I admit to having a bit of a weakness for Maureen Dowd (there’s something film noir about her), even though her columns are usually awful. Anyway, she seems to be first major establishment person to note that Romney has gone full metal neocon (Eli Lake noted a ways back that Ryan is a neocon on foreign policy, but no one cares what’s in the Daily Beast):
As the spokesman for Paul Bremer during the Iraq occupation, Senor helped perpetrate one of the biggest foreign policy bungles in American history. The clueless desert viceroys summarily disbanded the Iraqi Army, forced de-Baathification, stood frozen in denial as thugs looted ministries and museums, deluded themselves about the growing insurgency, and misled reporters with their Panglossian scenarios of progress.
“Off the record, Paris is burning,” Senor told a group of reporters a year into the war. “On the record, security and stability are returning to Iraq.”
Before he played ventriloquist to Ryan, Senor did the same for Romney, ratcheting up the candidate’s irresponsible bellicosity on the Middle East. Senor was the key adviser on Romney’s disastrous trip to Israel in July, when Mittens infuriated the Palestinians by making a chuckleheaded claim about their culture.
Senor got out over his skis before Romney’s speech in Jerusalem, telling reporters that Mitt would say he respected Israel’s right to make a pre-emptive, unilateral attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The thing about neocons is this: when it comes to everything but self-promotion and bureaucratic, they are colossal fuck-ups. The Iraq War was a disaster, and Romney’s (Senor-dictated) foreign policy statements have hurt him politically.
I don’t understand how they manage to wield such power, how the more-or-less sane realist Republican foreign policy people always lose out to them. Some of it is neocon overrepresentation in the media and think thanks, but that still doesn’t explain why anyone would take advice from Dan Senor.
Tonal Crow
Remember when Eisenhower warned us about the military-industrial complex? Follow the m-m-m-money! Also too, some people feel that they can’t get enough
of their Preciouspower.redshirt
I pray there will be a day coming when as if all of a sudden, everyone will open their eyes, fully awake, and ask: Why are we dealing with these assholes? By the end of the day, they’re all gone.
A dream, I’m sure.
Litlebritdifrnt
And yet Dan Senor is allowed on Morning Joe five times a week to spout his utter bullshit unchallenged by either Mika or Joe. It is like an unedited RWNJ infomercial for two fucking hours. In a moment of rational thought Joe perhaps suggests that the war in Afghanistan needs to be over, and then Senor is allow to override him with more bullshit. I do not know what Senor has on either of them but it is obviously serious.
Baud
My guess is connections to the big money guys and a wider network of true-believer allies.
GregB
Liz Cheney noted today that Obama lost Middle Earth.
Hopefully he won’t bugle Alderaan.
raven
@Litlebritdifrnt: Joe rails against the war constantly.
Brachiator
No surprise here. Think tanks are where Villagers go when their party is out of party. The media willingly keeps their names in the news because they know that one day these guys may be back on top. And many are buddies, college roommates, or someone who helped them get a job or a scoop.
Much is written about the military industrial complex. You could also talk about a political industrial complex.
muddy
Probably not that many people want to hang with Mittens, so he has to take what he can get. He has no personal understanding of these matters, so he can’t judge if the guy is wrong, the important thing is that he was involved in a war is some way, it’s on his resume, so clearly he’s a knowledgable consultant, and probably it’s his turn, or he’s in a club with someone or some stupid bullshit.
Tonal Crow
@GregB:
Huh?
JPL
@GregB: I think he lost
chinaWedgwood also.Sly
The Cold War consensus kept everyone in line, for better or worse, from 1945 until the late 70s. During that period you could count on both the liberal and conservative establishments to sagely agree that we should make the world safe for United Fruit and death squads because COMMIES!
Then the Cold War ended and the establishments didn’t know what to do, so the liberal establishment stuck with keeping the world safe for Shell Oil and Monsanto while the conservative establishment embraced it’s inner Curtis LeMay and started looking for someone to fuck with just for the sake of fucking with someone. China ended up being a bust. But, hey, that Saddam character was still around….
ansapphire
Never mind while Arab is exploding 2 major tv network decided to air interviews with 2 Israeli figures. One promoted war with another Muslim country and one noted for killing Muslim citizens.
Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker
@GregB: Hah! The Cheneys do have a certain Gollum quality, don’t they? especially the Dicks Jr.
I am in a constant state of mild amazement that the Iraq War is something that just kinda happened. no one to blame, no need to get upset. My state of amazement increased when there was talk of a Willard/Condi ticket, you’d think after the PDBs and mushroom clouds, she’d be a bigger liability than Narcissa Borealis, but Condi has a 65% approval rating.
ansapphire
I meant the Arab world.
Maude
@Sly:
Except for Viet Nam.
Bruce S
Liz Cheney is a welcome, serial guest on Stephanopolous’ “This Week”, Senor is one of the chums around the table on Morning Joke. Condi Rice is treated as some sort of “responsible conservative” diva at the RNC by a fawning press. The media still accepts these scum as legitimate.
Lavocat
A fan of Yeats, I see or, at least, his most famous poem.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
…
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
That puppy still gives me goosebumps.
SmallAxe
1. They help build up the Military Industrial Complex that Eisenhower warned about, more than the non-neos
2. Senor in particular has crazy media connections, hubby to Campbell Brown, On Morning Ho all the time like someone said above and he was John Kerry’s son’s roomate in NYC a few years ago, need I say more?
That said he is a great case for that German word for the face that needs a punch, I would love to run into that fucker out somewhere.
redshirt
@GregB: Obama has been weak against the Elven menace from day one. He cannot be trusted to keep Middle Earth safe, let alone prosperous for the Lord Sauron.
Litlebritdifrnt
@raven:
Yes he does, and yet he allows Senor to sit there and spout his bullshit non stop for three fucking hours. How’s that work?
Hal
@Tonal Crow:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/09/16/liz-cheney-accuses-obama-of-abandoning-non-existent-country-czechoslovakia/
Or something like that.Suffern Ace
@Brachiator: I agree. Since they have no marketable skills, they need to be pundits. Every time you see them on tv, take a little solace in the fact that they are writing to make money because they have no official titles behind their names.
SmallAxe
@raven:
correction, Joe rails against Afghanistan, he’s all for Iran humping from what I’ve seen.
Maude
@Hal:
She offended two countries, or two birds, one stone.
Hal
@GregB:
Liz then explained that she would like to be President one day, and announced her bid for 2016:
And then she talked about how much she loved women. Not like her sister mind you.
redshirt
This topic raises the question of “what is power”. We all sense it, yet it’s hard to define. Sometimes it’s quite tangible – a boss, a prison guard, a drill sergeant has real power over you. But some talking head on TV? A political party? An ideology? Far more amorphous. We believe in their power because they appear powerful – networked, on the TV, well dressed, rich, etc. Yet it’s mostly appearances.
Some falling scales from eyes and that power disappears in a blink. It could happen. Probably won’t.
Roger Moore
It’s Lysenkoism for modern-day America.
raven
@Litlebritdifrnt: I know you are not asking me to defend him. You know Senor is not on 5 days a week and the show is only 2 hours, they replay hour one. Just keepin it real.
danah gaz
And the neocons were screaming “anti-semite!” 10 minutes before the ink was even dry.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Hal: Wasn’t Cheney actually born in Mordor?
danah gaz
@GregB: “he won’t bugle Alderaan.”
If that isn’t a euphemism for something obscenely biological, it should be. =)
redshirt
@The prophet Nostradumbass: She wishes! Another Dol Guldurian pretending to be from the Promised Land, like her Dark Father.
RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
From a Reuters story:
Yikes. Is our media learning?
Not enough of it apparently.
Baud
@RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist:
Apparently, they aren’t learning English.
ETA: Ok, next time I’ll finish reading the entire post before commenting.
Hal
I almost forgot why I don’t like Maureen Dowd, but thanks to the Internets:
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2007/11/maureen-dowd-rehashes-presidential-candidate-x-wuss-construct
and of course I had forgotten this bit of dreck from 2007:
Hill Dweller
Bob Costas, who isn’t stupid, was on Maher’s show trying to blame Clinton for 9/11. He also gave Willard all the credit for the Salt Lake games.
