Not just keeping moderates/independents from voting but also getting traditional Republican voters who just don’t really like/trust him to actually vote for him? Cause there are a lot of people in that category. Are they going to be convinced by what they heard last night?

  6. David Poland says:

    Ryan –

    Clint Eastwood is one of the greats to come out of Hollywood. And he destroyed his legacy, to some degree, with one moment of stupid.

    I can’t imagine invoking Eastwood ever again, in terms of his catch phrases or attitude, without flashing back on this moment. “Get off of my lawn,” at least had some irony… there was some sense that it wasn’t just him, especially since he has claimed to be progressive on many social issues. But this?

    “Go ahead… make my… uh, where was I?” is his new catchphrase. And it is sad. It is sad like seeing someone in your family being lost in a brain illness that no longer allows them to be the person you knew and loved.

    But if that’s just hyperbole for you, nothing I can say. I can only explain how I feel about it.

  7. David Poland says:

    The only thing Romney can count on to win this race is that all people of ethnicity stay home and that women who lean right are all okay with being treated like second class citizens in their country.

    Trickle down, if he can pass it, will keep this country in financial trouble until there is some artificial upsurge, like the tech revolution turned Reagan’s record deficits upside down for Clinton.

    I am much more scared about a more right wing Supreme Court, which already has made some scary bad rulings and could get a lot worse about separating the haves from the super-haves and the have nots.

    I have always said that you need to sell things with affirmative pitches. So far, Romney has none… only attacks on Obama and rhetoric that can’t add up to anyone counting on their fingers. He does have the support of the oppressed white pity culture of America. The Party must be so proud of itself!

  8. Paul D/Stella says:

    It does seem like the GOP convention went heavy on anti-Obama and light on pro-Romney. Does anyone actually like Mitt, even in his own party? It reminds me a lot of the 2004 election. Not too many people truly loved and were passionate about Kerry. It was all about Bush and being against him.

  9. Don R. Lewis says:

    I can’t believe more Obama supporters aren’t trying to scare the shit out of their friends who are on the fence or may not vote.

    Paul Ryan believes there should be no exceptions for abortion, including rape and incest…and incest rape. He backed legislation on this. It’s a fact. That’s terrifying and disgusting. Mitt Romney, under that suit, is wearing protective pajama’s that will save him when the world ends. These are batshit crazy ideas that may end up running our country.

    Meanwhile, the GOP has once again brilliantly started a whisper campaign to paint Obama as “other.” Sometimes it’s not a whisper but the liiiiiittle things Romney has been doing (the hilarious “birth certificate” crack last week, last night’s “we need an American” comment) are going to seep into the consciousness while liberals and democrats sit aroiund going “heyyyy….that’s not cool.”

    And Eastwood’s performance last night absolutely ruined his legacy. People will always remember that and not for the politics of it, but just how weird and senile it was. It also was a part of that whisper campaign. Yeah, alot of us called GW Bush stupid and all, but we’d never act like he would curse out an old man for expressing his views. The level of disrespect aimed at this President is incredible.

  10. Yancy Skancy says:

    Haven’t seen the Eastwood speech yet, but I’m gonna go out on a limb and say it won’t ruin his legacy. Of course, I’ve always been able to look past the sins, crimes and idiocies of artists when assessing the quality of their work. If I can still enjoy an Elia Kazan film, I doubt that Clint’s oeuvre will suddenly curdle for me.

  11. Paul D/Stella says:

    I don’t know. Everyone knows Clint is a Republican. Lots of people don’t watch and pay little or no attention to the party conventions. It might be a little much to say that he completely destroyed his legacy.

  12. Melquiades says:

    That speech was more entertaining than Eastwood’s last few movies.

    I don’t know if he ruined his legacy, but he sure guaranteed that these ten minutes are the first thing that will come to mind when anybody hears the name “Clint Eastwood” for the next couple of years.

    I found it odd that he was attacking Obama from the left. Not closing Gitmo, not pulling out of Afghanistan, flying in a gas-guzzling plane… those aren’t exactly Mitt-friendly arguments.

  13. Pete B. says:

    An 82 year old man gives a rambling speech without notes or a teleprompter and that ruins a legacy that lasts decades? Wow… you are a tough crowd.

