Romney just blamed the military decline on the… CLENIS.
No wonder the pundits loved this douchebag. He also is crying out for energy independence. It really has sucked having a Democratic President these last 8 years.
Oh. Wait.
*** Update ***
Romney is quitting so we don’t lose the war on terror to a Clinton or Obama Presidency. The 2008 version of “Vote Republican or the terrorists Win.”
These people are scum, and they are already trying to shape the 2008 election. Expect bobbleheads like Chris Matthews to say this was the best speech of his campaign (ala the Gore concession in 2000).
TheFountainHead
Put a sock in it, Mitt.
rawshark
You sound like the people you shouted down in 04. I love it. I’m glad you actually see the world now rather than assume you know what it looks like. Information trumps ideology anyday IMO.
wingnuts to iraq
shameless.
The peace dividened was Cheney’s idea.
And our military is STILL to big. I mean, what, 10x the $$ the rest of the world spends combined.
wingnuts to iraq
man, sorry for the grammar and typos in that comment of mine.
Jim
I knew Romney was a complete tool, but now it is apparent he is the entire line of Craftsman tools. Dickhead would be a step up for that POS.
4tehlulz
Seppuku is the only way that Mittens could get any honor.
Dennis - SGMM
Yah, get them terrorists! Raise military spending. Don’t be distracted by the fact that, for years, we’ve spent more on our military than the rest of the world combined and we can’t exert control over two third-tier countries.
There’s a reason the Republicans never mention Dwight Eisenhower.
rawshark
90% of that ’10x everyone else’ goes to the defense industry’s bottomline rather than to the battlefield. If we actually put that money on the battlefield we’d have won Iraq and Afghanistan by now.
Cassidy
Size is subjective. We’re too small to handle two conflicts.
Secondly, any significant downsizing of the military will have a very detrimental effect on many local populace(s)…populi?…whatever. The military is the largest jobs program in the country and it would not be pretty if we just up and left.
Dennis - SGMM
There’s also the fact that Pentagon requests are viewed through the prism of how many jobs that they’ll bring to a congresscritter’s district. If pink parasols with poisoned ferrules would bring in a buttload of jobs to enough Congressional districts then we’d be seeing footage of the 103rd Parasol Brigade stabbing madly at the jihadis.
CFisher
Perhaps instead of spending billions of dollars on new fun toys, we took one of these boondoggle projects and used the money to get more soldiers and good solid field equipment for them, our military wouldn’t be that broken.
Or perhaps, if we didn’t jump into every shit hole in the world and play Globocop, we might have the troops and equipment available, to… I don’t know… defend the homeland in the event of attack?
I know. Those are terrorist traitor thoughts from someone filled with irrational BDS.
FLILF Hunter
Aw, come on. That’s a slap in the face to Craftsman.
Ripley
It’s reminiscent of DeLay’s “I’m resigning because the Dems will say mean things about me in the next election. Wah!”
I was hoping Romney would stay in the race a little longer – 1) so he’s spend more of his own money and boost the Economy, and 2) because it fucks up the Republican race. However, the notion that the Repubs are left with only McCain and Huckabee, well… that’s just delicious.
Ned Raggett
I’m all for Huckabee dropping out for the sight of one last debate between McCain and Ron Paul.
Ripley
And re: the Military budget – I think they should put a clause in the bill that states, “You can have your money when bin Laden is behind bars. Keep in touch!”
Zifnab
Translation: We’re so bloated, we thought we could handle a two-front land war in Asia.
You know why Hitler lost WW2? Not enough military spending.
TR
I heard Mitt is going to come back later on today and say the exact opposite of everything he said this morning.
Haltelcere
Hmmm, depends on how you look at Craftsman tools. While not the best products on the market (I.e. the Republican field), you can easily exchange a defective or broken Craftsman tool for something new and improved (unlike the Republican field).
Gus
Begin the Hugh Hewitt suicide watch.
Zifnab
Also, am I the only one who thinks this statement:
reeks of socialism? Screw the free market economy! Fuck individual entrepreneurship! Government jobs for everyone!