Being a Republican is simply tribalism for way too many people in this country.
dmsilev
By the way, the “rats abandoning the sinking ship” articles are starting to appear (Politco):
(Read the first half for a jaw-dropping account of how Romney’s convention speech was written. Romney really really sucks as a manager that he allowed such a trainwreck to happen).
Poopyman
@Lavocat:
Then try subsiding into melancholy;
Tonal Crow
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
I heard it was Isengard, but, since most of this information ultimately comes from Orcs, it’s hard to say what’s true, what’s false, and what’s just bullshit.
Mr Stagger Lee
@Lavocat: Especially when Ed Harris quotes the poem int Steven King’s The Stand. Anyway why the hell is L. Paul Bremer, allowed to walk around free? Shouldn’t he share a jail cell with Hutu leaders from Rwanda and Serbian Nationalists?
catclub
Well, it is progress when Elliot Abrams is not the neocon du Jour.
I guess (hope?) he has aged out.
I thought that Senator Brown was particularly dangerous because his wife is a news anchor for a Boston station. Isn’t Dan Senor’s wife someone whose name escapes me? And because of that very tight connection with the media, he gets a particularly easy ride.
Also, Alan Greenspan.
The liberal media indeed.
cmorenc
@Bruce S:
She’s another colossal bellicose idiot who, if her dad hadn’t been Dick Cheney, wouldn’t likely be invited even to occasional guest appearances on right-wing AM talk radio shows. Why she’s acceptable as a regular guest and Michael Moore isn’t speaks volumes about the dysfunctional tribalism of the Village.
SmallAxe
@catclub:
He’s hubby to Campbell Brown, former CNN anchor and current crappy Op Ed writer.
Litlebritdifrnt
@raven:
Yeah I know, but it seems that way to me. “And with us this morning is the senior foreign policy adviser to the Romney campaign Dan Signor (unheard) who led us blindly into a war in Iraq for no fucking reason whatsoever and who would like to keep us in a war in Afghanistan for the next twenty years”
Carl Nyberg
How do they stay in the game after demonstrating they are colossal fuck-ups?
Could it be that the Military-Industrial Complex/Israel Lobby want them in the game?
What is the dividing line between the MIC & the Israel Lobby these days?
Litlebritdifrnt
Oh by the way, for anyone who is interested, I have started blogging again after forgetting how after losing Cueball. It is strange really, you suddenly lose your ability to see the beauty of nature.
danah gaz
@Carl Nyberg: google driftglass “Do Over” Credit Card
he explains it perfectly
ETA: http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2012/09/fusion.html
here. Forgive him his typos. I think he was in a rush that day. =)
Mike G
@Hal:
As a Harvard Law student, it was solely Obama’s responsibility to prevent the European nation from splitting in two.
Of course, the New York Times will Seriously repeat Cheney’s statement without noting that Czechoslovakia hasn’t existed for twenty years, because their public editor claims “that’s not the core issue here”.
https://balloon-juice.com/2012/09/16/lets-call-the-whole-thing-off/
Kyle
@cmorenc:
The DC Media Village loves them some nepotism. The place is more career-inbred than European royal families. Genuine meritocracy is like kryptonite to that wasp nest of mediocre assholes.
Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker
If her father weren’t Big Dick, she’d be lucky to be a delegate to the national convention, as things are, I think we’ll be cursed with Senator Cheney of Wyoming before the end of this decade.
gbear
@Mike G:
That is so perfect. I see a meme there…
? Martin
Fuck-ups? Have you seen Haliburton’s profits? Sugar high, baby!
JoyfulA
@RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist: “Sewing seeds”? As in the seed necklaces that were popular circa 1970?
The Red Pen
They’ve trotted out the “neocon is antisemitic” / bull again.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/09/maureen-dowd-meets-antisemitism-charge-135700.html?hp=r1
Jamey
Wow, for once MoDo didn’t feel compelled to end her Sunday column with a rueful “but Obama’s uppity and lacks the common touch, so he’s to blame…”
Not sure what to make of this.
geg6
@Mike G:
FTW. I would like to marry that comment and have its babies.
Ben Franklin
“Iraq was a failure”? But, those purple thumbs of freeeeedom?
Tom Q
@Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker: Does it really matter who the Senator from Wyoming (or Idaho/Utah) is? Just enter an automatic GOP vote and call it a day.