  14. Don R. Lewis says:

    Pete-
    it’s likely the last thing people will see from Clint that’s “new.” He may direct more movies but the way they’ve been going, he’s not going to be accepting any directing Oscars anytime soon. Plus at 82, who know how much longer he’ll be around for. I doubt last nights appearance will launch a new career as a monologuist or podcaster. Yes, he’ll always be an icon, but he’ll also always be that crazy old man talking to a chair that told him to fuck himself.

  15. hcat says:

    Eastwood’s speech seemed like something Bob Hope would have done back in 1980. I can’t imagine what the hell they were thinking with that. Is Clint known as a funnyman? Or someone who is known for speeches. He has been in features where a talley of all his dialogue would not add up to eleven minutes but they decide to put him out there in an opening slot for some light vaudeville?

    And since most of the chatter going into the convention was about the gap they have with women wouldn’t Rice have fit better on that night?

    “Hey we need to shake the image that we are the party of grumpy old white men?”

    “Well Clint can turn that around.”

  16. christian says:

    That bizarro Eastwood moment sums up the base incompetency of the Romney campaign (his Global Insult Tour was the preview of coming attractions): “Oh sure Clint, say what you want. You’re only going to be the Hollywood prelude to our next Commander In Chief. You’re an individual man’s man and you don’t need no teleprompter help from the stinkin’ government! And please make sure to make the case for an Iran war and ongoing engagement in Afghanistan!”

    And the most frightening moment was the cold, precise “rising oceans” gag as Florida and Louisiana are being hit by storms in a year of climate change gone awry. Romney is an asshole and no amount of media optic theatrics changes his pathology of lies. He’s matched only in disconnect by Paul Ryan, who told so many easily checked falsehoods (Ayn Rand would despise Ryan for his lack of Objectivism) that it’s clear the GOP is counting on a strategy — as the Invisible Obama proved — of total denial of reality. MSNBC hacks like Howard Fineman will say, “Obama has to call them out…” No, Howard, that’s what TV JOURNALISTS should do. The media has abdicated to reality TV. In that vein, the debates will be brutal for these two buffoons because they won’t be able to lie so easily to Obama and Biden’s faces.

    Nate Silver gives Obama 71 percent chance of re-election. The polls are crap, it’s the electoral map: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/30/base-turnout-strategy-may-be-too-narrow-for-romney/

  17. Mike says:

    They will be able to lie just as easily because who’s going to call them out – Obama and Biden? The people Romney needs to convince to turn out aren’t people who will believe Obama or Biden when they say Mitt and Ryan are lying.

    There are very few independents this election. It’s all a question of turnout in a handful of battleground states.

    Mitt needs to convince the Republican faithful to turn out (which is hard for him). Obama needs to convince those who voted for him last time (the young, women, minorities) that Romney is scary enough that they need to turn out again for Obama despite not living up to the hype of last time.

    It’s a tight one.

  18. christian says:

    I don’t believe it’s so tight. I’ve had numerous Republican/Libertarian pals tell me they’re voting for Obama simply because Romney scares the shit out of them.

    People are strangely underestimating the power of TV debates, which exposed Sarah Palin as an unfit rube and of course, defeated Nixon. It’s the best of the political theater and watching Team Romney get confronted on their lies will indeed swing some votes. But without minorities and women, Rmoney is toast.

  19. Don R. Lewis says:

    I agree they need to be called out, christian, and especially by TV Journalists but TV journalism has become so preachy to one choir or the other, if MSNBC calls them out, only liberals will listen. There’s no more Walter Cronkite types anymore, it’s all been divided and conquered.

  20. Monco says:

    Well I’m glad DP acknowledged that it was the tech bubble and not Clinton’s economic policies that turned the deficit into surpluses. Obama is not solving any debt crisis by adding 4.6 points to the tax rate paid by 3 percent of Americans. That is his only solution to this problem or at least the only one he will talk about. Mark Halprin admitted as much on Charlie Rose recently. You are exactly right that just coming in and cutting taxes will do nothing but run up more deficits. The only way to solve the problem is entitlement reform. One candidate wants to do it even though it is the most politically toxic issue.

    And your really scared of a supreme court that upheld Obamacare. The conservative ruled with the liberal justices to not strike it down and this scares you. When has a liberal justice ever crossed to rule conservatively? What about the Kelo decision that pretty much trashes the right of eminent domain and gives the government the right to seize property. It gave more power to the federal government and the ruling wasn’t 5-4 but had bigger majorities. This is a court that scares you? Give me a break. Roe v. Wade is settled protected precident. This court would never overturn it so long as Justice Roberts is on the court. Don’t get your panties in a twist.

