Showing posts with label gaffes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gaffes. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Mittbot 3000 Re-Calibrates After Another Unforced Error
What bothers me about Romney’s statement isn’t the faulty analysis — though it is faulty — but the reliance on “analysis” like this at all. What I mean is, Romney comes across as a guy who thinks elections are simply a numbers game (and for a numbers guy, it’s pretty infuriating he botched the numbers).
According to his analysis, the folks in Obama’s camp are just write-offs, except for a few silly, “emotional” people in the middle who he hopes to sway with appeals that are less than wholly rational. I understand that Romney is speaking in shorthand, and for all we know he was just keying off premises laid out by the questioner. But even so, Romney’s remarks reinforce the overriding problem with his campaign: It is bloodlessly non-ideological. And that is by design. Stewart Stevens, Romney’s top strategist has made it abundantly clear he doesn’t much care about ideas or philosophy. That showed in his convention strategy and in Romney’s speech, which he apparently wrote. Responding to complaints about his stewardship, Stevens told Politico: “Politics is like sports. A lot of people have ideas, and there’s no right or wrong. You just have to chart a course, and stay on that course.” Not only is that not true of politics, as best I can tell it’s not even true of sports either.
Even the campaign’s ostensibly ideological ads and soundbites seem offered not as statements of conviction but as carefully — and sometimes not so carefully — crafted slogans aimed at telling the silly swing-voters what they most want to hear. I’m not naive; focus groups and poll data are part of politics, like it or not. But when conviction politicians use such tools it’s often as a way to make what they believe more salable. With the Romney campaign, all too often it seems like they’ve got it reversed. They’re trying to sell the voters on the idea that Romney believes something.
In fairness to Romney, I do think he believes things. The problem is he doesn’t have an organic understanding for politics or conservatism — I think I was the first to say a while back, he speaks conservatism as a second language. So when he tries to express his ideas he either sounds too detached or as if he’s parroting the idiom of a language he doesn’t fully understand.
That’s the problem with what he says in that video. It’s not that everything he says is wrong, it’s just that it’s wrong enough to both hurt him and make it hard to defend what he’s saying. Ironically, I think if he were less articulate (like George W. Bush) or even spoke with a foreign accent, this would be more clear. But it is precisely because he is such a precise speaker that he gets himself in so much trouble.
Yep - whether it's Mitt Romney's own words, those of his wife, or those of his cult - a listener actually understanding what's being said is the most destructive thing that can occur to his campaign. Or, I should say, self-destructive. I don't really mess with the "less than rational," and this campaign has had that element from the start (because of you-know-what,....) despite the best efforts of the desperate Obama haters to keep it under wraps.
You guys did good - you scared me there for a while - but I told you five months was too long to keep Mittens under wraps, and now HE'S the one who's desperate:
That's not a situation ol' Deer-In-The-Headlights-And-Voice-Getting-Shakey excels in.
Really:
Really:
I'm preparing for what possibly could be one of the greatest unravelings in political history,...
Friday, November 26, 2010
Media: This Video Is An Attack On Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin struck back at the media that bothered reporting her slip of the tongue about our "ally" North Korea.
In a Facebook posting entitled "A Thanksgiving Message to All 57 States," Palin mocked news outlets for not giving similar coverage to gaffes made by Barack Obama:
My fellow Americans in all 57 states, the time has changed for come. With our country founded more than 20 centuries ago, we have much to celebrate – from the FBI’s 100 days to the reforms that bring greater inefficiencies to our health care system. We know that countries like Europe are willing to stand with us in our fight to halt the rise of privacy, and Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s. And let’s face it, everybody knows that it makes no sense that you send a kid to the emergency room for a treatable illness like asthma and they end up taking up a hospital bed. It costs, when, if you, they just gave, you gave them treatment early, and they got some treatment, and ah, a breathalyzer, or an inhalator. I mean, not a breathalyzer, ah, I don’t know what the term is in Austrian for that…
Of course, the media is reporting this as an attack on Obama - not on a liberal media which never considers Obama's gaffes newsworthy, but, at the slightest prompting, has been determined to wrongly spread the "Sarah's so stupid" meme. (Palin said she didn't mention all of Joe Biden's famous gaffes because she "didn’t have enough time." Which makes sense because, at this point, it would probably take until 2012 to list them all.)
Anyway - enjoy this. It's probably the only thing you'll see from this joker that can still raise a smile.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
You Are Not Alone
"This is historic. No matter what your political beliefs, no matter who you voted for, this is a time for all Americans to stand back and watch, awestruck, as the seemingly impossible has actually, really happened. As an American I can’t help but be choked up by the amazing sight at Grant Park, Illinois on election night, a sight I never thought I’d see in my lifetime.Joe Biden has been elected vice president of the United States.
Say it aloud! There was a time when such a thing would be unthinkable, laughable. But, there it is — Joe Biden,..."
-- Dave Konig, acknowledging something that's truly mind-blowing, in The National Review.
Friday, November 7, 2008
All The World's A (NewAge) Stage
Hoo-boy, right out the box, Barry delivers TMR Gold:
At his very first press conference, Barack Obama was asked if he had talked to any "former Presidents", and his answer was that he had talked to "all the former Presidents, that are living,..." Then, in order to cover for that bizarre gaffe, he compounded it by saying, "I didn’t want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about doing any séances." Doh!
For the record, it was Hillary Clinton who did the séance, using supposed psychic Jean Houston to "channel" FDR's wife. (A NewAge belief that certainly confirmed she was "the most qualified" person to be POTUS.) Former First Lady Nancy Reagan consulted an astrologer after Reagan was shot.
Still no word on where Obama stands on all the cultishly NewAge tomfoolery (possible ambassador) Oprah Winfrey is notorious for believing in. I'm sure he'll get around to that at his next press conference.
UPDATE: The question, from the reporter, was has Obama spoken to any "former presidents who are alive", which is dumb, so it would make some sense for him to answer as he did, but he still didn't have to go there. He's supposed to be "smart", y'know?
It's situations like this when you know there's only one place to be - only one place that has an expert on the mixture of politics and the metaphysical - and that place is your friendly neighborhood:
Sunday, September 21, 2008
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