Yes, the twitter is down (deep breaths my fellow twitter addicts). But no matter. The Balloon Juice community is quicker than twitter. For the readers who don’t have time to read the threads, more marvelous fail from Mitt’s Misery Tour.
Via Litlebritdifrnt, the Mittmaster’s fundraiser is discounting tickets:
The Mitt Romney Summer 2012 World Tour to Three Countries is apparently having trouble moving tickets.
The London blogger Guido Fawkes reports that organizers of a Romney fundraising reception in the city this evening have slashed the original $2,500 ticket price to $1,000 for “a few last minute guests,” in an effort to drum up participation.
Fawkes quotes an email from organizers:
From: XXXX
Subject: romney dinner…..reduced price for last minute guests has been negotiatedGood news: The Romney dinner in London on Thursday, July 26th is reaching an all time record for a one event fundraiser. In order to get us over the top, we have been allowed to invite a few last minute guests at 10,000 [sic] per ticket vs 25,000 [sic] per ticket.”
Can’t improve on the Guardian liveblog’s response to that:
We’d like to know the nature of that all-time record for a one-event fundraiser. What’s the data pool? Thursday night events featuring at least one internationally competitive heptathlete?
Surely athletes get in free.
And via Iowa Old Lady, from the Mittmaster’s pre-tour interview:
As if questioning the enthusiasm of the British public wasn’t enough, Romney appeared to go on to denounce the whole of Europe, telling NBC: “We’re at a point here where we have two different roads we can go down. One leads to Europe. The other leads to the kind of dynamism and prosperity which has always characterised America.”
Being that I generally spend most of my time reading about politics, when I woke up this morning, I did not expect today to be so much fun. Haven’t laughed this much in weeks.
Birthmarker
I smell international incident. At this point he’d be better off just going to see the darn horse.
beltane
If Mitt wants to say stupid and offensive Palinesque things he really ought to put on a short skirt and high-heel shoes and start winking at people. What a disgrace to his country this person is.
FormerSwingVoter
How can Mitt possibly screw this up? Jeez, he only needs to say almost-nice things about Europe for the few days he’s over there. And he can’t even manage that.
I’m betting international policy under R-Money would be both awesome and productive.
Valdivia
I wonder if even hanging out with his BFF Bibi in Israel will insulate him from more of this.
Birthmarker
Well, Jed over at GOS just made a post almost identical to my above comment. I swear I hadn’t seen it! (too busy looking at puppy cam.)
quannlace
I have to laugh, thinking back to 2008. When Obama made his ‘good-will tour’ of Europe, there was all that sneering from the right that he was acting like a rock star. Cause, you know, people actually liked him!
scav
They may not mind the Europe thing so much in the UK, but letting that fly before he even lands in Poland? Just softening up the territory — that whole pre-emptive thing that works so well. Pissing off the Telegraph might have also been a bad idea, especially as they seemed to be leaking a bit about unnamed sources to TPM. (Not a combo I would have expected to see in the same election-year context.)
jp7505a
I have a job-creation suggestion, at least as it affect TV comedy writters. A Mitt/Sarah ticket for 2012. SNL and the Onion would have to hire hundreds of new writters to keep up with the news. For the late-night comedians, it would be like shooting very large fish in a very small barrel
Culture of Truth
@quannlace: Well I’m sure Romney could get 250,000 to hear from him, if he paid them or something.
Brachiator
Does Mittens even know where he is?
This is some serious clown car shit, especially from a dope who’s been selling the wingnut rubes on the idea that world leaders neither like nor trust Obama, presumably because he lacks Mitt’s Real American ™ Anglo Saxon understanding of the universe.
And for the love of all that is holy, can’t some journalist ask Mitten’s opinion of European health care systems?
Rathskeller
Good times.
Still… I kind of wish it was Rick Santorum who was stepping on his dick all the time as the GOP nominee. We ultimately need repudiation of the right-wing GOP outlook, not repudiation of a ham-fisted, tongue-tied candidate who doesn’t know how not to insult people. They’re just going to say he’s not one of us, not a co-religionist, not a true conservative.
redshirt
I’m laying odds Mitt makes a horribly placed “Bad British Teeth” joke.
Any takers?