  21. christian says:

    Paddy Chayefsky said it all, didn’t he?

  22. christian says:

    “Don’t get your panties in a twist.”

    That’s why I wouldn’t trust the GOP nor the Supreme Court to not overturn Roe V. Wade. And tax revenue never helps the deficit but cutting taxes creates a surplus as Team Bush proved! Mark Halperin — the MSNBC Liberal who called Obama a “dick” — said so! Tell me lies, Monco, sweet little lies…

  23. tbunny says:

    It appears that the basis of Mitt’s fortune, starting directly from his father’s money and connections, was an egregiously abused loophole in bankruptcy law that allows corporate raiders to takeover a company, buy off the executives with lavish packages while mercilessly cutting payroll for ordinary employees, then having the cosmic effrontery to pay themselves tens of millions in management fees for their genius in plunging the company into debt and walking away golden when it goes bankrupt.

    All at a tax rate no greater than 13% (or so we can assure you).

  24. christian says:

    American Exceptionalism!

    “Paul Ryan and I understand how the economy works, we understand how Washington works, we will reach across the aisle and find good people who, like us, want to make sure this company deals with its challenges. We’ll get America back on track again!”

    We should be afraid of a CEO who calls America a “company” — it means pink slips around the corner.

  25. Paul D/Stella says:

    Monco you (and the massive tool Mark Halprin) are flat out wrong and peddling lies and misinformation. Read a book man. I recommend Do Not Ask Us What Good We Do by Robert Draper and/or It’s Even Worse Than It Looks by Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein. Both detail Obama’s attempts to address the debt crisis and the way the GOP continually stymied him. Obama put a lot more on the table than tax hikes for the 1%, including things that enraged many Democrats in Congress.

    At one point Obama agreed to $1.7 trillion in spending cuts including major changes to entitlements (one of which was raising the Medicare eligibility age to 67). As the Mann/Ornstein book recounts, he “accepted painful changes in Medicare and other entitlements that his party stalwarts passionately opposed.”

  26. christian says:

    The most pathetic and damning thing about the GOP is their plan from Day One to BLOCK EVERYTHING Obama attempted to pull the nation out of the Bush Recession — even when he AGREED to their terms they blocked bills: that weasel Paul Ryan being a prime example re: Simpson/Bowles. Yet Mr. Howard Roark Jr BEGGED for stimulus funds from Bush AND Obama. If you’re going to preach your ideology, practice it.

  27. bulldog68 says:

    I just love how every Republican is getting up on stage and admitting that Obama was handed a very bad economy to try and fix, while deftly not mentioning the republican president who handed it to him, the same republican president whose policies they all backed, supported, and want to implement once again.

  28. christian says:

    Well that’s because that was past history and we’re not allowed to talk about that. Insight and self-awareness are exactly what today’s GOP lacks – hence a return to the SAME EXACT POLICIES that led us here. And how often did ANY of the Patriotic GOP flacks mention Iraq, Afghanistan or the troops?

  29. Mike says:

    Paul, exactly right on Obama offering entitlement reform. I recall hearing the 3-to-1 ratio, where he offered Boehner $3 in entitlement reform for every $1 of tax revenue and Boehner couldn’t agree because he knew the Tea Partiers would revolt.

    The part that I can’t figure out is why Obama bothered to make the overtures if he’s not going to campaign on them now? He’s already got the liberals afraid of Romney.

  30. Paul D/Stella says:

    According to Mann and Ornstein, Obama and Boehner discussed a plan comprised of $800 billion in new revenues and $1.7 trillion in spending cuts. Obama told Democratic congressional leaders that their discussion went well and Democrats needed to accept tough cuts in Medicare and Medicaid. The next day Boehner backed out fearing criticism from his colleagues and a lack of backup from the Young Guns in the leadership.

  31. christian says:

    Then the GOP have the cajones to j’accuse Obama of not reaching out to them; the emo-libs saw it as a reach-around.

  32. Krillian says:

    If this destroyed Clint Eastwood for you, your hatred for the other side is turning you to the Dark Side. Had to unfollow some Hollywood folks I normally love because their nasty demonization of everything was so overwhelming.

    Mean Girls.

