Saturday Reads: Petraeus and Broadwell, Romney’s “Concession,” and the Race-Based Campaign
Posted: November 10, 2012 Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, John McCain, misogyny, Mitt Romney, morning reads, U.S. Military, U.S. Politics, War on Women | Tags: Benghazi attacks, CIA, concession speech, David Atkins, David Petraeus, FBI, Holly Petraeus, Mary Elizabeth Williams, Michael J. Morrell, Paula Broadwell, race baiting, Racism, Scott Broadwell 66 Comments
Good Morning!!
I guess the biggest story of the day is the resignation of General David Petraeus as head of the CIA, although the aftermath of the election is still my main focus–yes, I’m still wallowing in it! Anyway, on Petraeus, Bloomberg Businessweek reports that:
CIA Director David H. Petraeus, the retired four-star general widely commended for his oversight of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, resigned after an FBI investigation uncovered evidence of an extramarital affair.
The affair was discovered during an unrelated Federal Bureau of Investigation probe into whether one of Petraeus’s computers was compromised by someone else using his e-mail account, according to three U.S. officials who asked not to be named because the matter involves classified information.
Like Petraeus, the woman in question, Paula Broadwell (am I the only one who can’t help smirking a little at that name?), is married–to Scott Broadwell,
For the record, Petraeus has been married to a woman named Holly Petraeus for over three decades, while Broadwell is married and has two kids with Scott Broadwell. He’s a specialist in interventional radiology in Charlotte, N.C. The couple has two sons, Lucien and Landon. They met in Germany while training to become ski patrollers and are “adventure junkies,” according to Paula.
Newsweek/The Daily Beast published a piece by Broadwell just last week called General David Petraeus’s Rules for Living. There isn’t anything on the list specifically about cheating on your spouse, but there is this:
5. We all will make mistakes. The key is to recognize them and admit them, to learn from them, and to take off the rear view mirrors—drive on and avoid making them again.
In today’s The Daily Beast, Isabel Wilkinson called the book “glowing” and “fawning.”
Broadwell is the author, with Vernon Loeb, of All In: The Education of General David Petraeus, a glowing 400-page biography of Petraeus, for which she was granted almost total access. After it was published in January, some said it read more like a love letter to the general than a biography. In a review for Rolling Stone, Michael Hastings called the book “a work of fan fiction so fawning that not even Max Boot—a Petraeus buddy and Pentagon sock puppet—could bring himself to rave about it.”
Ugh. She also provides more background on Broadwell.
Broadwell, 40, is a research associate at Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership–as well as a PhD. candidate in the department of war studies at King’s College in London. She is married to Scott Broadwell, an interventional radiologist. They live in the upper middle class Dilworth neighborhood of Charlotte, N.C., with their two sons, Landon and Lucien. She grew up in North Dakota, and attended West Point, the general’s alma mater, where she graduated with honors. She has worked for the U.S. Special Operations Command and an FBI joint terrorism task force. Beyond that, her list of accomplishments is long: she earned an MA from The University of Denver’s Korbel School of International Studies; an MPA from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and served as the deputy director of the Jebsen Center for Counter-Terrorism Studies at the Fletcher School at Tufts.
Physically, Broadwell is tall and stunning, with long dark hair and green eyes. According to her biography, she has been a “sponsored ½ Ironman triathlete” as well as a “female model/ demonstrator” for KRISS, a manufacturer of .45-caliber machine guns. (On LinkedIn, she lists her current employer as Equipe Broadwell, LLC, seemingly a part of the Carolinas Freedom Foundation, a veteran’s organization in Charlotte.
Broadwell first crossed paths with Petraeus in 2006, when he gave a lecture at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where she was pursuing her master’s degree. According to the preface of All In, she introduced herself after that lecture and told him about her academic research. He gave her his business card and offered to help. “I took full advantage of his open-door policy to seek insight and share perspectives,” she writes in the book. And so began an alleged relationship, which, if sources are to be believed, eventually led to the general’s resignation from the CIA on Friday.
Petraeus is 60. I guess that’s enough about the tawdry affair. We’ll probably find out a lot more than we ever wanted to know in the days in weeks to come. This will all be tied in with the right wing nutters’ endless Beghazi conspiracy theories too. Sigh…
According to Politico, acting CIA chief Michael J. Morrell will testify in place of Petraeus next week.
The resignation of CIA Director David Petraeus came less than a week before he was scheduled to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on the Sept. 11 attacks in Benghazi, Libya.
A spokesman for the committee said acting CIA Director Mike Morell would testify Thursday in place of Petraeus, who resigned Friday after admitting to an extramarital affair.
Now I’d like to return to something that has been bothering me post election: Mitt Romney’s pathetic concession speech. I thought it was utterly classless. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, since Romney’s entire campaign was awful–filled with lies, race-baiting, and embarrassing gaffes from beginning to end.
Fortunately, I wasn’t alone in my reaction to the brief speech that Romney hadn’t even bothered to write until after the election was declared for President Obama. Mary Elizabeth Williams’ piece about it at Salon speaks for me: Romney’s concession speech was not gracious. No, it was not at all gracious, but many writers said it was anyway. Williams:
It is a venerable tradition in American politics that no matter how ugly a bloodbath the campaign that preceded it may have been, on election night, the defeated candidate steps up and gives an elegant concession speech, thanking his supporters and pledging his loyalty to the victor. In return, the winning side politely vows to reach across the aisle, and lauds the loser’s “graciousness,” thereby assuring that no one can accuse the victorious side of anything resembling gloating.
Sure enough, after Mitt Romney’s five-minute parting words Tuesday evening – which actually came in the early hours of Wednesday morning – the governor was perfunctorily summed up in the punditsphere by the adjective of choice: The “Today” show declared that Romney’s speech was a “short but gracious” end to his six-year quest for the White House. Our own Salon staff called it a “gracious” speech. Even BuzzFeed called it “gracious,” pointing out its most “conciliatory and statesmanlike moments.” New York magazine, meanwhile, said that Romney “concedes with class.” Now, it may seem nitpicky to mention this while the door is still hitting the guy’s ass on his way out, but are you kidding me?
Here’s a bit of Williams’ reaction to the “speech” itself:
It’s true that when Romney took to the stage at last in Boston, right before 1 a.m., he didn’t kick over the podium, rip off his shirt and throw a chair into the audience. He didn’t spend the long minutes between victory being called for Obama and his acquiescence of the race hopping on a plane to Chicago so he could bum-rush the president’s victory speech. And he may not have spent that time holed up in a bunker with his advisers, making women cry.
Instead, he came out before the nation, put on his game face, and expressed his gratitude. He said, “We can’t risk partisan bickering and political posturing.” Good for him. He also sighed that his wife, Ann, “would have been a wonderful first lady,” and, in a statement that would not have been out of place coming from a partner at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, thanked his “sons for their tireless work on behalf of the campaign, and … their wives and children for taking up their slack as their husbands and dads have spent so many weeks away from home.” Seriously.
She then contrasts Romney’s concession to Obama with McCain’s graceful one in 2008. Please go read the whole thing.
The Washington Post’s David Beard talked to historian and author Scott Farris about Romney’s concession. Farris, the author of Almost President: The Men Who Lost The Race But Changed The Nation, said it barely “cleared the bar.”
Farris said Romney’s speech didn’t reflect the urgency of healing a divided nation: “While he congratulated Obama, he never really validated the result by saying ‘the people have spoken’ … Praying for the president is nice, but it is not the same as validating the election.”
Farris added that Romney did not expressly address unity. “He talked about putting aside partisanship, but he also said he had hoped to lead the nation in a different direction and remained concerned about the nation’s future. He also did not define what his campaign was about, except for a vague reference to “principles,” though he didn’t fully identify what those were. The reflections on the importance of teachers, pastors and parents hinted at something, but it was all implied, not explicitly stated.
“It was a speech that sounded as if he did not emerge from the election with much respect, let alone affection, for the president. He sounded as if he really expected to win and was immensely disappointed in the result — even more so than usual.”
And that’s exactly the case. Romney expected to win, despite the hundreds of polls that showed he was losing to a man that he sees as just one of “the help.”
I want to end with the most horrifying part of this election for me: the return of blatant, overt, up-front, out-in-the-open racism to the political sphere. Has it been there all along, and I just didn’t notice it? In 2008 I was shocked by the open misogyny that was unleashed against Hillary Clinton. This year, we’ve had both the Republican war on women and blatant race-baiting from the Republican nominee and his surrogates–most of all the detestable and repulsive John Sununu.
At DailyKos, David Atkins (AKA thereisnospoon) wrote a wonderful post about the racism, titled “Did they really think only old white men would hear the dogwhistles?”
Atkins suggests that racism is exactly the reason why Mitt Romney and his advisers didn’t believe that Barack Obama would win reelection, why they didn’t believe Democratic voters would be enthusiastic about going to the polls or that African Americans and young people would vote in the numbers they did in 2008. And I would add–the reason Romney didn’t bother to write a decent concession speech or show any respect for the man who soundly beat him. Atkins writes:
The question is, why did they believe this?
Despite the craziness of Sarah Palin, it’s important to remember that John McCain and most of the GOP establishment didn’t go hard after the Nixonland race card in 2008. Sure, there was some of that. But they knew that if they pushed it too hard, it would backfire on them.
In the intervening four years, the Republican message against Obama has been nothing but one long racist tirade.
Muslim. Kenyan. Foreign. Hussein. Doesn’t share our values. Not Christian. Wants to cut the work requirement in welfare. Obamaphones. “Holder’s People.” Black Panthers. “Moochelle Chewbacca Obama.” “The White Hut.” “Entitlement society.” “Makers versus takers.” Recovery, not dependency. Parasites….
Did they think African-Americans wouldn’t notice? Did they think only white people could hear those dogwhistles and outright racist primal screams?
Did they think Latinos wouldn’t hear the last four years of vitriol thrown at them and their families by Fox News and the fever swamps on the AM dial? That they could celebrate Jan Brewer’s and Joe Arpaio’s sick sadism and that Latinos wouldn’t take heed?
He includes visual aids too. I hope you’ll click the link to see and read the whole thing.
I want to end on a happier note, so I’ll return to Mary Elizabeth Williams’ blog at Salon: Let the post-Sandy election gloating continue!
Yes, you’re right, we’re gloating. You caught us. Maybe you’ve noticed it from our unstoppably gleeful tweets about what Christopher Hayes calls “overdosing on Schadenfreude” or the way we might have let it slip that, as Lindy West admits, “I am just 99 percent completely fucking delighted by every single weepy right-wing temper tantrum.” Perhaps you find it unseemly – you, the defeated but dignified Republican, or you, the Democrat who thinks this kind of whoop-whooping is beneath our kind. Bur bear with us. You see, some of us recently had a hurricane blow through our lives.
This election was nail-biting enough when it was just about Obama vs. Romney. But then it became more than just a big fat “Oh, phew!” regarding having a president who won’t actively try to sabotage our reproductive rights or marriage equality or the middle class. It became about not getting a guy who was pretty gung-ho on cutting federal funding for disaster relief. It became about simply not being able to bear another blow.
Again, Williams speaks for me. I intend to keep gloating as long as I possibly can.
Now it’s your turn. What are you reading on this fine Saturday morning?
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
grayslady
mablue2
JJ Lopez aka Minkoff Minx
peggysue22
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
The kindest thing that could happen after this race is for Fox to lose those viewers who were led down the path of “victory” only to hear “not so fast”.
Women made a difference this time around. Along with the youth vote that is not so easily persuaded to approve the bigotry and racism that crowded the coverage over the course of these last 4 years.
What the GoP fails to consider that yes, the face of America is changing. Young kids count gays as friends. They prefer to protect women against the radicalism that would turn them into baby machines while placing their lives at risk. They embrace climate change and science. They are more “secular” than their parents. They remember that they too have grandparents who may be placed in the line of fire over drastic budget cuts. They do not want war. They dislike those who spew their ignorance and are taken seriously. They appreciate facts. They approve of interracial dating and marriage. It is their “future” that concerns them not the ideology of idiots who believe humans and dinosaurs co existed.
Mitt’s arrogance did him in at the end. You can lie for so long until it finally bites you in the butt. Mitt has led a life of privilege but the funniest photo came at the finality.
Driving up to his Boston headquarters on Tuesday night, Mitt was accompanied by a 15 car entourage. Convince that he had secured the win, he had arranged for a fireworks display to follow his acceptance speech.
But as the pundits called the race for Obama, that 15 car entourage made a hasty exit leaving Mitt to “bum” a ride back to Belmont in the backseat of his son’s car. The fireworks did not go off and the staff was left without access to credit cards to pay for their rides home.
A fitting end to a disastrous candidate, a shallow man, an entitled piece of work as he slunk out of Boston with his wounded ego and miserable pride in tow.
And the rest of the 47% could not have cared less.
Tell em’ sister!!!
Yes!
Whooop! We officially have another Democratic governor in WA state!
Hooray!!!
bb, I’m so glad you brought up Romney’s acceptance speech. I missed it, I went to bed thinking Ohio wouldn’t be decided that evening. At some point during the night, I saw part of it & was not impressed. What caught my attention was when he said he would pray for the prez & for America. Personally that struck a nerve – you fools f’d up & it’s going to take my prayers to save you from the doom you’ve inflicted upon this country. Next, I watched Morning Joe, which I just don’t do. The teaser that Elizabeth Warren would be on kept me tuned in. But first here comes Chris Matthews, with that stray lock of hair distracting me (who was in charge of hair & makeup backstage?). And he waxes awestruck over Romney’s speech & screwed up his face over Obama’s acceptance speech (even after Joe had praised it!). Here’s a link about Matthews from Mediaite: http://www.mediaite.com/tv/chris-matthews-unimpressed-by-obamas-speech-praises-romneys-manliness-grace-and-spirituality/ The video is there in case you missed – be prepared to barf. For me this topped the tingle up the leg moment of 2008.
Someone (I think ralph) put up a link last night with a map detailing where those disgusting racist tweets following the election originated. It was surprising to see that besides AL & MS, they came from across the country. Florida & Texas tied with a 1.3 rating.
I’ve thought racism drove the hate from the beginning, but I was amazed at the violent eruption of it to the surface once the race really started. It is incomprehensible to me that anyone, at any time throughout history, could ever believe that the color of a person’s skin or their anatomy could automatically put them in the underclass. I know those ideas have existed throughout history, but it still makes no sense to me whatsoever. Humans, as a species, are more alike than they are different just like any other species. Individuals of each species make differ somewhat in several ways, but the underlying structure determines who/what they are.
Thanks for another thoughtful Saturday morning post.
Yes. If Tweety doesn’t like a speech that’s a sure sign it’s a great winner with me and most other people. He’s weird that way.
Allen West is finally really gone after a judge thew him out of court, isn’t he?
Personally, I find the “Wingnut Tears of Impotent Rage” to be delicious and soul satisfying.
I think the West/Murphy race is still undecided. West filed an injunction but it was rejected by the court. I guess we’ll know more on Monday.
According to Rove Obama “suppressed the vote”. Hello!
Florida and Ohio anyone? Both states with GOP legislatures and “friendly” election officials were in the pockets of the RNC for months.
And according to Bill O’Reilly those “slutty” single women voted for Obama to keep their contraceptives.
They don’t get it. Probably never will. But when you continue to listen to the likes of Rush, Hannity, Coulter, Malkin, Palin, etc., you are able to wallow in your own sense of victimhood.
Rove is living in adject terror of his gravy train leaving him at the station. The political genius has been exposed & it ain’t pretty. He may be running politics central from his basement next time around.
O’Reilly is a buffoon, who should be tried as a co-conspirator in Dr. Teller’s murder. He loves nothing more than the sound of his own voice. Limbaugh has a $50 million/year contract to protect, so the hate & stupidity will continue until his audience dies.
Rove should be shunned! But, I’ve thought that since he was doing politics in TX before he latched onto Dubya.
Thank you for a wonderful comment, Connie. I couldn’t bring myself to include those racist tweets in the post. They made me so sick yesterday. I just can’t believe there are so many racists left in this country–and so many young ones! But it’s clear they are out there. The good news is that there weren’t enough of them to elect Romney.
I saw the Tweety reaction to Romney’s non-concession. I have no idea where that came from. The most likely reason Romney came out alone was because Ann and Jana Ryan were sobbing uncontrollably and Paul Ryan was in shock.
The posts didn’t surprise me. My surprise came from the attached photos. They all looked so young. I believed the younger generation was so different from ours, having grown up in a mostly desegregated world. That link I mentioned showed that the number of tweets was really, really small, which was encouraging to me.
They probably hadn’t untied Ryan yet to keep him under control.
Considering how some very young people use the n-word now, it’s not always used in a racist manner. That’s encouraging to me.
Speaking of Ryan.
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2012/11/10/ryan_lost_his_hometown_badly.html
Gosh I missed that link. I wonder how it compares with this:
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/hate-map
I tracked down the link ralph posted on Friday’s post: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/where-americas-racist-tweets-come-from/265006/
This specifically was looking at the racist tweets sent after the election was called.
I would imagine that tweet origins move around a little, like blog origins do on Topix. I also think some of these folks are not so well trained as survivalists. This kind of free speech surely places you on several maps.
Crusaders of Yawah is in ND and several other states and the tweet signal in ND appears to match on of their locations. The one one the east side of WA may also be coming from a town near Sandpoint ID, where Paul Mullet and gang recently lived. He has since moved back to Chillicothe OH, where he has become a registered lobbyist and formed the American National Socialist Party. However, there may be a few leftovers near Sandpoint.
CA has the most hate groups by far, but had relatively few tweets. Even so, there appeared to be a correlation. Maybe CA hategroups were prepared for who was to win.
I’ll bet if you checked all the points there would be a close correlation with the hate groups or maybe prisons.
On the Petraeus/Broadwell news story, my personal comment is that both were old enough to know better & stupid. I saw her on Jon Stewart & thought she sounded like a groupie. I wasn’t impressed. I will share this from ATC yesterday afternoon that thoroughly pissed me off, especially from EJ Dionne (who was appalled by the “free contraception” mandate because of his Catholicism). David Brooks pretty much pisses me off all of the time.
Here’s a link to the full transcript: http://www.npr.org/2012/11/09/164819157/week-in-politics-fiscal-cliff-gop-soul-searching
Ugh! Frankly I was never all that impressed with Petraeus. Maybe it was because of his association with Bush. Apparently, his coworkers and underlings at the CIA didn’t like him very much.
Call me crazy, but I am always hesitant when anyone is touted as the 2nd coming. The praise, from day 1, for Petraeus has been over the top, IMHO. Too good to be true is more often than not – really not all that good. Seriously, are either Iraq or Afghanistan really “fixed?”
This is my first comment here. Since I’ve led a sheltered life, mostly only blogging at the GOS, I’ve never heard of Sky Dancing until last night. I looked up an old friend and she said she had been “hanging out here.” I thought I might stop in and say “Hello.”
On David Pertraeus, what a shame. First to see a good man go down over an affair and now a nation that is obsessed with scandal will have a new focus point other than actual news. Paula Broadwell will probably become the biggest star since Evelyn Nesbit Thaw. I see a talk show in her future. As to the part I will follow, our President getting “advise and consent” from Congress in nominating a new CIA Director, that will be an embarrassing Republican display of stupidity.
On the wingnut end, I’d rather chew glass than watch FOX News but I’m already receiving text messages about how this is a “Benghazi cover-up,” so there’s that. Well at least the incoming messages about “Fast and Furious” have petered off. I wonder if there is such a thing as a text message restraining order? There should be don’t you think. Something like cutting someone off when he has sent 100 text without a single reply.
So Romney’s concession speech was classless? What a shock. I don’t have an opinion on it because I didn’t listen. He gone, stick a fork in him, he can take his ball and go home. All done with no shot in 2016. I just hope Linda McMahon has another $100 million to toss into the Connecticut economy.
Okay, so what am I reading? Nothing. I just finished listening to “Click and Clack” and now I’m enjoying “Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me.” They are presently having fun with recreational marijuana. I do have The New York Times spread out. But I’m mostly browsing reviews of “Lincoln” and the show I’m seeing tonight “If There Is I Haven’t Found It” That should hit the spot “an entertaining look at a regular family stuck somewhere between knowing what the problem is… and doing something about it,” with both Brían F. O’Byrne and Jake Gyllenhaal.
Hi Eddie and welcome to Sky Dancing! We’re glad you’re here.
Hello and thanks for the welcome.
Welcome, Eddie. Just one point about your comment. We’re not just a nation obsessed with scandal, we’re a world obsessed with scandal. It’s not unique to the U.S. although I guess it could be said that there are people in some parts of the world who are more concerned with surviving until tomorrow. Interesting point. Nice to have you here.
Hello, I don’t know much about the rest of the world. Haven’t gotten out of this country since 1997 and there has been much “cultural” change since then. I did just see an amazing half hour of television about six people and communities with much better things to do with themselves in The New Environmentalists From Kenya to the Arctic Circle.
Warning, the link goes to RedState but they have found part of the Rmoney problem. No winger is ever gonna admit the main problem though, which is their “message” sucks and people aren’t buying it anymore.
Campaign Sources: The Romney Campaign was a Consultant Con Job
Awwww, too bad, so sad for Mittens. He got played for a change. How is that shoe fittin’ Mitt?
Did anyone see the clip of Mitt & Ann leaving in their son’s car? I swear Ann had a beatific smile on her face, the likes of which I didn’t see throughout the campaign. That one looked genuine. My first thought, “she’s SO glad this is over.”
But Mittens was the great manager 🙂 I think that’s been thoroughly debunked by now. I wouldn’t blame Ann for being glad it’s over. Most human thing I’ve seen yet from her.
Though all the facts are not in so far, my conclusion, from what I have read, is the following:
A 60 year old married man had a fling with an ambitious married woman 20 years his junior who flattered the hell out of him and burnished his overinflated ego. Some people were aware of the liaison, others were not.
The FBI was called in because a) this lady was trying to access his Gmail account, or b) this lady was given more access to important files and documents than was necessary. Security may have been breeched along the way because some fool was drooling over another fool.
Either way, this man broke a few vows which were about to be revealed and did the only thing left to maintain some measure of dignity by resigning. The sympathy belongs to both his wife and the husband of the “girlfriend”.
She was his Rielle Hunter to his John Edwards. Foolish men who believed they would never be caught in the clutches of ambitious women believing they had found “love” in all the wrong places.
Of course if you listen to Fox this is just the beginning of a cover up to protect Obama from charges of possible impeachment when it is nothing more than another tawdry affair in a series of tawdry affairs that just keep on coming.
I was waiting for the “Petraeus fell on his sword for his CIC” from the looney bin at Faux News. No, Petraeus led with his sword & got it caught in the elevator door.
Bwahahahahaha
“Of course if you listen to Fox this is just the beginning of a cover up to protect Obama from charges of possible impeachment”
I don’t see how any reasonable, thinking person could see the resignation of Petraeus as anythng other than what it is, He got caught with his pants down and it appears that his access to secure information was or could have been breached by his lover.
If there was some sort of “don’t tell on me and I won’t tell on you” blackmail going on here, then Petraeus would still have his job. What sort of blackmail plot involves outing the evidence you’re holding the person hostage to?
Fox is for Stupid Asses!!!
That’s the problem in a nutshell.
This is interesting. There’s a possibility that Broadwell’s husband wrote in for advice from the NYT’s ethics expert about the fact that his wife was having an affair with a high profile government official.
http://gawker.com/5959398
I have a request from the brain trust here at SD. I know that someone said that Heitkamp is a moderate Dem. I heard this interview on NPR and, needless to say, I wasn’t a happy camper. This is the excerpt that set my teeth on edge:
Full interview here: http://www.npr.org/2012/11/09/164819171/north-dakotas-newest-senator-on-her-tax-plans
Sadly, I feel the prez will approve Keystone. I wish he would sit down with Bill McKibben (yeah, I’m delusional) or at least visit the site in Michigan where another tar sands pipeline destroyed a pristine river. Your thoughts, folks?
I don’t know what Obama will do about Keystone but I hope he doesn’t support it. Economic development is always a trade off of some kind, but with that pipeline the upside is just too small to even consider it. The risks are high and the payoff would be low.
Thank you for addressing Romney’s concession speech. I thought the same thing, it wasn’t gracious, he was a dick for waiting as long as he did to concede, and the remark about the help from his sons while their wives stayed home taking care of the kids got my hackles up. There was nothing classy or gracious about the speech just like there is nothing classy or gracious about him.
A vision without a plan of execution is an hallucination — the Romney campaign in ten words. He’s no great manager, he’s no great thinker, he’s really no business guru — when you are given $50 million in seed money and told to go out and root around for a company to pick clean and have all the time in the world to do it, all the company books and records, all the bought experts possible, Honey Boo Boo could have done the same thing every morning before her go-go juice.
Amen.
Dave Weigel recounts Bill Galston’s awful advice and predictions.
Bill Galston, America’s Wrongest Columnist
I actually stayed up and listened to both speeches. I thought Romney’s was very flat, sounded as if he’d written it on the wing and had more to do with disappointment, more shellshocked in nature than gracious. He and Paul Ryan left everything on the field? Delusions and bubble-resistent hubris were also left behind. When you start reading about the much touted ORCA fiasco, you can only assume that Romney has always lived in a very small capsule of yes men, people willing to say exactly what he wanted to hear: I will save America; I am a great financial mind; I cannot lose.
Hello?
I also listened to the President’s speech. It was excellent, one of his better presentations. I have to say I was genuinely surprised with the vid where Obama addressed his Chicago office and broke down. This was a long, ugly campaign and I think POTUS’s reaction is indicative of how grueling these presidential campaigns are–they eat you alive, regardless of how cool and composed you appear to be otherwise. It was a very human moment.
The Petraeus scandal is pretty wild and, of course, will lead to all sorts of conspiracy theories on the right. They’re out for blood now. Although from what I’m reading they’re really into eating their own and finding scapegoats for a stunning loss.
Should get very interesting!
What Romney and Ryan left on the field was a tribalism that would more than fit in to the caves of Afghanistan and the hills of Pakistan.
I don’t know whether most of you are old enough to remember this old nutbag, but he’s a great example of “tribalism”. Here’s his latest example or rightwing nut batshittery”
“For over 200 years, we were the most successful, admired and envied nation in world history. Unashamedly, we declared ourselves to be a Christian nation, granting security and protection to all faiths, creeds and ethnicities. Our laws demanded obedience to the laws of God – because they had proven to be the best ever conceived for creating and maintaining a healthy, productive and fair society. Friend, our people have rejected the very same God and His way, and clamored after a king who has promised to provide, protect and lead them into a Promised Land where ‘everybody has everything.’ So that same God must take His hand off those who have rejected Him and allow them to reap the consequences.” – Pat Boone, writing for World Net Daily.”
And all this time I thought your white-buck shoes had no subliminal message. Go luxuriate yourself in one of those overpriced walk-in tubs you hawk to seniors, you old saggy bag of hot air.
Let me pose a question here: why is Pat Boone not blaming god in all this?
I mean when you listen to these gasbags extol “god’s word and will” you would assume that they are on the side of the angels wouldn’t you?
How come god has no control over these pesky voters who see it otherwise? Seems to me they are placing the blame in the wrong places.
If god can send devastating storms and considers rape a blessing in disguise, then why is god not capable of forcing the voter to cast their ballots for his team?
Just asking. So little of their arguments make any sense that having to pose the obvious seems kind of hateful.
God seems unable to force world peace, end hunger, and stop suffering too. You’d think he’d spend more time on that sending hurricanes to cities that don’t persecute their gay citizens.
C’mon folks. The standard answer to all of these queries is “god works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform.” We mere mortals can’t understand his ways. Kind of like Mittens, “No questions, just trust me.” Do we really need any further evidence that god was made in Man’s image?
Pat. I’ve wondered for decades why these people insist that god is going to rain down vengence on everyone because I’m gay or because some people or groups of people do not live according to their christo biblical edict.
Why doesn’t their god just go straight at those who violate his biblical law? Why, instead, does he rain down terror, in the form of natural and man-made disaster that destroys everything in it’s path?, Does he do it because hoisting mass destruction on humankind is an act of divine love? Divine mercy? How blindly indoctrinated do you have to be to not see the contradictions or schizophernia in their god. Loving, compassionate and forgiving until he decides he isn’t. .
There’s no way to understand how their brains work..Boone is just an old has-been windbag who would have faded into the sunset 40 years ago if not for CBN and a gig selling bathtubs.
That’s a deep statement Dak.
Some American are Christian, but America is not a Christian nation. America is a nation with a civil-legal framework that says church and state should be separate.
Pat Boone is doing the ol’ selective Bible-reading again, and forgot the part about “Render unto Ceasar that which is Ceasar’s.”
Christians aren’t a monolith either. Not all of them are crazy nuts like Pat Robertson or Mike Huckabee …
At least I don’t think they’re all nuts …
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/huckabee-any-time-we-lose-its-because-christians-just-didnt-show-and-vote
Peggy, what about those women you had wrote about that were running for office in New Mexico? (There may have been from other states too…)
Morning, or should I say good afternoon? I have to agree with Williams, I thought that concession “speech” was crap…and sounded to me like the kind of thing, or apology, you would hear a asshole bully give the kid he has just beat up. Okay Mitt, tell Barry you’re sorry…I wonder if Mitt had his fingers crossed behind his back?
Here in Banjoville we felt an earthquake today: Earthquake rattles eastern Kentucky – U.S. News
Romney figured he “had it in the bag” after the first debate.
By pushing, shoving, and belligerantly flaunting “the rules”, along with a handicapped moderator and a president who looked like he was writing out his Christmas card list, the pundits gave him reason for hope.
The write-ups the day after described a man who had “found his voice” (after how many years of campaigning?) and showed him swaggering across the set as if he had bought and paid for it, Romney saw an uptick in the polls that had thus far eluded him and gave him a false sense of victory based on that one performance alone.
And why not? He had eluded the press from questioning. He refused to reveal his tax returns. He banned any talk of specifics on his budget plan. His lies never seem to do him much harm even when the fact checkers called him out. It was brilliant! Up to a point.
If all you have ever heard was how great you are then the shock had to have come when Ohio was called leaving you as nothing more than a “blip” on the radar then of course you would be left speechless. Defeat was never a consideration after that first debate which marked you as a “winner”.
Then look how fast the Secret Service pulled up stakes leaving you to call a cab or ride the T back to Belmont. Will he still be paying for those fireworks that never went off?
Thankfully I think we have seen the end of Mitt Romney leaving him plenty of time to wax those multiple Cadillacs.
Bet he isn’t taking any calls from Dick Morris or Karl Rove.
With what I imagine is Rmoney’s ego, he still hasn’t accepted that he lost or he’s fallen into a depression. Either way, his easy life changed for the worse and it’s about fucking time.
Allen West is officially gone! Obama officially wins Florida.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/267209-president-obama-wins-florida
MSNBC announced that Florida was decided for Obama but I heard no mention of Allen West. I fear he won’t be gone for long. Faux News will, no doubt, add his “voice of the Right & Righteous” to their panel of goof balls. They can check off the AA diversity box on their march to inclusion. I’ll bet he will be seated at the table by the kitchen, however.
He’ll be a tea party radio or tv fixture, we can bet on that. He still can’t vote on legislation from that perch near the kitchen though. Wonder if he’ll have to sit at the kid’s table?
Bono lost in CA. I didn’t know she was married to Florida’s Connie Mack III (who lost his race to Bill Nelson). No doubt they will stay in DC & become lobbyists.
I read they are the first couple to ever lose together. Was heart warming 😉
Seems fortunate that they found each other. Mack’s father wasn’t a half bad senator. He worked frequently with both former Senator Bob Graham (D) & Senator Bill Nelson (D).
I remember him. Compared to Mary Bono, Sonny was a bipartisan jewel as well.
Gail Collins was very good here.
Happy Days, Even With the Cliff
lol!
So I guess if you want your leftie vote to count in 2014, you should consider moving to one of these states:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2012/11/09/senate-democrats-face-a-very-tough-2014-map/