Culture of Truth
London is the first leg of a three-country trip intended to show voters at home that the former Massachusetts Governor, who has little diplomatic experience, could be a credible commander-in-chief.
He plans to see the opening ceremonies of the London games and attend a men’s swimming competition. Tonight, he’s holding a fundraiser at the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park hotel with American bankers, some of whose firms are under investigation in connection with the Libor rate-fixing scandal.
hueyplong
No one could possibly have forseen that calling your opponent’s policies un-American might fail to excite a crowd of non-Americans.
I’m starting to begin to think it might be fun to watch some of this.
chopper
all the snark coming out of the british crashed teh twittar.
lamh35
Im sitting on a plane on my way to Cincy & laughing my ass off R-money! Anglo-Saxons-0, Sochulust Kenyan usurper-1
Culture of Truth
Seriously, GOP! McCain, Palin, Santorum, Romney… it’s a fail parade. Hilary Clinton could rule the planet tomorrow and she was our 2nd choice.
beltane
@Valdivia: Bibi is now saying that Mitt is NOT his BFF and never has been http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/26/1113809/-Netanyahu-Romney-Lying-About-Their-Friendship
Romney is quickly becoming something of an international pariah.
ericblair
@FormerSwingVoter:
The only thing I can think of, besides brain injury, is that he has an irrepressible urge to be the top dog in any interaction no matter how stupidly banal, and it comes out by belittling and insulting everybody he’s with. Since he’s been a 0.1%er all his life and top of the social heap, he’s been able to get away with it (probably with a lot more foreign contaminants in his soup than he was aware of). Now, not so much. If you need yet another reason that he shouldn’t be president, there ya go.
redshirt
@Culture of Truth: A deep bench to be sure.
This gives me some hope we are in the twilight of these nutjobs. But I’ve stopped hoping for the wingnuts to get a brain, so no promises.
ChrisNYC
The Guardian’s new and fantastic headline on this: “Romney’s Olympic gaffe stuns UK”
karen marie
Yes, we can.
Culture of Truth
So it turns Romney isn’t even comfortable among white people.
beltane
Even Comcast’s usually celebrity obsessed headlines have Mitt’s gaffes as the top story. This means his awfulness is seeping down to the lowest of low-information voters.
quannlace
trollhattan
@quannlace:
Wasn’t there some RW meme that his reception in Germany was due to free Bier und Wurst? I’m certain the Germans would welcome Willard mitt open arms if he offered complementary caffeine-free Coke and an Osmonds reunion concert.
“Chancellor Merkel, tear down this Euro!”
Culture of Truth
@quannlace: To fair, while in the US Romney bashed Americans for not being like Europe, then in Europe bashed the people there for not being like America. He’s a genius, really.
karen marie
@Rathskeller: They would say that anyway.
shoutingattherain
What about the road that leads to China? Has Mitt also pissed off our biggest trading partner?
Elizabelle
Libby: I love your tagline:
Brilliant.
Am thinking Romney has screwed the pooch so badly that this might actually end up on the nightly news.
cmorenc
@Libby Spencer:
I’m not going to be all that surprised if, when he goes to Poland, he starts telling some Polak jokes.
trollhattan
@beltane:
Feature, not bug to typical wingnut brain.
Brachiator
@Valdivia:
Depends on whether or not Romney expounds to the Israeli’s about the wonderfulness of Anglo Saxon values.
BTW, I wonder the extent to which Mitten’s tour will become anonymous, invisible, picture on a milk carton stuff as the world’s attention shifts to the Olympic Games.
When’s the Olympic equestrian events?
Rommie
The British press, hip-deep in Murdochgatewhatever for quite the while, knows an asshat when they see one. And it’s not as if they were demure in the first place.
If someone over there in Marxist Europe starts putting the RomneyBot to a logic test, it’s gonna start emitting smoke.
wrb
@Brachiator:
I think so.
Rs go to Europe to demonstrate to their folks back home that they are agin’ it.
They aren’t taken in by the perfidious Euros & their wicked ways.
The criticism is required.
Valdivia
@beltane:
thanks for the link. ha!
wrb
@cmorenc:
How many Polacks does it take to screw the pooch?