  33. christian says:

    Krillian the Republican Libertarian who blames both sides speaks again for the GOP. And why was Libertarian Clint attacking Invisible Obama for Afghanistan? Romney wants more troops overseas…forever.

    Team Romney was destroyed for total lack of foresight — a repeating pattern in what will go down as one of the worst run campaigns in political history.

  34. Don R. Lewis says:

    Krill-
    it’s not hatred towards the other side as much as it is mean spirited bullshit/willful ignorance tying into a party vibe. People are willing to forgive rape/incest abortion as long as a Republican gets in. That simply cannot be the POV *every* registered Republican shares, can it?

  35. christian says:

    And the fact that Clint ends his speech begging the audience to repeat a line he says before killing somebody in a film is a sure sign of respect and inspiration…to today’s unhinged GOP/Tea Party.

  36. etguild2 says:

    As Nate Silver pointed out recently–the base just won’t cut it for a Romney victory. If white people make up the same percentage of the vote as they did in 2004, and vote for Romney by the same margin as Bush–Romney still loses, and by a pretty big margin. Hence the parade of Hispanic speakers at the convention. So far for the GOP, minority polling for Romney is actually worse than it was for McCain.

    As for Eastwood, it’s sad, but I’m surprised the head of the Republican Party’s drunken rant against against Obama–Barack Obama never even ran a gayrahhge sale! He’s never seen the inside of a lemonade stand! (Belllllch)…..Paul Ryan is my buddy. Paul Ryan is my congressman. (5 minutes later:) Like My good friend Paul Ryan, I’m from Wisconsin! (5 minutes later:) I grew up in Kenosha, Wisconsin!–didn’t get more play:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOhKs2mngDM

  37. christian says:

    And then that great punchline that we’d throw the Black guy out of the bar for saying something he actually didn’t! (Urp)

  38. martin s says:

    Paul/Stella – According to Mann and Ornstein, Obama and Boehner discussed a plan comprised of $800 billion in new revenues and $1.7 trillion in spending cuts. Obama told Democratic congressional leaders that their discussion went well and Democrats needed to accept tough cuts in Medicare and Medicaid. The next day Boehner backed out fearing criticism from his colleagues and a lack of backup from the Young Guns in the leadership.

    0bama upped the tax “revenue” because two of the Gang O’ Six went public with a 2Trillion dollar package. After that, Obama couldn’t sell the 800Bil to Harry and Nancy. O jumped it to 1.4, Boehner froze, then got word from McConnell that it would stall in the Senate. Obama came back down to 800, but by then, word leaked and a rebellion had broken out on both sides.

    Obama and Boehner tried to strike a deal, but they are not strong leaders. Either of them. I said it here during the ’08 election through the ’10 mid-terms; Pelosi and Reid would wreck his presidency because they thought, (and still do), the power of the party runs through them, not him.

    ———————————————————

    I have always said that you need to sell things with affirmative pitches. So far, Romney has none… only attacks on Obama and rhetoric that can’t add up to anyone counting on their fingers. He does have the support of the oppressed white pity culture of America. The Party must be so proud of itself!

    Dave, just be honest, for godsakes; it doesn’t matter wtf the opposition says, you’re the guy whose actually written that you love Obama. Love. And anyone, anyone who challenges that “his is the superior intellect”, you deride them.

    Eastwood is just the latest. The only way you wouldn’t have scorned him, is if he came out and belittled the crowd on behalf of Obama.

    As for the new round of fear-n-loathing tactics.

    Abortion

    http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/29/abortion-will-stay-legal-romneys-sister-predicts/

    http://www.salon.com/2012/08/30/romney_family_secrets/

    http://www.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeedpolitics/another-planned-parenthood-donor-ann-romney

    And this is without even getting into his positions as Governor.

    The only way it changes under Romney, is however they address the tax code.

    This place reeks of excuses. Defend Obama’s record. Ya know, positive affirmations. Doug Henning shit.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFtV69i36Pg

  39. christian says:

    It’s not about defense as it is GOP offense.

    And how odd the War On Terror Clash Of Civilizations party had nothing to say about those er uh wars and stuff — except Rmoney promising a new one or two. By their own anti-terrorist metrics they should love Obama.

  40. Paul D/Stella says:

    martin Pelosi and Reid might have caused problems prior to the 2010 elections; after that, the main problems were Cantor (who undercut Boehner frequently) and McConnell and the GOP freshmen. Obama was prepared to strike a deal that would have been unpopular with many members of his party in Congress. He showed a hell of a lot more leadership than Cantor and Boehner. This isn’t a defense of Pelosi and Reid, but after the 2010 elections they were not the main problems.

