Tea Party Guy Wins in Texas

Tea Party favorite Ted Cruz won the runoff to be the GOP Senate nominee in Texas against establishment favorite Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst.

If you’re not familiar with Cruz, let me mention that Sarah Palin endorsed him, and that’s about all you need to know.

Cruz and Dewhurst had the same positions on the issues (as far-right as you can go without falling off the edge), but Cruz articulated those positions in a way more pleasing to the bat-shit crazy contingent’s ears.

Another bad day for sanity in this country.

Quote of the Day

“I think this trip was a great success.”  Romney senior strategist Stuart Stevens.

Mr. Stevens’ nose suddenly grew two inches immediately after he said this.

Mitt’s Decade of Zero Taxes?

Harry Reid is claiming that a Bain investor called him and said, “Harry, he [Mitt] didn’t pay any taxes for ten years.”

If this is true, we’re talking toast, people, really badly burned toast.

When in Trouble, Lie

In trouble for what he said about the Palestinians, Mitt is behaving like a five-year-old who ate the forbidden candy, and lying his tush off.  Now he’s claiming that he “did not speak about the Palestinian culture,” when he clearly did, negatively and explicitly contrasting their culture with that of the Israelis in terms of their per capita GDP.

How he thinks denying that he said what he said is going to help him is beyond me.  It prolongs the controversy and adds another dimension to it.   It makes him look even more strange, untrustworthy, and unfit for the Oval Office.

His staff continues to be bush league.  His traveling press secretary had a nasty encounter with reporters in Poland, telling them to “shove it” and “kiss my ass.”

Except for his hefty fundraising, the trip was a disaster, and Mitt was an embarrassment to the GOP and the country.

 

Another Clean-Up on Aisle Mitt

Mitt seems to be morphing into Triumph the Insult Dog.  Someone needs to lock him in a kennel, strap the kennel to the roof of a plane, and fly him home.

It’s one think to insult the British, who won’t stop being BFF’s with us.  I can imagine President Obama and David Cameron having a good laugh about Mitt “Middle of Nowhere” Romney.

But now Mitt has insulted the Palestinians, and they’re not going to laugh it off.  In a speech in Israel, he basically called them lazy and stupid because they lag Israel economically and said the Israelis were “culturally” superior.  Cause we don’t already have enough problems in the Arab world.

And once again, Mitt’s crack staff got their facts wrong.  In his speech, Mitt said that per capita GDP is $21,000 in Israel, compared to $10,000 in the West Bank and Gaza.  He got that hugely wrong.  Israel has a per capita GDP of $31,000, while it’s $1,500 for the Palestinians.

Mitt runs around saying this offensive stuff, but the Obama Administration, which actually has to govern and not just cram their mouths full of feet, has to clean up his mess.

 

 

Mitt Offers a Little Irony on Health Care

Mitt lavishly praised the Israeli health care system for providing great care to all its citizens, while spending only 8% of its GDP on health care, compared to almost 18% in the U. S.

Israel has a European-style system with far more government control than Obamacare.  Everyone has to buy insurance from one of a few competing non-profit insurance companies.  Those companies must agree to take everyone regardless of pre-existing conditions and to include benefits specified by the government.

So Mitt expressed great enthusiasm for  a system that is much more government-run than Obamacare,  while promising to repeal Obamacare because it gives too much power to the government.

Mitt, are you listening to yourself?

 

Drip, Drip, Drip

Although Mitt is still refusing to release more tax returns, his campaign has denied that there were years when he paid no income taxes.

But when asked in Israel if there were years then he paid less than the 13.9% revealed in what he has released, Mitt demurred and said he hadn’t done the calculations.

If he’d never paid less than 13.9%, I think he’d know because he released 23 years worth to McCain, so now the guessing game is what percentage between 0 and 13.9% are we talking about.

If he’s a one percenter not just in terms of income, but in terms of taxes paid, that doesn’t look good.

On the Same Page?

Mitt in Israel today:  “We should employ any and all measure to dissuade the Iranian regime from its nuclear course, and it is our fervent hope that diplomatic and economic measures will do so.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today:  “We have to be honest and say that all the sanctions and diplomacy so far have not set back the Iranian program by one iota.”

Bibi, Obama has guts and Mitt does not.  When it comes to Iran, you’re really better off not changing horses in mid-stream.  Because you need a war horse, not a dressage horse.

Mitt the Wimp

Back on October 19, 1987, Newsweek had a cover story on George H. W. Bush and “The Wimp Factor.”  He won in 1988, basically because the country wanted a third Reagan term, but lost in 1992, when he ran on his own, with the Reagan glow faded.  He famously looked at his watch during a presidential debate and sounded too patrician when he asked for “just a splash” more coffee at a NH diner.

Newsweek latest cover is also about “The Wimp Factor,” this time applied to Mitt, who is not running as the vice presidential heir to a popular president.

The story is sure to generate some buzz for Newsweek, which desperately needs it.  It won’t help Mitt because the Gucci loafer definitely fits.  He’s much more of a wimp than Bush 41, who was a fighter pilot in WWII and ran the CIA.  He’s definitely a “just a splash” guy.

What Newsweek calls wimpy, I call preppy.  I believe that the less preppy-seeming person usually wins.  Both Obama and Mitt went to prep school (Obama on scholarship).  But Mitt seems so much more preppy, just as John Kerry and Al Gore both seemed more preppy than Bush 43, even though all three went to elite prep schools.  Bush played the pork-rind-loving Texan all the way to the Oval Office.

Mitt the Milquetoast

Well, this has the Iranians shaking in their boots (or shaking with laughter).  Here’s Mittens in Israel today being his usual milquetoast-y self:

“I respect the right of Israel to defend itself, and we stand with Israel in peace.”

He sounded more concerned about, and critical of, British preparation for the Olympics than Iranian preparation for nuclear weapons.

Whatever the issue, the right words and tone seem to elude him.