3- one to screw and 2 to hold on to his ankles so he doesn’t slide off the car’s roof at corners.
trollhattan
The perfectly lubricated weathervane has pivoted. BBC:
Peter
The man can’t even attend the Olympics without making an international ass of himself. And he’s not even President! I can’t fucking wait until the foreign policy debate.
trollhattan
Also, too, how are the tree heights in Great Britain thus far?
scav
@trollhattan: Not that it was an apology, which is all that matters.
At least the MittBotts’s programming is up to the task of entering the correct door 2.
Elliecat
@redshirt:
Not sure he even has to.
from commentary in the Torygraph.
jimmiraybob
I know that it’s only a rumor at this point, but do you think there’s anything to the story that Romney (R-Anglo Saxons) has obtained and will be bringing back the head of Oliver Cromwell to occupy a very special cabinet position in his administration?
Chris
@wrb:
Kind of like the NAACP moment, innit?
But I didn’t get that vibe this time. Like I said in a previous thread – the three stops on his trip are Britain, Poland and Israel, the three “safest” countries in the region in terms of being reliable American
stoogesallies. If he was out there collecting boos to parade in front of his base, he’d be in France or Turkey instead.No, I think it was honestly supposed to be a visit showing him getting along with foreigners, which just happened to go south because, well, he’s Mitt Romney.
wrb
@Chris:
You could be right
D0n Camillo
@trollhattan: I bet the poor Germans don’t even have a word for Schadenfreude.
Darkrose
@scav:
Not necessarily:
“Backside” is of course synonymous with “arse”.
Greed Is God
The Rombot v.2012 logic chip needs reprogramming regarding the meaning of “charm offensive”.
Roy G.
The gaffes just keep coming. I quite enjoyed David Cameron’s testy rejoinder to Mittens:
“Of course it’s easier if you hold an Olympic Games in the middle of nowhere.”
More hard-hitting is Josh Marshall’s post on the logical source of the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ comment, one of Romney’s advisors, who happens to be quite the Anglophile, to the point of not even being an American.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/07/so_as_you_know_yesterday.php?ref=fpblg
trollhattan
@Elliecat:
JesusMoroni, he’s even pissing off the Torys?Have to admit, that’s some excellent mockery there–nice work, Willard.Rafer Janders
@quannlace:
Yes, but it only applies to Democrats. You don’t criticize a Republican president. When the president is a Democrat, it’s bombs away.
Culture of Truth
But fraught with complex history and sensitive to slights. This should go great.
Rafer Janders
@Greed Is God:
He’s got the offensive part down pat, though. You gotta give him that.
Brachiator
@wrb:
RE: Does Mittens even know where he is?
Ah, but Republicans don’t really think that England is in or a part of Europe (just as they don’t believe that Israel is really in the Middle East).
And so, for Romney to stumble so stupidly in the UK has got to rattle even the wingiest wingnut.
And in the UK, even the right wing Daily Mail is having fun detailing the negative press reaction to Mitt’s “charm offensive”
So far, Mitt’s European tour is the gift that just keeps on giving.
Maybe this is his version of rope-a-dope, and he is going to come out swinging with confidence after the GOP convention. But for now, I am not only enjoying his gaffes, but also enjoying how wingnut pundits have to try to spin this shit into something positive.
wrb
@jimmiraybob:
Cromwell was Welsh.
Mitt would prefer a Cavalier, anyway.
Also Charles II stuck his head up on a stake at Winchester where it was left out in the weather for 24 years so it is probably the worse for wear.
The Cavaliers dug up Cromwell’s body in order to execute him.
That seems kind of backward to my practical American mind but there is no accounting for the English.
They are a peculiar people.
tam
Geez, this trip sounds like a disaster already. I wonder how much play it’s going to get it in the mainstream cable shows and the print media? Remember the manufactured brouhaha over the Michelle touching the Queen’s back?
Libby Spencer
@Elizabelle: I didn’t make that tagline up. Found in the queue. Wouldn’t dare add any. Cole would lock me out for sure then…
Chris
@Culture of Truth:
Most countries are, in some way, they all come with their own quirks and things. It’s not that hard to avoid a misstep, though. Really, “hi, I just came here to tell you my Olympics are better than yours” would elicit a “fuck you asshole” in any country populated by homo sapiens.