  41. etguild2 says:

    excuses martin? Mitt Romney said 8 days into Obama’s presidency that he wants the man’s policies to fail. McConnell and Jim Demint made similar proclamations that their biggest goal was to make Obama fail in the first 100 days. Even GW Bush had many instances of bipartisan cooperation–No Child Left Behind, the Iraq War, immigration reform (the latter of which failed due to his own party)–early in his presidency.

    Every major economist acknowledges that policies of deregulation led to insanely risky bets like sub-prime mortgages and derivatives markets that resulted in financial collapse. Why the hell would you not only go right back to the things that got us in this mess, but take them a step further as a solution? Especially since private sector job growth under Obama has, in reality, been stellar compared to Bush. Bush just added public sector jobs like a socialist madman.

  42. hcat says:

    Now if Clint came out and delivered a rousing St. Crispin’s Dayesque speech, appeared reasonable and coherent, wouldn’t we be even more pissed at him for helping to deliver votes to the Republicans? This will stick less than Cruise’s couch jumping and certainly less than Mel’s flameout. This is a minor footnote to his legacy, I was embarresed for him but this is certainly less of a tarnish than Paint Your Wagon.

    And to be fair, if the Dems had say Sean Penn come up and speak, would he be any less rambling?

  43. etguild2 says:

    Sean Penn isn’t one of the most beloved people in the country though–he’s one of the most hated. The only white Hollywood stars I think the Dems could get away with would be Sandra Bullock or Tom Hanks.

  44. hcat says:

    Eastwood is beloved by people like us and even older males. I only have anecdotal evidence of this but Clint is not as adored by women or the younger generations as he is by men over 35. I personally know no women of any age who get jazzed up about a new Clint movie coming out.

  45. Melquiades says:

    martin, you link to an interview with Romney’s sister in which she says he’s protect abortion rights? What about the fact that the candidate himself has said he would be “delighted” to sign a bill outlawing all abortion?

    The problem with Romney is that you can find examples of him saying pretty much anything on either side of any issue. So what do we believe?

    I believe he will do what his current handlers tell him to do. And his current handlers are the far right wing of the Republican party.

  46. Yancy Skancy says:

    Okay, I just watched about 2/3 of that Priebus speech. I’m guessing that the reason it didn’t get more play as a drunken rant is that he wasn’t actually drunk. He has an overbite and a bit of a lisp, but he didn’t stumble over his words or belch. I checked a couple of other clips, and that just seems to be the way he talks. So, if he was drunk, I guess he’s drunk all the time, and is rather high-functioning.

  47. etguild2 says:

    Yancy you may be right. He has never sounded like that in TV interviews to me–in fact he sounded much different in the ballyhooed Chris Mathews meltdown the same night a few hours earlier–but he may just have a different public speaking style. The rambling text sounding like a drunken monologue in places (particularly the garage sale/lemonade stand line and the increasingly hilarious references to Wisconsin that kept derailing his train of thought) made it seem worse.

    The fact that predecessor Michael Steele mocked him, blaming his speaking style on “meds” also was eyebrow raising, but I imagine he’s kinda bitter.

  48. bulldog68 says:

    “The only white Hollywood stars I think the Dems could get away with would be Sandra Bullock or Tom Hanks.”

    The Dems could certainly roll out George Clooney who has been a vocal and financial supporter. He’s polished, not known to ramble, and can follow a script.

    I got the sense that Clint did this to make up for all the negative right wing push he got for his Chrysler ad, which was deemed as beneficial to Obama. But it only highlights the disconnect that he has to make between touting that the American car industry is back while stating that the guy who made the comeback possible is invisible. Talk about gaps of logic.

    This wanting-both-sides-of-the-argument position that the repubs fins themselves in is exposing their hypocrisy and it is only those who refuse to see it, which is a lot of Americans, will vote for Romney, purely because they don’t want Obama.