1badbaba3
Dick Darth Cheney Vader’s Death Star must be fully operational, for he still strikes terror, fear, and awe in the hearts and minds of wingnuts on a global scale. Plus, the motherfucker just won’t die.
BruceFromOhio
Then I am the worst, because my despair and disgust at the teabagger fuckishism that is vertically fornicating my country is passionately intense.
gbear
@geg6: Hey! Last time you said that, it was to one of my comments, and you didn’t mention babies at all (h/t Neil Young). I feel devastated.
YellowJournalism
@GregB: Unless he can get rid of the Queen of Hearts, Wonderland will become the next Vietnam.
danah gaz
@Jamey: She’s had the knives out for awhile. I get the impression that she really doesn’t like the Republican ticket, although I’m not sure if she detests Willard or Paul more.
hilts
OT – For fans of Louie
I missed the latest episode of Louie. Does anyone know of a video sharing website where I can watch it online? I don’t see any re-airings listed on the schedule grid of the FX website.
Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker
@Tom Q: True, but it galls me to think of this nasty legacy moving from the panel, where at least she’s likely to be challenged by Krugman or Katrine van den Heuvel, to the guest seat where David Gregory merely touches his perfectly coiffed forelock and giggles.
Villago Delenda Est
@? Martin:
This.
Their kids were not risking life and limb. Their kids do not come back from that place with post traumatic stress, or missing a leg, or both.
Those things are for the little people.
All they see is profit and power.
They are monsters.
PurpleGirl
@cmorenc: Michael Moore is fat, Liz Cheney isn’t.
Punchy
Cheney used the term “Czechoslovakia”, while Obama abandoned it, so both sides do it!
1badbaba3
@Villago Delenda Est: There are no such thing as “monsters”.
There are only “job creators”.
That is all.
gogol's wife
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I know what you mean. I’m still kind of feeling that way after losing our cat Masha in April.
Sly
@Maude:
There was disagreement between the liberal and conservative establishments when it came to Vietnam? Maybe when the liberal establishment started to come apart under Nixon, but McGovern’s loss put an end to that. The split on Vietnam didn’t show up again until after the Cold War was over and no one cared about emboldening COMMIES.
kdaug
OT, perhaps.
Palladia is showing “The Wall” right now.
Forgotten how much…
ETA: Obligatory widening gyre
sgrAstar
@Hill Dweller: What!!!??? Bob Costas is an over-botoxed, past his sell-by date buffoon! On this summer’s Olympic broadcasts, he didn’t even look, or sound, human. He is ridiculous, and certainly lacks the standing- or capability- to weigh in on serious topics.
rmirth
The neocons responsible for conception, planning and execution of iraq (every part a disaster) – people like Senor, Wolfowitz, Kristol etc. keep showing up on Morning Joe, CNN etc. with nary a word about their pasts whereas Howard Dean’s victory “scream” is trotted out by the same MSM every time his name is mentioned. It’s all about theater- deeds are meaningless in their world.
burnspbesq
@Sly:
I do hope you’re getting competent medical care. Your delusions are dangerous.
JGabriel
__
__
Maureen Dowd:
Nothing comes between Mitt and his magic underwear.
.
burnspbesq
@Hal:
Oh, get a grip. That line about Gore is funny.
Mike in NC
Senor needs to be hanged by his balls until dead. That is all.
ms badger
@PurpleGirl: Liz Cheney is Reubenesque, well-upholstered, insulated beyond her stature. As a well-upholstered American, I feel free to point out that starvation is not in her future. Perhaps she can work on slimming, as the Brits say, by splitting an innocent child with her dad, instead of slavering over a whole innocent child.
ETA punctuation that my second grade teacher would make me pound erasers after school to correct
Yutsano
@sgrAstar: Republicans are serious, Democrats are not. That’s the difference.
burnspbesq
@Mr Stagger Lee:
Just a wild-ass guess on my part, but perhaps there isn’t enough admissible evidence to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime was committed and he committed it.
If you disagree, describe the evidence and explain how you would get it admitted.
Valdivia
Late to the thread as always.
Doug you always, always kill it with the titles.