Libby Spencer
@cmorenc: The possibilities are endless.
scav
@Darkrose: tshzzzzssbht! Ok, next stop is clearly complementing the old tiaraed bird on her cute little fix-her-upper in the prime location downtown.
wrb
@scav:
He has a friend back in Utah who can get her a deal on some vinyl siding that would make the crusty old pile look good as new.
karen marie
@Elizabelle: No, sadly, what’s going to make the news is the mayor of SLC’s rejoinder to Cameron’s comment about SLC being the middle of nowhere.
pseudonymous in nc
@karen marie:
Uh, SLC was deliberately founded in the middle of nowhere. The nearest city with 100,000+ people is over 200 miles away.
Darkrose
@karen marie: Thing is, for non-Mormons and people outside of Utah, that’s the perception of SLC. It’s “where all the Mormons live”, that weirdo place where you can’t get a cup of coffee or have a beer. The mayor’s response may only serve to remind the base that Mitt’s not really One Of Them.
trollhattan
@karen marie:
Right. Technically not in the “middle of nowhere” because it’s next to Sandy.
Anybody who’s spent time in Utah outside the airport have a deeply held sense of having been “nowhere.”
jl
On second thought, “Romney: Bush II number TWO!” has a better ring to it.
Darkrose
@trollhattan: Especially if you’re driving across the country on 80. We took the ring road around SLC, and everything else was salt flats as far as the eye could see.
Omnes Omnibus
@wrb: Cromwell may have been many things but Welsh was not one of them.
double nickel
@cmorenc: Or some Auschwitz knee slappers.
Valdivia
getting worse:
per The Guardian
tweet #1
Boris whipping up Hyde Park crowd: “There’s a guy called Mitt Romney who wants to know if London is ready. Are we ready?”
Tweet #2
Can this get any worse for Romney? Boris is now mocking him in front of 60,000 people in Hyde Park
karen marie
@trollhattan: @Darkrose: I don’t know, the mouthbreathers are so rah! rah! Amercia! I think they’d be able to ignore that and use the opportunity to claim victim status. The media seems so desperate to keep Mittens in the race, I wouldn’t bet against them suppressing his ill-judged remarks and going with the Amercia, fuck yeah! meme.
wrb
@Omnes Omnibus:
He was part Welsh. He was descended from Morgan ap William, son of William ap Yevan of Wales.
I’m descended from Cromwell. The family tree is full of these “ap” people.
Calouste
@Rafer Janders:
Or in other words, you don’t criticize the President (R) while abroad, but there is nothing wrong with criticizing an usurper (D).
Brachiator
@Omnes Omnibus:
Cromwell had Welsh ancestry on one side of his family, a great grandfather, if I recall correctly.
Greed Is God
@jl:
“Romney – Dubya 2: Electric Boogaloo”
Highway Rob
If this keeps up, will President Obama have to go around the world apologizing for Mitt Romney?
Omnes Omnibus
@Brachiator: One Welsh great grandfather would not qualify one to play rubgyfor Wales. Ergo Cromwell was not Welsh.
Sad Dem
jp7505a Says: I have a job-creation suggestion, at least as it affect TV comedy writters. A Mitt/Sarah ticket for 2012. SNL and the Onion would have to hire hundreds of new writters to keep up with the news. For the late-night comedians, it would be like shooting very large fish in a very small barrel
Pleeeease, Obama, pleeease put this stuff in an ad. He handed it to you!
WaterGirl
@Highway Rob: Looks like Romney was right, retroactively, at least. Obama may have to go around the world, apologizing for
AmericaMitt Romney.jimmiraybob
@wrb:
These are mere biographical details for the PR people to fix. The important thing is….well, just lie back and think of England.
wrb
@jimmiraybob:
I suppose with the makeup they’ve got these days the head could be made serviceable.
Catsy
Not linking to the lunatic asylum, but so far not even Redstate can manufacture some way to defend Romney on this. There is absolute dead silence across the site when it comes to Romney’s parade of gaffes over the last 24 hours. It’s more telling than any denials or defenses: they’re really hoping to bury this until the weekend distracts everyone.