We can model our economy off of North Korea, 70-80% employment by the military. It’s fucking genius. Cassidy for President.
myiq2xu
I believe he is more like the Stanley FUBAR(c) line.
Does this make him the official frontrunner for 2012?
wilson
FYI – Checkout Politico’s thread about the CPAC “Don’t Boo McCain” topic. I am at a total loss as to why he is so reviled by these “conservatives”.
Reading the comments is like a trip to an alien universe – one which has actually been running(ruining)this country for years now. It is so past time to bury this crap and marginalize these lunatics.
Now if we could only get the Dems to help us out. Reid and Pelosi are not the leaders we need. It’s going to take a brutal pushback.
John S.
You make it sound like welfare.
Ron Paul
I relish a one on one with mccain!!!
The Grand Panjandrum
By the end of 2008, the United States will spend three-quarters of a trillion dollars on defense. Adjusted for inflation, the Pentagon’s latest budget will be the highest since the end of World War II. Yet, over the past seven years, troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have faced equipment shortages and lack of proper armor.
Had enough?
We’ve got a couple of Democrats to get rid of as well. Jack Murtha comes to mind. The guy may be a hero to the Pentagon but he has enabled this irresponsible behavior for his own political gain.
Punchy
I just say Hugh Hewitt at Target buying a bedsheet. Must have purchased a new bed. Or something.
The Other Andrew
I personally think we need a bigger military–Bush hasn’t exactly made the world a safer place–but the majority of the money should be going to the actual troops (in the form of pay, healthcare, and stuff they’ll use on the field), instead of sci-fi daydream stuff.
Regardless of the size issue, it’ll fall to the Dems to fix the military after Iraq and Afghanistan. The Republicans will refuse to admit there’s a problem.
jcricket
Are we really surprised that it’s “Vote Republican or the Terrorists Win”? They’ve been peddling the “we’re at war” meme since 2002 (at least) and McCain still peddles the “we would have won Vietnam if not for the pesky Defeatocrats”.
Democrats need to figure out a way to respond/counteract this crap. Something like, “Republican war-mongering gets Americans into unnecessary danger. Vote Democrats to restore sanity to America”. Whatever. Something better than “We’re not anti-war”.
jcricket
As I pointed out, they will spend the next 30 years blaming the Democrats for “losing” the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The “stab in the back” myth existed in Vietnam, but never really caught on with the public at large (it’s not how the average person sees the war). I wonder how well it will work this time around.
GSD
McCain will pick up this mantle laid at his feet by Shifty Mitt and run with it.
McCain has already said the Democrats are intent on ‘waving the white flag of surrender’, yet all of these McCain-fluffers talk about how he’s a man of honor and a man who will elevate the political discourse.
Frigging funny.
-GSD
Identity-Conservative
My head is going to GOT FUCKING EXPLODE!!!
WTF? Liberals want to …… cut taxes?
In the same sentence he accuses liberals of wanting “substitute government largesse for individual responsibility”, which costs lots of money, AND wanting to “remove more and more people from having to pay any income tax whatsoever” so they will have less money to pay for all that largesse. WOW!
The party of all-tax-cuts-all-the-time – the party of “tax cuts pay for themselves” – is now critizing Liberals for wanting to cut people’s taxes!
Not only have I NEVER EVER EVER heard a liberal advance “getting people off the tax roles” as any kind of priority – I have heard MANY MANY MANY conservatives (and right-libertarians) EXPLICITLY call for the elimination of both income and capital gains taxes. And yet somehow Romney can credit the liberals with a Republican idea AND, simultaneously, criticize them for it.
WOW!! I mean……WOW!!
Jesus, I knew they were willing to say ANYTHING, no matter how disconnected from reality, but this is strange territory……
libarbarian
My head is going to GOT FUCKING EXPLODE!!!
WTF? Liberals want to …… cut taxes?
In the same sentence he accuses liberals of wanting “substitute government largesse for individual responsibility”, which costs lots of money, AND wanting to “remove more and more people from having to pay any income tax whatsoever” so they will have less money to pay for all that largesse. WOW!
The party of all-tax-cuts-all-the-time – the party of “tax cuts pay for themselves” – is now critizing Liberals for wanting to cut people’s taxes!
Not only have I NEVER EVER EVER heard a liberal advance “getting people off the tax roles” as any kind of priority – I have heard MANY MANY MANY conservatives (and right-libertarians) EXPLICITLY call for the elimination of both income and capital gains taxes. And yet somehow Romney can credit the liberals with a Republican idea AND, simultaneously, criticize them for it.
WOW!! I mean……WOW!!
Jesus, I knew they were willing to say ANYTHING, no matter how disconnected from reality, but this is strange territory……
bartkid
>It really has sucked having a Democratic President these last 8 years.
That is what my Republican relatives are saying now.
They have convinced themselves somehow that Mr. Bush is a D, not an R. (I think Mr. H.W. Bush and Mr. Clinton chumming around after the Christmas Tsunami helped this cognitive backflip.)
Cassidy Sed:
>Size is subjective. We’re too small to handle two conflicts.
Well, Mitt’s sons have their summer scheduled freed up. Anyone up for a pool on how many enlist? I’m claiming the zero square.
Tsulagi
Hewitt is likely hitting on Limbaugh for some meds about now. But no worries, in a few weeks he’ll have his shiny new McCain kneepads on.
Yeah, right. He probably had that revelation from Mormon Jesus this morning when he opened his checkbook seeing it was already about 40 million lighter.
Cassidy
Someone has a bug up their ass today. Are you a Pats fan?
Your translation is inaccurate and ill-concieved. The simple fact is that in some ways, we are overly large, drawing resources from other worthy causes. In others, we’re too small. It’s all in how you use us.
This sound like sense, but you’re skipping details. A number of programs started out as junk, but have turned into highly effective weapons systems and equipment. The BFV, Stryker and XM-8, are just off the top of my head. For the longest time, I’ve believed that the XM-8 was a huge waste of money, which could’ve been better spent providing new M-4’s to the whole Army. recent stress testing, with 6K rounds, had the XM-8 outperforming the M4, HK 227, and SCAR.
This begs the question, which programs are boondoggles?
Unfortunately, this isn’t feasible. Both sides believe military intervention is necessary, it’s just a matter of where. Some said Iraq, some said Darfur. Pick your poison.
Ding, ding, ding…someone gets a maple glazed donut.
libarbarian
I wonder:
We’ve all seen how the Money-Conservatives have shit a brick at the prospect of a Huckabee nomination but I’m wondering if they aren’t absolutely fucking terrified at the political landscape in general.
On one hand their enemies are avowed liberals like Obama & Clinton and, on the other hand, they are tied to a voting block, the social cons, that is rapidly waking up to the fact that they do not share all the same interests – people who may think that the earth was made in a day but who also take the morality of the sermon on the mount somewhat seriously and think that the government has a role to play other than lining the pockets of the already-wealthy.
They need the social cons but they need them to stay in their place as well. The only way to do this is to try and convince them that the economic interests of the rich are also the interests of their much poorer social con voters – and the old arguments don’t seem to be working as well as they used to. So now they are scrambling and throwing out new arguments willy-nilly to see which one “sticks”.
I dont know, but things like my previous comment make me think that they are more afraid than they are letting on.
Darkness
Yeah and the money spent employing people to dig holes and fill them again (the economic equivalent of keeping a standing army) would just fly away and disappear.
No, it would be spent on something else, employing people in another job that actually had an economic multiplier effect.
Not that I believe the standing army is too big. I just think that’s a specious argument you made.
The really moronic thing is we took the national guard. The National Guard. The people who have the equipment and no-how to deal with national disasters and terrorist attack aftermaths and thrashed them and their precious equipment against a desert seven thousand miles away from the continental U.S. WTF stupid idea was that? No army is big enough if heinously misused in the manner this one has been.
Wilfred
good site on military spending
salvage
Hysterical (in every sense of the word):
Davebo
It’s the end of the world as we know it..
And if feel FINE!
Jen
From Flopping Aces’ comment thread:
…you say that like it’s a *bad* thing…
chopper
well, the US Military is the biggest socialist utopia in the world. you join the party and you get a job, health care, education, all sorts of shit all charged to the US taxpayer. pay sucks tho.
4tehlulz
Jesus fucking Christ, what a hopeless bunch of people.
Graeme
I think it’s funny that the GOP guys are still out there whining about how Clinton cut the military. Factcheck.org has been all over these claims, asserting that the real cuts started with Bush I.
The military is also 1/3, and an UNACCOUNTABLE 1/3 at that, of our budget. Yet everyone is clamoring for even more spending. I just don’t get it. And I don’t understand why all these supposedly small government types keep cheerleading this bullshit.
I love it that the GOP is going to run on a perpetual war platform. George Will asserted in his latest column that a vote for McCain is essentially a vote for war with Iran. They’re going to hand the Donks a fucking landslide. I can’t wait to vote against ’em!
F. Frederson
The joke in the DC area is that defense contracting is welfare for white people.
Punchy
Submarines. We’re not at war with the whales, too, are we?
D-Chance.
How magnanimous of him! What self-sacrifice! He truly IS Romnaldus Maximus!
grumpy realist
Would someone in the pundit class pretty please have the stones to actually sit McCain down and ask how he is planning to pay for his 100-year occupation in Iraq?
Add to that the costs of a war with Iran, as all the PNACers are jumping up and down for us to do…
God. Osama must be sitting on the floor of his cave laughing his ass off. He’s managed to get the US tied down in an eternal money drain in the middle of Iraq, we’re run by chest-thumping idiots who want to stay there 100 years, and the only suggestion the Republicans have on how to pay for this is “more tax cuts!”
(The idea that the Laffer curve is a Magic Pony Device that allows us to continuously cut taxes and poof, the US Govt somehow gets more money is one of the most pernicious pieces of idiocy to come out of the economic loonies at AEI, Cato, and the rest of the libertarian-leaning of the party. Didn’t even Laffer say some time back that his situation didn’t hold with the present tax rates?)
Feh. I’d say that the US is slipping down to the level of “Brazil with nukes” except that after we’re finished riding through the economic funhouse the Repubs have lined up for us, I think Brazil’s economy is going to be in a better shape.
firebrand
So long Mittens. And don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out! AHA!
Echo without Bunnies or Men
Would someone in the pundit class pretty please have the stones to actually sit McCain down and ask how he is planning to pay for his 100-year occupation in Iraq?
Are you kidding? The pundit class slobbers for their hero, the so-called maverick. Jon King and Timmay Russert couldn’t find it within themselves to dare speak ill of their beloved.
But the really rabid right, the tawk radio morons, they fucking hate McCain, and I think that’s great.
Chuck Butcher
I had the Romney pullout going into an article as it was happening, I was going to be really current. Ring, ring, the wife has the SSR stuck in the snow so I’ve got to go yank it out. We got about a foot last night and it’s just above freezing so the stuff packs into ice as soon as a tire goes over and without studs that poor wide tired beast is virtually helpless. The problem is wheels and tires for studs go $1200 and I ain’t got it.
I’m kinda sorry to not be able to watch the rabid rabbits tear the Party apart over looneyness. Darn.
Darkness
It’s an issue distillation problem. The organism is complex and partly hidden: from the congresspeoples who get boondoggle projects for their districts, the Defense employees who scoot boondoogle contracts through and then a few years later jump to a cooshie job with said defense contractor, bases in places that can take care of themselves *cough*Europe*cough*. All that money getting stolen and the troops are going wanting. All the public hears (like the farside cartoon) is Military…. needs …. money.
So it is impossible for any politician aside from an insane one (Ron Paul) to point out that more money isn’t going to help. It isn’t. There are too many thieves on the road between the place checks are cut an where the soldiers stand waiting for better vests, guns, vehicles, etc.
If I find the time today I’ll dig up the testimony from the joint chiefs to the congress where when the critters tried to scold them for the condition of the military, they hit back with all the complaints above and then some. It was brilliant and of course got very little press.
It’s much harder for the dems to fix this since they have less military political capital to spend on it. McCain has the capital, but while he seems otherwise reasonable, on this point he’s a fratboy wanker, which depresses me.
Krista
I don’t think that the two are comparable, however. Darfur would have been a strict humanitarian mission. With Iraq, the reasoning and the rationale kept changing. First there were those allusions to Iraq being linked to 9/11, then it was that Iraq had WMDs, then it was that Iraq was looking for WMDs, and so on and so forth, until eventually we heard that you guys were there in order to “spread democracy”. But as an outsider looking in, to me there seemed to be no real urgent need for you guys to go into Iraq when you did. We (i.e. NATO) still needed your help in Afghanistan, Bin Laden was (and still is) at large, and regardless of Condi’s assertions otherwise, everybody knew goddamn well that really, Iraq could wait — indefinitely, if needs be. But in Darfur, the situation was critical, and those people needed help right there and then. As well, I’m wondering if anywhere near as many troops would have been necessary in Darfur. So I really think that to compare the two is comparing apples to oranges.
Lee
The best part of this is that Cheney was behind most of the cuts as Sec. Def. He was also instrumental in killing off the F-14.
But don’t try pointing that out to any Goopers.
Cassidy
Subs provide a number of different services and are quite good at what they do. It’s been a very successful program.
Tsulagi
Beauchamp back from Iraq and running over your server or tubes? Place is crashing harder than Rush without his Oxy.
I think you meant HK 416.
Cassidy
You’re right. Got distracted and didn’t catch it. Thanks.
Andrew
I can think of plenty of military boondoggles off the top of my head:
DDX
F-22
Osprey
Crusader (I’ll give Rumsfeld some credit for killing this one…)
Future Combat Systems
Land Warrior or whatever it’s called now
Andrew
The problem is that the 3 branches have to get equal funding or else they throw a hissy fit. There is no reason that the air force needs to be funded at the same level as the army or navy. The off budget war appropriations are actually an end run around this typical 3 way split.
Calouste
Not only that, in one of those tapes he explicitly mentioned that he wanted to bring the US to its knees economically. I guess he figured out getting Republicans elected was a far easier way to do that than trying to bomb Wall Street.
myiq2xu
You do realize there are more white people on welfare than there are minorities?
Add defense contracting to welfare and wingnut welfare and ya gotta wonder how many white people are actually working.
Philip the Equal Opportunity Cynic
Well, damn!
Ever since I moved back to my defense-heavy hometown a year ago, I’ve been joking that it’s “Republican welfare” or “welfare for yuppies.” Some of the same self-imagined “conservatives” who have a huge problem with the alleged sloth of the urban poor have little problem with a huge bureaucracy that hires people to do nothing just so that those people won’t get taken out of next year’s budget.
But now I guess I can’t take credit for linking the concepts.
D-Chance.
Check out his latest Townhall homage to Romney. If that doesn’t win a Golden Wingnut award…
Xenos
We have always been at war with Atlantis.
Xenos
As for Mitt, he makes me long for the days of Andrew Jackson and Aaron Burr.
(slaps face) Pistols at dawn, Mitt?
You would think Webb, at least, would call him out to the parking lot for some fisticuffs.
libarbarian
Krista:
You have valid points, but you make me a little nervous.
You’re point about troop levels is certainly valid and fewer troops usually means less bloodshed in general and certainly less cost (in blood and treasure) to America specifically.
However, Having noble motives not only doesn’t guarantee “success” in war it doesn’t even really matter next to the conditions, and our actions in light of them, on-the-ground in the country itself.
Our intentions matter very little compared to the intentions of the people/factions in the country we are “invading”.
D-Chance.
BTW, credit TBogg for best “Shorter Romney” of the day:
Shorter Romney: “Our country, our world, our culture, our existence face enormous threats. I quit.”
lol…
Cassidy
You’re comparing intent. Some people in this country would have said the exact same thing you did, just substitute Iraq for Darfur. Placing the nobility of one mission over another is not the intent. In the end, a deployment to a combat zone is a deployment to a combat zone, regardless of the intent, or who’s pulling the levers. And make no mistake, we would have seen some serious combat in Darfur.
bernarda
The Mittster was just finally washing out his soiled Magic Underwear for the first time and the stuff hit the fan.