    The hypocritical list is endless:
    Romney care good, Obama care bad.
    We want smaller government, except in the bedroom, whom you marry, and if you’re a woman.
    We will uphold the constitution, except if you live in a democratic state where we will curtail your constitutional right to vote.
    We believe in a strong America, except where damaging the country’s credit rating can cause economical repercussions that could be felt for decades due to ideological warfare.
    We serve the people, but as an elected public official it’s okay to sign a pledge by a private citizen thereby making your entire party beholden to him and not the people who elected you.
    We are strong terrorism, but we conveniently forget that 9/11 happened under a republican, launched a war that plunged the US into a great economic depression, and went after the wrong guy while saying the right guy wasn’t a priority, and proclaiming mission accomplished. And then when the right guy was caught, saying ‘any president would have done it.’ Well any President didn’t. Could you imagine the public right wing tongue lashing Obama would have taking if he has said he wasn’t focusing on Bin Laden. He would have been labeled as a weak and ineffective Commander-In-Chief.

    The list is long and well documented. And the Republican model in interviews is don’t answer the question that you are asked, just pivot to bashing Obama. it’s amazing how many questions are about what is Romney’s policy on something and they answer with, ‘well the question you should be asking is what has Obama done about this.’ And the reporter does not get back to the initial question.

    Romney is applying for job, like I’m sure we’ve all had to do at some point in our lives. You’re supposed to say what you’re going to do, and yes it is politics, so you can say how bad the other guy is at the job, but eventually you must get to what you’re going to do. And if in applying for that job you can’t take a firm position on your own policies, talk about how you handled your own finances, or your signature policy as Governor that is now national policy, which you are campaigning to repeal, or really anything about your past, then why should you be hired?

    Sorry for the long post.

  49. martin s says:

    Paul/Stella – you were citing what happened with the Grand Bargain. It wasn’t as one-sided as you painted it. Reid was not happy that he wasn’t involved from the beginning and with Pelosi, made support for the original 800Bil impossible. It’s the same shit they pulled with the stimulus and after it implodes, they leave Obama holding the bag.

    But we’re talking July 2011, the verge of the Repub campaign season. Reid/Pelosi weren’t going to agree to shit that they couldn’t use as a ’12 electoral hammer. All Pelosi has been doing is working to become Speaker again. She didn’t stay in Congress, after the worse beatdown in modern times, because she’s needs the job. She’s directly responsible for running Blue Dogs out of the party, and you think the middle is weak because of one party? Please. If Obama had a backbone, he would have told her it’s time to go after ’10, but she’s got the ear of major progressive donors.

    Etguild – Yeah, I saw Stewart’s bullshit narrative last night, too. I’m praying he pops up on the DNC stage next week so we can finally end this fucking game of pretending he’s some unbiased arbitrator.

    Cantor drafter an economic recovery plan made of five points – tax rate cuts for lower income families, small businesses, spending cuts to pay for stimulus, ending taxation of unemployment benefits, and a homebuyers credit. At the same time, McConnell offered three different options built around state loans.

    While this is happening, Pelosi and Obey dragged out their plan provided by whoreallyfuckingknows, where she openly cut out Republican involvement. Obama then addressed the Republicans minority, telling them that’s his plan. So the Repub’s didn’t vote for it because they had nothing to do with it, and Pelosi didn’t give a shit at the time, because she wanted to reap the rewards.

    As for Romney, how does a guy who writes an op-ed in USA Today offering help on ObamaCare in ’09, while having two of his top adivsors go directly work on the plan, equal the new message of obstructionist?

    W had bipartisanship because he bent over backwards to work with Dems on those bills because the 2000 election was such a nightmare. He was excoriated by the right for coddling with Kennedy. Here’s Obama, three days in, to Cantor, over the stimulus “elections have consequences, and I won”.

    Every major economist acknowledges that policies of deregulation led to insanely risky bets like sub-prime mortgages and derivatives markets that resulted in financial collapse.

    It’s not an absolute. Some of it does lead to those things, just as “private-public” partnerships can lead to government manipulation of markets to try and produce desired outcomes.

    Why the hell would you not only go right back to the things that got us in this mess, but take them a step further as a solution?

    Because the mess we’re now in is not the same mess from ’08. This is a monetary mess. Stagflation on the verge of massive inflation.

    Especially since private sector job growth under Obama has, in reality, been stellar compared to Bush. Bush just added public sector jobs like a socialist madman.

    Yeah, I’ve seen this. Center for American Progress.

    Public sector rose under W, why? DHS. Military. Does he get a pass from some on the right? Sure, but not all. Ron and Rand Paul, Eastwood’s Afghan comments. The complaints of the Tea Party originate from 2000, skip a few years due to 9/11, and then come back in ’05, which is why sooo many righties sat out in ’06.