I reserve a particular sort of loathing for Lake, who I have the non-pleasure of knowing…
Mike G
@Mike in NC:
Senor should never be allowed on a talk show without being introduced as “One of the leading architects of the disastrous occupation of Iraq, the chief propagandist-clown for the Coalition Provisional Authority stacked with Republican-loyalist incompetents and grifters”.
arguingwithsignposts
@burnspbesq: I didn’t think it was funny, but then i find dowd’s entire oeuvre tiresome.
eemom
[sigh] And you were so CLOSE to sucking less than most of the other FPers do recently…..
Roger Moore
@Mike G:
FTFY.
Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker
How much she probably loved reading this, and how wrong it is. Maybe in a still shot. I thought Dowd was good on Bubba and the Shrub, I suspect being the youngest girl in a large ethnic Irish clan taught her something about the entitlement of spoiled sons, even two as different as Clinton and Bush II. I’ve largely given up on her, her stuff on Gore and Kerry was mostly phoned in, with the exception of a spiteful rant on Teresa Heinz Kerry that seemed as passionately felt as it was embarrassing to read. And the “Obambi and the Dominatrix” stuff was embarrassing and phoned in.
LosGatosCA
Yes, Dan Señor, and all neocons, if he were officer material would have been classified as follows:
“One must beware of anyone who is stupid and diligent — he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always cause only mischief.”
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_von_Hammerstein-Equord
Joel
@burnspbesq: I don’t mind a quip about Gore, but Dowd sucks. She is aggressively unfunny in my book. But my relatives love her. Must be a generational thing.
Joe Buck
I think it’s because if you’re a Republican and you oppose neocons, they can easily spin it to mark you as an appeasing, squishy wimp, and Republicans are allergic to that.
GregB
I meant bungle……
PurpleGirl
@ms badger: That may be true about Liz Cheney — I don’t really know what she looks like — but the RWNJs always mention that Michael Moore is fat (and that’s why he isn’t to be taken seriously).
DougJ
@eemom:
I have a thing for self-involved red-headed Irish women. Sue me.
Corner Stone
Good gay noir? Or the bad kind?
Corner Stone
@GregB: Are you sure?
Corner Stone
@ms badger:
Does this equal big boobs?
1badbaba3
@dmsilev: That is absolutely stunning. And this is how he would run the nation. They may be running a campaign, but they aren’t very good at it. Nothing they do seems to work, despite the vast sums of cash, all the outward effort, and the supposed superiority. Very reminiscent of our war efforts this decade past. A lot of knees-bent running around with not a lot to show for it.
Fortunately, this should probably be the last go ’round for most of these folks with ties to the previous administration. This attempt by the loyal Bushies to cut in line back to power isn’t sitting well with teabagger/crazy uncle liberty crowd. They don’t much cotton to dubya no more (after all, that’s why there is a tea party in the first place), and they are really tired of holding their nose for Willard. Anybody associated with this shit-fest campaign should, quite reasonably, be unfit for anything more meaningful than a recurring guest slot on fox and freaks.
lamh35
have y’all read the politico piece on the Romey camp? te article reads like the camp is imploding! Jeez, it’s only Septembe.
Inside the campaign: How Mitt Romney stumbled
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81280.html
Corner Stone
@1badbaba3:
IMO that has nothing to do with why a tea party nominally exists.
Roger Moore
@lamh35:
Yes, dmsilev mentioned it above. It certainly has the vibe that the campaign knows it’s losing and is trying to find somebody to blame for the failure.
Phil P.
@DougJ: It’s always the wrong ones that slay you. Watch out… Too much involvement with that self-involvement, and you’ll end up middle-aged and single with nothing but a long history of clever post titles.
Li’l bit like Dowd, come to think of it….
Corner Stone
@Phil P.:
Ever seen a pic of DougJ? His pining for unavailable women has very little to do with why he’s going to turn out this way.
Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker
@lamh35: okay, I made it to the end of the first page, and I’m gonna read on, but… in explaining how the convention speech went wrong
That’s a “memorable line”? It’s of a piece with the whiny, bitter sniping and the petty, self-serving negativity that made their convention such a dud. Van de Hei is such a transparent douche.
Richard
Neoclowns create their own reality by turning the world to shit.
