"Ardently seeking the approval of the discredited"

THAT is Mitt Romney's weekend in a nutshell as he seeks yet another triumph in the Conservative Political Action Committee's seemingly bimonthly pre-pre-presidential brick sh*t house straw poll.
The Former Viceroy is making the usual wingnut noises, notably he has denounced the stimulus plan whilst praising the bank bailout bill i.e T.A.R.P.
You see, Mitt isn't against government spending, he loves him some socialism, as long as it is reactionary socialism that benefits only the rich.
That is what passes for big ideas at an intellectually bankrupt outfit like C-PAC.
Otherwise all this palaver has once again conclusively demonstrated that Mitt Romney hasn't got the political sense God Almighty gave a garden slug.
Romney tried to pass as a moderate back when moderate republicanism was the province of useless old duffers like Arlen Specter and Susan Collins...fit only to be Karl Rove's speed bag quite frankly.
And now a mere four short months after movement conservatism's greatest defeat since 1932, Romney seeks to recast himself as a wingnut messiah.
Timing is everything in politics, and that is one vital quality Mitt will never ever have.
On the other hand his narcissism and amateurish opportunism make for endlessly bloggable copy so....Run Mitt Run!

Grubbing for Glory

The nation is mired in recession, the banking system teeters and all Mitt Romney can think to do is spend lavishly to win some bullshit straw poll at a wingnut circle-jerk in DC this weekend.
Pathetic, a more tone dead politician hasn't been seen on the hustings in my lifetime.
But Lod almighty what a set up for 2012! I mean think of it, potentially a four way race between Piyush Jindal, Sarah Palin, Romney and the cowardly lion, Newt Gingrich...shit I'd move to Manchester to cover a race like that.

Piyush stumbles...

I guess I'm not the only one who thought Louisiana Governor Jindal turned in a poor performance as a GOP's designated respondee to the President's speech to congress the other night.
Hell it got so bad, Rush Limbaugh had to all but suspend the first amendment rights of his audience with this howler:
"We cannot shun politicians who speak for our beliefs just because we don't like the way he says it."
What the GOP has decayed to such a level that they no longer dare demand energy and passion in their speakers?
THAT is their policy to enable torpor and amateurism?
Yipes.
You have to admit though, Piyush was up against a very determined and eloquent politician...blathering on about tax cuts and big gummint just won't cut it no more.
That and the fact that Jindal has a hangdog look vaguely suggestive of Bob Denver during his Gilligan's Island period.
Moreover and this is the crux of the political problem with the GOP, what the hell could he have said that would have made a diff?
Low taxes and no regulation and a boundless Randian utopianism has brought the country to the edge of disaster in the absence of new ideas on the conservative side, Jindal was doomed before he started wandering thru his speech.
"The NEXT TIME we try it it's BOUND to work!" was all he had to work with, and so thus the GOP circles the drain without idea or even a nice hackneyed cliche' to cling to.

Good speech last night

The President has the common sense to keep his agenda short and his goals somewhat flexible...this stands in stark contrast to his predecessor whose recourse to utopian discourse was a fairly constant factor in his speechmaking.
That and the threats and the Jimmy Durante malapropisms...
Meanwhile this is welcome news...even to bankers and investors.

Meanwhile Louisiana Governor Bobby "The Drama Queen" Jindal's response included this tasteless gem:
Today in Washington, some are promising that government will rescue us from the economic storms raging all around us. Those of us who lived through Hurricane Katrina, we have our doubts.
I just don't think it's good politics for any republican to recall that catastrophe...because as usual once the wind and the rain and the flood ridden rhetoric subsides they are back to honking about tax cuts and personal responsibility.
Seems to be a disconnect there...and a bad one at that.

"A congressman at work is...

a hypocrite at play" said someone famous...and a good example of the above aphorism can be found here.
Plainly speaking, Rep. Reichert (GOP-WA) is a coward, he was one staffer combing the stimulus bill for potential GOP talking points while another tries to get some of it's cashola routed to needy constituents.
Reichert presents himself as a salt of the earth pragmatist who can't be bullied, except by his own caucus leadership that got a "no" vote out of him when the bill came to a vote two weeks ago.
I if was running against this dingbat I'd start with "Congressman Reichert will do ANYTHING for his constituents except appropriate any money to save their homes, bank accounts or jobs!"

Romney in Paradise...

Word on the street is, to disport himself between presidential elections, Former Massachusetts Governor Willard Mitt Romney is heavily backing the Gubernatorial candidacy of Ebay CEO Meg Whitman out in California.
There are a lot of reasons for Romney to do this, the main one being, he has nothing else to do til 2012 except keep that touch of grey at his temples and fundraise. Backing fellow CEO Whitman does cloud the Former Viceroy's lamentable rep as a political misogynist and in that context can be seen as a subtle first step in a nasty full court press against Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
If I were Meg Whitman though, I'd keep Romney away at the length of a ten foot pole if need be, the women who are supported by him in elections seem to come to the same end as the women that run against him. If you don't believe Humble Elias, just ask Scary Kerry Healey, Jane "Jingle Money" Swift or Shannon O'Brien.
Of course, my question is, does anyone out there in La-La Land really want another CEO as governor? Wasn't that Schwarzenegger's whole trope during the recall coup in 2003?
How did that work out for everyone in California?
Moreover...Ebay does a land office business in pornography, sex toys, DVDs books, magazines and other perverse items...if Whitman was a democrat that aspect of her tenure at Ebay would be all over the newspapers and conservative punditariat would be screaming like stuck pigs.
So far though, nothing...so the old hypocrisy still persists I guess and the California GOP will blithely accept the candidacy of a former CEO who made her a good chunk of fortune off of kinky sex manuals.

Grace-less Note on a Friday...

The Globe really is going overboard with this multi-part series on the life and career of Edward Moore Kennedy, Senior Senator from Massachusetts.
Other better bloggers than Humble Elias have discerned a eulogistic note in the series...I would just add worse than any platitudes the damn thing doesn't tell us anything new.
One could put up with the bloated novelistic length, but honestly every story, every contradiction, every tragedy and every triumph has been exhaustively covered elsewhere.
Vaudeville had a truism, do what you like but don't bore the audience...well the Globe here seems to think a sleepy readership is a happy readership.
I saw chuck out the facts and completely fictionalize the story a'la Citizen Kane...that might've opened up some possibilities.
Ah but the Globe thinks it is in the news business...except when Jeff Jacoby's column deals in the origins of the Jim Crow south or the New Deal...then a veil of sheer fantasy invades the paper worthy of Edgar Rice Burroughs.