    The public sector cannot increase, no matter what Ezra Klein may believe, because the recession and inflation have killed income and property value. Median Household Income is now down 4K from 2009. That means the value of 54K in 2009 has the value of 50k today, while your paycheck still says 54K.

    So a mass public sector hiring, paid for by digitization, is only going to make a bigger hole for the employed. That forces more household cutbacks, and more dominoes to drop.

    I know some of you really do have good intentions as to where your concerns are.

  50. christian says:

    Martin S in 2008: Y’all are scared of the brilliant Sarah Palin!

    Bulldog: Perfectly encapsulated. Nuff said.

    The GOP made it their plan to block Obama solely to hurt the nation to hurt him. You can’t work with folks asking for your Birth Certificate because they don’t want to be worked with. The End.

    And what I find most disturbing is not the policy debates, but the sheer willful lying about policy positions or even actual facts. Romney/Ryan and the GOP are running on a platform of Pathological Lying – they’ve become Monty Python’s Black Knight of American Politics. The inevitable result of living in a FOX/AM radio bubble chamber.

  51. martin s says:

    bulldog – not even close.

    Melquiades – What about the fact that the candidate himself has said he would be “delighted” to sign a bill outlawing all abortion?

    The problem with Romney is that you can find examples of him saying pretty much anything on either side of any issue. So what do we believe?

    I believe he will do what his current handlers tell him to do. And his current handlers are the far right wing of the Republican party.

    If he was dictated to by his handlers, he would have picked Pawlenty or Portman as Veep. He’s never been under the control of the right-wing; they opposed his nomination every step, even onto the RNC floor.

    An example is when in his speech, he said repeal – and replace – ObamaCare. That freaked a number of hard righties. So if he was kowtowing to them, why would he risk it? Because he knows something must be done, but OCare is not it. It cannot work on a national scale because it requires a high median income and lower population size, which is predominantly found in New England.

    I get the concern over finding Romney taking sides. That’s been the beef over him on the right. At that point I go back to his record and family.

  52. Jkill says:

    How is Ryan not the right-wing of the Republican party?

  53. etguild2 says:

    martin, first of all none of what I was saying came from Jon Stewart, aside from the Romney reference.

    *Your points on personal income and property value are undercut by recent upticks in those sectors. We’re finally seeing growth in those areas, as July had another good income figure and we’re still on pace for 4.2% annualized growth. The housing market is showing major signs of a significant recovery. And most importantly, personal income expenditures just hit its highest annualized rate (5%) in several years.

    *By Cantor’s economic proposal, I’m assuming you mean the laughable piece of propaganda known as the “Republican Road to Recovery,” the first budget proposal ever devoid of actual numbers? This thing?

    http://www.gop.gov/indepth/pledge

    Of course, Cantor never released any concrete economic proposal, as responsibility for that was handed off to Paul Ryan, who scrapped the entire thing

    *The GOP House caucus said from the start they uniformly wouldn’t vote for a stimulus–it was the smallest and most conservative GOP minority in years and WEEKS of negotiations were made to get Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins and Arlen Specter to support it in the Senate. I haven’t seen a more concerted effort to curry favor with the opposition party on a specific piece of legislation in the last ten years…actually since No Child Left Behind.

    *Do you really think that any domestic monetary issues will be resolved by Fed action or a change in the tax code until the Eurozone crisis finally ends?

    *Government spending, under Bush, though mostly in the areas of DHS and defense, actually rose across the board. Remember TARP, which Obama is partly blamed for? There was also mind-boggling waste and inefficiency across nearly every sector, as the Washington Times points out:

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/19/big-government-gets-bigger/?page=all

    *Obama blew out McCain by 8 points. Bush took his 3 point win over to Kerry as a “mandate” to pass his entire agenda. Can you imagine the level of cooperation with Dems if he’d annihilated Kerry like Obama did to McCain?

    I do agree martin, on the Ryan pick. That was Romney and Romney alone. The only role his aides had was stopping him from picking Condi Rice.

  54. Christian says:

    “Alright we’ll call it a draw.”

  55. movieman says:

    Anyone else see Bil Maher eviscerate the director of “2016” last nite?