Meanwhile, they’re just as desperately trying to prop up the discredited “you didn’t make that” story. Quoting from one of the denizens: “It was a poorly constructed sentence, and he probably did mean roads and bridges when he said “that”. But since when are political campaigns obligated to give their opponent the benefit of the doubt? Romney and the RNC should keep pounding him.”
Translation: So what if it’s not true! It’s politics and we’re allowed to lie!
Too funny.
...now I try to be amused
@Roy G.:
I love it. Nobody does snark like the Brits.
Brachiator
@Omnes Omnibus:
I think that poster wrb, who has a Cromwell connection, would seriously dispute this.
pk
I think republicans are branching out. They’ve offended everyone nationally, African-Americans, Latinos, women, Asians, American muslims and somewhat saner Americans. Now it’s time to go international. The middle East (except Israel) has been covered, the Brits are done, Europe- check. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Mitt somehow manages to offend the Israelis. Can’t wait for “Mitt’s Asian Adventure”.
wrb
@Brachiator:
No, not for sure. I remember seeing that branch the family tree, being impressed by all the Welsh names and thinking, “damn, grand pa pa Cromwell was Welsh- there are more aps than at the ap store.” But maybe they all branched out from below that one great-grandfather. I think not, I think there were some in other lines too, but I can’t be sure. The memory is from some years ago- now it is a memory of a memory.
tomvox1
This guy Chappers from the Daily Mail is giving ol’ Mittens about a thousand whacks with the old Twitter stick:
https://twitter.com/jameschappers
What a day. Me so happy. Me want to cry.
Amir Khalid
The British are all mocking Mitt, even the ones on the right. This suggests that his European trip is not shaping up to be a resounding success.
Yet remember, Mitt was the least bad of the candidates who got in the Klown Kar back in 2011. What if the fates had favored someone else, and Michele Bachmann or Herman Cain were the presumptive nominee making this trip? Just to amuse myself, I’m going to try to imagine it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Brachiator: I am just saying what the Welsh selectors would say. The man would not qualify to play for Wales. In rugby. The fact that the family chose to change its name to that of the great grandmother, Thomas Cromwell’s sister, indicates a choice of English over Welsh as well. I have a great grandfather who came from Quebec; it doesn’t make me French-Canadian.
jimmiraybob
I know that it’s only a rumor at this stage but do you think there’s anything to the story the the Secret Service codename for Mitt (R-Anglo Saxons) is Clark Griswald?
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ)
I’ve said this before but it bears repeating: if Mitt were a Democrat I can’t help but feel the media would be doing much more pointing and laughing at his joke of a campaign.
wrb
“Romney in London. Come on. We needed this. It’s a little comic relief. Kind of like Mr. Bean, only he’s an American.”
-John Podhoretz
nominus
Best so far:
Americans: This Mitt person is some kind of American Borat, right?
First the Blitz, now the Mittz? I thought the Americans were our allies
#romneyshambles is blowing up faster than I can read it…., haven’t even got to #mitthitsthefan
Brachiator
@Omnes Omnibus:
OK. Changing a name doesn’t change ancestry, and the rules of rugby are not quite the same thing as genealogy.
So, we have a nationality and an ethnicity issue. Cromwell was obviously English with respect to nationality. But there is also this:
So in this Cromwell is Welsh in the same way that Muhammed Ali is Irish. Family tree, not nationality.
Omnes Omnibus
@Brachiator: I think you underestimate the importance of rugby to the Welsh. Who is and who is not Welsh by their their rules matters, damn it. Further, by your logic, let’s just say that Cromwell was African and be done with it.
Brachiator
@Omnes Omnibus:
Reminds me of how some countries define “countryman” to allow someone with the teeniest connection to be a member of an Olympics squad. It’s kinda arbitrary, much like the anonymous Romney advisor’s wistful dreams of Anglo Saxon special relationships.
Not my logic or rules. Some people like to do the genealogy dance. And while citizens in the US are all Americans, it certainly is nothing special or unusual for folks to poke around in the yard of their family tree.
And even in the UK, the British royal family trots out their ancient connection to Owain ap Tewdwr now and again.
Concerned Citizen
@jp7505a: The fish are just the right height here. That’s what I like about balloon-juice.
wrb
The same heritage would make a person Jewish, if it came through the mother’s line.
In these northern cultures the father’s line mattered.
So, yes he was Welsh