How many times can this insane ideology fail without their proponents popping back up again? These guys are like the villains from slasher movies. They don’t stay dead.
Nellcote
@catclub:
No such luck. Apparently he’s crawled out from under his rock to advise Paul Ryan on foreign policy. I swear Abrams really is a zombie.
Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker
@lamh35: Sweet jumpin’ jesus
That can only be the Mittlets who see him that way. Maybe one of the grand-mittlets.
? Martin
@lamh35: Yep, everyone is starting to polish up their resumes for 2016.
Phil P.
@Corner Stone: No. I keep hearing he’s Kennedy-esque, but that doesn’t mean much to me other than suggesting large-noggined dudes with questionable haircuts. (And bless’em all, since that pretty much describes me too.)
Mark S.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker:
Are these the same sources that said Ann Romney was the campaign’s secret weapon?
Corner Stone
@Phil P.:
I think they mean he’s regularly inebriated and likes to eat chowduh.
Anya
I just read Politico’s long and scathing take on the Romney campaign’s fuck ups. Holy shit! I am shocked that the vultures are already circling the campaign. I mean, if Politico is savaging them like this, can they really survive the rest of the campaign?
karen marie
@Bruce S: Unfortunately, as with alumni of the Nixon administration, we’re not going to see the end of the destruction from the Bush II alumni for another 40 years at least.
Corner Stone
@Mark S.: “I love you women!”*
*only white women of my station and class need apply for my Mormon loving.
Joey Maloney
@dmsilev:
Excellent idea! Outsource the candidate position to China. I see no reason why it couldn’t be done by telepresence for a fraction of the current cost.
1badbaba3
@Corner Stone: Not the Frankenstein Monster that exists today thanks to Dick Armey and the Kochs. I mean the Paulistas of the OG variety, when they were truly grassroots. Before the “dark” times. Before the Empire. Back in the day they didn’t generate very much press. They were considered to be on the fringe and the media just didn’t do fringe back then, as it was still considered declasse. But that was before they got Corporate sponsorship. Prior to that, they didn’t have enough juice to be a threat, but once pox noos got involved, the creature was alive. And it’s been spreading chaos and idiocy ever since.
GregB
Remember how there were unattributed reports that Romney was going to capitalize on Obama’s fuck ups.
The mindless cannibalism on the right has begun.
karen marie
@SmallAxe: Someone else pointed out the other day (and maybe someone else in this thread has as well) but John Kerry’s son was not Senor’s roommate because John Kerry doesn’t have a son. One of Teresa Heinz Kerry’s three sons was roommates with Senor. By the time Kerry married the widow of Republican politician and wealthy person John Heinz, her youngest son was 22 years old.
Corner Stone
@1badbaba3: Do you mean the old school RWNJs of the religious bent? Because yes, I can agree they’ve been playing guerrilla warfare for a while now. They paint their faces and travel by night. You don’t know it’s over til you’re in a bodybag. YEEEEAAAAHHH!!
karen marie
@RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist: Did they really say “sewing”? OMFG. They are not learning.
karen marie
@cmorenc: Yes, but Michael Moore really is fat.
Brachiator
It’s like they are seeing Romney as more a Mormon Elder and not a presidential candidate.
Theocracy for America on line 1.
AHH onna Droid
@Hill Dweller: Costas, who isn’t stupid–oh, but isn’t he?
max
@Anya: I just read Politico’s long and scathing take on the Romney campaign’s fuck ups. Holy shit! I am shocked that the vultures are already circling the campaign. I mean, if Politico is savaging them like this, can they really survive the rest of the campaign?
Politico isn’t savaging them – Politico is just doing stenography. I am guessing that the sources here are Matt Rhoades, Peter Wehrner and I think the ‘Republican operative close to the campaign’ is, in fact, Dan Senor. He may be the main source of the story.
Apparently he’s organized a little claque to ditch Stevens, but Romney wouldn’t buy it, so he outside to Politico, which is always Republican operative friendly.
Basically, the neocon theory is that if you run a Rovish USA! USA! campaign you will always win. Mitt appears to prefer caution and staid and steady going, but his *real* organization skills are on pair with Bain’s performance over the 80’s and 90’s – same return as the market as a whole with much higher risk and more corpses left behind.
Summary: it’s a life and death struggle between two flavors of clueless. Very similar to the sort of thing that was going on in the Nazi inner circles in the last year of that war. (cf. The Bunker for instance.) I make the comparison because personality and worldview-wise, the upper tiers of the R party have rather a lot in common with the gangsters of Munich beer halls.
max
[‘This is not Godwin, this is the bitterest and darkest of Coen Bros. irony here.’]
Villago Delenda Est
@max:
Yup, you’re right…Politico is channeling the insider knife fighting.
The real problem with the Rmoney campaign is obvious…it’s Dubya Mittens hisownself. To know him is to loathe him, and the American people have taken their measure. Ryan can’t save him. His “secret weapon rock star” cannot save him. He is doomed, and he’s going to take the entire GOP down with him…not by design, or malice, but by sheer incompetence.
karen marie
@1badbaba3: The entirety of Romney’s business experience is all in destruction. It was in spite of not because of Romney and Bain’s involvement that some of the “troubled” companies they took over eventually became successful. Romney does not know how to do anything constructive. Romney won the nomination but he broke his opponents with money, not by building actual support on the ground. He doesn’t consider actual voters to be important. After all, he’s got lots of money!
Also, too, some time during the last week or so, in a comment perhaps even here at BJ, someone posed the question whether Romney was secretly donating money to himself through PAC donations. I hope I live long enough to learn the answer to that question. I’m betting he has. So for me, the real question is: how much. When we get that answer we’ll have a pretty good idea which is a bigger driver of Romney: vanity or parsimony.
Pseudonym
Ahh, Dan Senor. I remember back in the day when Google tried to hire him fresh off his stunning success with the CPA. They eventually backed down and came to their senses, but not before a substantial number of employees complained and/or threatened to quit. Good times.
karen marie
@Mark S.: Has she had any role other than the very rare interview?
? Martin
@max:
Maybe. Typically these stories come out right when elements of the campaign staff accept that the campaign is a loser and they decide to launch a preliminary effort in the media to clear their name so that they’re clean for the next campaign they get hired for. The sources are almost always the folks in the story that come out looking the best.
Efforts for regime change are pointless and they know it.
Brachiator
@max:
You might be right here. It seems odd, though, that you would have this breakdown in team discipline as they get closer to the presidential debates.
Just when Team Romney appeared to put the wheels back on their campaign clown car, everything appears to be breaking down again.
droog
(Off topic, FYWP post)
This post is one of the few from BJ that retains the quoted paragraphs properly on my Google Reader feed. Usually only the first paragraph has the quote indentation, the rest of the quote falls back to where the poster’s text is. As a result it is hard to know where the quote ends and the poster returns. The context doesn’t help because sarcastic parodies are indistinguishable from the stuff wingnuts say these days. So it’s hard to tell when Pat Buchanan’s quote end and ABL’s paragraphs re-start.
raven
Aite, let’s see what Nucky is up to!
Jamey
@DougJ: Her self-involvement AND her hair-color BOTH come from a bottle, I suspect…
/mrrrrowww
grandpa john
Anybody got any idea as to what qualifications Liz has to be TV pundit other than her last name. In a sane world, bumbling idiots like her and Senor would never be even allowed in a station, much less in front of a microphone
sherparick
@Tonal Crow: It is snark. Liz Cheney denounced Obama for losing “Czechoslovakia,” country that has not existed since 1992, when the Czechs and Slovaks decided to go their separate ways. Perhas she was flashing back to 1938 or 1948.
About everyone I know in Europe is praying as hard as possible for Obama to win as they just see these numbskulls as a disaster.
JR in WV
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Litlebritdifrnt,
I’m sorry for your loss.
I/we lost a 19 YO cat, Rufus, a 17 YO, Harvey, Clyde, a big black long haired dog who talked, and Boomer, a WV brown dog, 88 lbs, scary protective of the farm, all in 8 months. So I share your pain.
Thinking about them helps, mostly. The best friends a couple could have. Rufus would sneak into bed and lie against my scalp late in the night to stay warm. The give-away was he would slowly start to purr. Harvey would get under the covers.
After he was gone, Harvey took over the warmest spot. He purred too.
Good luck,
JR