  56. Melquiades says:

    “If he was dictated to by his handlers, he would have picked Pawlenty or Portman as Veep. He’s never been under the control of the right-wing”

    Are you kidding? The Ryan pick was made PRECISELY to satisfy the right wing. They were screaming for that pick for weeks leading up to the decision.

    When I say “his handlers” I don’t mean his staff, who were actually surprised by the pick. I mean his financial backers.

  57. Mdoc says:

    I take issue with people stating that Romney wants to make women second class citizens.

    I’m not hear to debate abortion, but one has to acknowledge that for most people the decision to be pro life is based on a person’s moral or religous viewpoint and not because they want to “wage war on women”. Why be so intellectually lazy as to pick the most surface excuse to support your man.

    Btw, Obama has been in office 4 years now, and gay marriage is still illegal. What is Obama waiting for? Maybe he doesn’t care.

  58. Christian says:

    Right – Republicans accused Obama of a war on religion for the past 4 years.

    Who cares if it’s your religion? That doesn’t give you special rights to force raped women to carry her child. That’s fucking evil.

  59. Mdoc says:

    Some would say evil is killing the child. The rape issue is a moral conundrum. If you believe abortion is morally wrong than how do you excuse it in any instance?
    It is never ending and it overwhelms modern politics. It is unfortunate that real discussion about policy can not take place because everything comes down to abortion.
    My point is every person that supports the pro life movement doesn’t do it because they hate women. Every person that is politically conservative doesn’t think that way because they hate blacks and gays. The same goes the other way.

  60. christian says:

    “Some would say evil is killing the child.”

    Perhaps starting your argument with the word “killing” is your first detour. And again, you’re a DUDE yes? The women I know who had abortions were emotionally wrecked not eager killers. And again, the GOP are the party that call the women they knock up, “Babykillers.” Oh yeah, and if you use Birth Control, the Republican heart and soul will call you a “slut and prostitute.”

    And the rank hypocrisy of the GOP to spend their days and nights on FOX attacking “Hollywood Values” then they drag out a movie killer who tells Romney to go fuck himself in front of Romney’s family. No, Obama and the Dems would not be stupid enough to trot that out. Or as Laura Ingraham warned in her non-best-seller:

    “Shut Up and Sing: How Elites from Hollywood, Politics, and the UN Are Subverting America”

  61. hcat says:

    Mdoc, not sure if I would say they hate women as much as completely disregard them. The fetus is the only thing of value in their debate, not the physical (life of the mother) or emotional (rape) condition of the women. And once it is born, see you later, the states with the most abortion obstacles have the worst family assistance available.

    If they were serious about limiting abortion they would not be fighting birth control so stridently trying to say that life actually begins when you are a glint in a parent’s eye. As for them coming at it from a religious background..who cares. You should not legislate your religion. If your religion is against abortion and gay marriage, fine, don’t have one, but others cannot have their rights denied for your voodoo.

  62. christian says:

    And imagine if Republicans were reading MIddle Eastern stories about Muslim men forcing raped women to have the babies….

  63. Don R. Lewis says:

    movieman-
    I saw that, it was epic. Brought me back to being a Maher fan too. Althoug, it was a bit of an ambush. Or, D’Souza was willing to get slammed for the publicity the appearance would garner.

    For those who missed it- Maher shredded D’Souza and also revealed/reminded people that when Maher got in deep doo-doo at ABC for his 9-11 comments, he was actually re-stating what D’SOUZA had just said. Yet D’Souza skated out of it and Maher took the hit. So clearly, Maher has been lying in wait for D’Souza BUT, I don’t mind because D’Souza seems like a bottom feeding, smug, lying prick.

  64. christian says:

    D’Souza is a walking weasel, the self-loather who Newt claimed offered the greatest piece of political insight that to understand Obama you had to have a “anti-colonialist, Kenyan worldview.” Bigot buffoons all.

  65. leahnz says:

    “killing the child.”

    lol people who call an embryo/fetus a ‘child’. get some knowledge in ya.

    “As for them coming at it from a religious background..who cares. You should not legislate your religion. If your religion is against abortion and gay marriage, fine, don’t have one, but others cannot have their rights denied for your voodoo.”

    this.

  66. Mdoc says:

    Ethics and Religion are two different things Leahnz.

  67. Joe Leydon says:

    Barack Obama once again defines the term “class act” while maintaining his cool.
    http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/obama-i-am-huge-clint-eastwood-fan

The Hot Blog

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon