(Mike Luckovich via GoComics.com)
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Igor Volsky at ThinkProgress reports that Romney will deliver the commencement speech at Liberty University:
Mitt Romney — who at an earlier point in his career had promised to advance the equality of gay and lesbian people — is scheduled to deliver the Commencement address at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University on May 12, an Evangelical Christian college that refuses to recognize people or ideas that don’t adhere to its social conservative worldview.
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The university — founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell in 1971 — seeks to impress on its students a “commitment to the Christian life” that “leads people to Jesus Christ as the Lord of the universe and their own personal Savior” and forbids openly gay enrollees. Students are required to abide by a strict Code of Conduct, which prohibits them from engaging in “[n]on-marital sexual relations,” drinking, smoking, watching R-rated movies, dancing, cursing or hugging for longer than three seconds. In 2009, the school attracted controversy after it revoked its recognition of a Democratic club, because “[t]he Democratic Party platform is contrary to the mission of Liberty University and to Christian doctrine.” The school condemned the party for supporting abortion rights, “same-sex marriage, hate crimes, LGBT rights, and socialism.” …
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Significantly, this isn’t the first time Romney has embraced conservative Christian Evangelicals in an effort to endear himself to Republican voters. In 2007, he addressed Regent University, the school founded by televangelist Pat Robertson.
Jerry Falwell’s “Moral Majority“, of which Liberty U is the training camp/sandlot league, was one of the major early movers in the establishment of the American Taliban. The increasing comity between the “Christian Right” Evangelicals and the most regressive wing of the Catholic Church was never about religion, unless you define religion as “ensuring the continued control of rich old white men over every possible source of power and prosperity”. The rest of their “theology”, god-talk, was never more than window dressing to distract both the rubes at the bottom of the economic pyramid and the Media Village courtiers near the top.
Paul Constant at The Stranger gets the irony, and the last word:
This isn’t a surprise. Romney still needs to shore up the Republican base, and a speech at Liberty University is a must for the Republican presidential nominee. I’m sure that the Romney campaign has a big list of groups they’ve totally written off, including African-Americans and gays and gay-friendly voters, but they sure don’t seem to be trying too hard to expand the tent right now. As for Liberty University: Fuck them. The sad thing is, the bigots up in LU administration are probably patting themselves on the back for being “tolerant” enough to “allow” a Mormon to speak. Romney’s their token minority now.
LanceThruster
I’d love to see the list of anti-Mormon reading material in Lib U’s lie-barry.
Oh, to see a few heads explode, though cognitive dissonance barely registers in the Republican Jesus mind. Their god always hates who they hate, and they will forgive Mitt quite a bit if *he* hates who they hate.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I noticed just about everything Mitt has been saying lately has been endless right wing mems like Greek Pillar Gate. Hard to make up my mind is he desperate to get support of the conservatives that he has to pander to them every waking moment or is Romney inside the Wingnut information bubble too?
OzoneR
The American people have no fucking clue.
Steve
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: The thing about the Greek pillars is that it is a fairly standard dog whistle. The Republican base loves it, but independents won’t be turned off; for the most part they’ll just wonder what he is talking about. Speaking at Jerry Falwell’s college, on the other hand, is a sign that the dials on this Etch-a-Sketch are broken.
cathyx
They’re not allowed to watch r-rated movies. Hahaha
Maude
Mitt looks like a senior Ken doll.
Egg Berry
Wow, I guess Bob Jones U. was already booked.
Gex
Never forget, two wetsuits and a dildo guy was a dean at Liberty.
cathyx
No dancing either. Is this in the same town that Footloose was in?
The Other Chuck
What’s with the Greek pillars nonsense? Obama has a better background to use now. It’s called the Oval Fucking Office.
General Stuck
For the most part, all he really has to do to accomplish the above, is carry around a sizable placard with Obama’s mug on it. But for those along the moderate fringes and the swing voters, they are going to have to reconcile in their own minds a vote for this slimy overly ambitious sociopath.
Obama is going to destroy him with his own words coming out all sides of Romney’s mouth. The ads will write themselves, for likely the biggest flip floppiing prevaricator ever to take the national stage in a POTUS race.
Quaker in a Basement
I like the Christian life!
beltane
@OzoneR: How can we expect the American people to have a clue when their Village Idiot media works to confuse and mislead them? If you stop to consider the various hacks, assholes and morons who fill the nation’s airwaves and op-ed pages it’s no wonder we are a nation of dumbasses.
KG
@OzoneR: those things aren’t necessarily in conflict. most people want a fair system that isn’t controlled by a handful of rich assholes or a handful of bureaucrats.
the problem, I think, is that the left has ceded too much ground by letting the right define every bill or proposed regulation as been the difference between liberty and tyranny. Liberty, as I see it anyway, is a balancing point between tyranny and license (which can be either anarchy or oligarchy). If a “free market” means no government regulation, then it’s going to last just long enough for a monopoly to form; in which case, we all lose.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Steve: Well even Greek Pillars is iffy for Romney. The man’s been labeled out of touch, talking about stuff that nobody understands just reinforces it. And Liberty, gah, Romney bills himself as an adult conservative. That is just under cutting himself.
lamh35
So either Rubio thinks a)Romney gonna lose in November and he doesn’t want the “taint” of Romney and he doesn’t want to be tarred with it or b)he wants to be at the top of the ticket in 2016.
Or he really is the crook we all think he was in Florida
TPM2012
Rubio: I’ll Say No If Romney Asks Me To Join Ticket
KG
Ok, I know we have a couple of Ohio folks around, so a little insight would be appreciated… I just clicked over to Hewitt’s blog to see what the unofficial official GOP spin would be and he called Sherrod Brown the most liberal member of the Senate. Did something happen to Bernie Sanders? Or is Brown really that liberal?
Linda Featheringill
@Steve: #4
What is he talking about? [explain the dog whistle to me, please]
lamh35
Man, the Romney campaign is such hot mess sometimes that I can’t believe it’s so close in some polls. It just amazes me that the anti-Obama is so intense that it could actually be the only reason Romney wins in November.
“Romney’s misfire on plant closings”
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/19/11291002-romneys-misfire-on-plant-closings?threadId =3398736&commentId=64828299#c64828299
lamh35
I love this photo so much had to post it to my FB.
: Obama sitting in the bus Rosa Parks refused to take a back seat in.
Bubblegum Tate
That Paul Constant kicker is hilarious and true.
Mnemosyne
@General Stuck:
I’m really starting to wonder about that, actually. For someone who essentially has the nomination locked up, Romney still seems to be pandering hard to the right wing.
I’ve said before, I suspect that there may be some internal polling showing that the Republican base may not be willing to turn out for a flip-flopping heretic like Romney, so he’s having to do more work than usual to shore them up so November won’t be a humiliating massacre like 1984. Nobody wants to be the Republican Mondale.
KG
@lamh35: nobody aspires to be Vice-President. It’s a terrible gig… your occasional votes aren’t even your own (what would happen if a president supported legislation that the Senate voted 50-50 on and the Veep went against the president?). You have no real authority, nothing you can hang your hat on if you decide to run for the presidency… and if you lose as a Veep nominee, you’re career is pretty much over – the only real chance you have is to hang onto the job you had before nomination a la Liberman
Linda Featheringill
@KG:
Brown is liberal. I’m not sure he’s more liberal than Al Franken. Technically, Bernie Sanders is a Socialist and may actually be the most-to-the-left member of the Senate. Sort of like the Dennis Kucinich of the upper chamber.
JPL
@OzoneR: What does free enterprise mean? Republicans want to cut regulations and be able to label beef by-products, ground beef. Does free enterprise mean freedom to keep the peons from knowing what they eat? How about a little e coli with that peanut butter.
KG
@Linda Featheringill: I figured he was liberal, I was just wondering if he really was the “most liberal” or if it was a case of Hewittian Exaggeration
Steve
@Linda Featheringill: It’s a reference to the stage setting for the speech he gave at the 2008 Democratic Convention, the one he did at an arena. They acted like he was pretending to be Caesar or something – don’t ask me to explain, but conservatives thought it was a huge gotcha.
4tehlulz
Mitch Daniels, yes that one, is calling out Romney for being out of touch with the average American.
Calouste
@KG:
Every Democratic Senator is the most
communistliberal member of the Senate, according to the GOPer who runs against them.Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Mnemosyne:
It does feel that way, doesn’t it? I mean shouldn’t Romney be laying low to let the people who opposed him in the primary cool down and come back the GOP or else be out doing victory laps?
Steve
@KG: They call every Democrat the “most liberal” When John Kerry ran for President he was the “most liberal” member of the Senate – even though he voted for the war! Bernie Sanders is definitely the most liberal Senator. The most liberal Democrat would be, I dunno, Barbara Mikulski or someone. But honestly Brown would be pretty close to the top of the list, considering the standards of the Senate.
Roger Moore
@Linda Featheringill:
It’s about the Greek pillars they had on the stage for Obama’s acceptance speech at the 2008 convention. I think the underlying theme is “uppity”. It’s the same as the criticism of Obama for having flags with his campaign logo on them.
Calouste
@4tehlulz:
Romney talking about how his policies will affect the poor will draw comparisons with Pol Pot talking about how his policies affected the educated.
General Stuck
@Mnemosyne:
I’m not sure, and you could well be right. But most polls have some fairly high republican enthusiasm to vote against Obama, at a minimum. I would put that at no more than 45 percent of the total vote, and it could be less depending on whether Romney cracks up his campaign from all the tough questions about his changing positions on the issues, in the stretch run of a presidential election. The GOP though, has so many problems with minority voters and now, the women’s vote, even more than usual, that it’s hard to gauge right now.
Egg Berry
@Linda Featheringill:
With the exception of actually accomplishing thing, yes.
The prophet Nostradumbass
Hahahahahahah!
Martin
So nobody at Liberty University has seen the Passion of the Christ? Anyone else believe that?
And since when did good Christians dump the Bible and adopt an unelected panel of MPAA rating czars as their moral standard-bearers?
Bubblegum Tate
@KG:
Every Democrat is “the most liberal member” of the House or Senate at some point. It’s just boilerplate Republican-ese.
cathyx
@The prophet Nostradumbass: I think one can cop a feel in 3 seconds. They should eliminate all hugging to avoid temptation.
lamh35
If you’ve never seen “Going The Distance” with Justin Long and Drew Barrymore, ya should. I loved it the first time I saw it. It’s about a guy and a girl who are trying to have a long distance relationship. He lives in NYC she lives in San Franscisco. I’m watching it now. It’s still funny, IMHO.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UascqBH3SRk
danimal
@Mnemosyne:
This is true, but I think he’s being pragmatic for another reason. The easiest way Romney loses is if the conservative movement gets behind a third party protest candidate. He’ll pander rightward as long as possible until ballot lines are frozen in as many states as possible.
Yutsano
Ahh the whitewashing of the stain of Moroni has begun. I wonder if the little precious authoritarians at LU will balk at having their commencement speech given by a cult member. Nah. They’ll shut up and take it like good little Christian soldiers. There is a THAT ONE in the White House after all.
Frankensteinbeck
I strongly disagree. Never underestimate people’s ability to be bugfuck crazy first, and interested in their own well-being second. All of the crazy reasons that make the rubes vote against their own self-interest can just as easily apply to the wealthy. If their crazy and their self-interest align, so much the better, but don’t dismiss the possibility that they actually BELIEVE their own insane bullshit. Humans are very good at that, and very bad at being cold and canny calculators of their own self-interest.
Schlemizel
@KG:
Everyone you are running against is ALWAYS The Most Liberal Hell they even used that against Barry in ’08 and he was not even close to being the most liberal Senator. They used it against Kerry, they used it against Gore & every Republican running against an incumbent Dem In MN is using it.
Commenting at Ballon Juice since 1937
This proves that if you have enough money, you really can buy one of the two major political parties in America.
Commenting at Ballon Juice since 1937
black guy vs. cult member.
Black guy loses.
Mike in NC
Maybe Mitt will walk onstage at LU and start speaking in tongues while waving a couple of snakes over his head, just for some extra pandering to the religious right.
lamh35
Can long distance relationships REALLY work? I’ve barely been in a real “short” distance relationship, but long distance just seems REALLY hard. Hell, I’m having a hard enough time being a long distance from my family I can’t imagine being a long distance from my “lover” for long periods of time, outside of the military I guess.
Shari
Glenn Beck spoke at Liberty’s commencement in 2010. They gave him an honorary doctorate in humanities and sciences.
There was backlash from the evangelical faithful, but it went through anyway. So Beck broke down the barriers for Romney
Linda Featheringill
@Steve: #27
Greek columns:
Aha. He was being uppity. Gotcha.
dmsilev
@lamh35: When my brother and his wife were dating, there was a period several months long when they did the long-distance thing; he was in the US and she was in Germany. Wasn’t easy, and they certainly racked up fairly large phone bills, but it was doable for a while.
cathyx
@lamh35: I think that if neither person meets another person who interests them while they are away, and then they can be together again full time, then it could.
Linda Featheringill
@Roger Moore: #32
That’s still good for a chuckle.
David Koch
0
Chris
Sounds like a pretty good definition to me, though I’d leave out the “white” part, it seems to work just as well elsewhere.
Okay, I’m sorry, but the more I grow, the more I understand where Karl Marx was coming from when he called religion “the opium of the masses.” No, it doesn’t have to be, but damn if it doesn’t turn out that way alarmingly often.
nellcote
Michigan Defunding Presidential Election in Predominantly Democratic Detroit
http://www.politicususa.com/michigan-election-detroit-2/
David Koch
pretty pathetic that he still hasn’t locked down the far right fundie vote.
Sad_Dem
Are the Greek pillars from a Steve Reeves movie?
Anya
@lamh35: I met my hubby at a skiing trip to whistler, this lead to a 3 year long distance relationship before we got married. We met almost every weekend and on holidays. So, yeah it can be done but it’s not easy.