Well, you know how that awful Obama person went and insulted our Cousins across the water by dissing the Churchill bust?
Fortunately, Mitt Romney, a.k.a. The Mighty Mighty White Man, hopped across the pond to set things straight.
Above was the result. That’s from The Sun. Very lively newspaper industry they still have over there. Here’s more on the subject.
Anyway, the White House has really, really been enjoying this. And and at least one of Romney’s likely supporters is highly dismayed:
As Charles Krauthammer, who is probably Obama’s most vitriolic foreign policy critic on the right, put it, Romney really didn’t have to do much more than show up for the trip to be a success. Instead, he opened his mouth and undermined both of his goals. Whatever the right might say about the Obama administration damaging the “special relationship” between the U.S. and U.K., Obama has never caused an incident like the one Romney did yesterday. As an exasperated Krauthammer remarked last night, “All Romney has to do, say nothing. It’s like a guy in the 100-meter dash. All he has to do is to finish, he doesn’t have to win. And instead, he tackles the guy in the lane next to him and ends up disqualified. I don’t get it.”
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Freudian?
Does he really want to be President, or is he Joe Biden on the Right?
rather sad, isn’t it, that this is the best that the 1% can offer
it is agonizing to watch the physical and psychological distress and discomfort exhibited by this guy
somewhere, someplace, some very wealthy and powerful people are in despair because their bet is crapping out.
You know that they are desperate to replace him with someone who at least releases a whiff of being a winner
If that’s an insult, he needs to spend more time around Don Rickles.
Brad you don’t claim to be a Democrat or a Republican, but I bet when you stand up straight you look like the speedometer needle in my truck when I’m traveling at 10 mph.
Uh-huh, and in 2008, I probably looked like you were going 110.
For me, it’s always about the candidate, not about the party. Sometimes the Democrats have the better candidate, sometimes the Republicans do. And often, neither.
Kathryn’s right about Mitt.
It really makes me wonder how he succeeded at building Bain Capital – was it just that he hired really well and then DIDN’T step in as deal closer? Or did he derail himself in business as often as he clearly does in politics?
I bet you’ve never gone over 52 mph.
Tired – This 1%?
http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/election/countymapredblue.png
2004 was a terrible time to be a Democrat. But now the shoe is on the other foot, and the awkward Massachusetts pol is in the other party.
He has no room to talk about anyone else’s Olympic Games in trouble. Romney’s formula for fixing Olympics is to put on your lobbying boots and wade into Washington hat in hand, looking for earmarks.
@Mark At Bain, he had probably did hire well. Also, the market was on his side. You know how in some real estate markets, you’d have to be a real loser not to make big bucks? He probably did just stay out of the way.
I dunno Tired Old Man. This election is mostly about economics. The clueless MA rich guy will win if we get a couple more bad job reports. Folks don’t really pay much attention to all the verbal faux pas.
“Mitt Romney, a.k.a. The Mighty Mighty White Man”
I am not sure the meaning intended by this statement, but after dwelling on it, isn’t it somewhat insulting?
I said he was “mighty,” didn’t I? Twice.
Seriously, I was just imbuing him with the aura of Great White Hope, whose subliminal mission is to deliver us from that scary “Kenyan” who seems to have so deeply traumatized such a wide swathe of the white electorate…
Would you call Obama, “The Might, Might Mulayto Man” fighting for the Great Mulatto Hope?
@bud – ” The clueless MA rich guy will win if we get a couple more bad job reports.”
Then the IL rich guy can go back to what he did prior, community action leader in Chicago. Things have kind of gone to hell there since he left.
@Kathryn – That’s one aspect of running a successful business, hiring the right people. As a stockholder would you have told him to be more involved if you were raking in money with him not micro-managing?
Kathryn, You hit the ball out of the park with your observation – “You know how in some real estate markets, you’d have to be a real loser not to make big bucks? He probably did just stay out of the way.” How soon we forget the late 90s and first half of the 2000s and the boom times in real estate and finance or did we retroactively forget.
Interesting column by Paul Krugman today about interest rates. The Federal Government can actually borrow money for a NEGATIVE interest rate. Astonishing isn’t it given that Spain has to pay a staggering 7+% to borrow. Never has there been a better time to borrow money to fix our dilapidated infrastructure and help states hire teachers, cops and firefighters. So what are we waiting for? Let’s borrow a couple trillion while raising taxes on the rich to pay for it. This austerity fetish is not getting us anywhere.
Nope, because that’s not what he is.
I explained what I think Obama is about, in racial terms, in my double-length column in 2008, “Barack Like Me.”
And that’s still what I think of him. And remember as you read that, that was in the context of an election in which I endorsed his opponent. Here’s the companion piece I wrote at the time about McCain.
@Brad – “Nope, because that’s not what he is.”
From Wikipedia:
Mulatto is a term used to refer to a person who is born from one white parent and one black parent, or more broadly, a person of mixed black and white ancestry
Obama’s mother was white, his father was black.
His black father abandoned him and he was raised by his white mother. Yet to the Democrats (and closet Democrats) Obama is “black”.
@bud
Still on that “teachers, firemen, and police” kick, huh? You never did explain how many unemployed people would be qualified for those jobs.
It’s funny how some people react to such a silly, light little throwaway item like this.
Mitt stepped in it, inviting satire. But some people react like I’ve crucified the guy by making fun of him. On Twitter, someone wrote, “Sorry Brad I can agree with you on so much, but when you go too far, you go too far. No longer following.”
I instantly wondered what he was reacting to — I couldn’t think what would provoke a reaction like that — and discovered to my surprise that it was this item…
I could understand if I had written something heavily critical, as I sometimes do — such as, say, this editorial about Mark Sanford. But THIS? Lighten up, people…
Kathryn,
I agree with your comment up until the part about being a real loser not to make the big bucks. As with most things, it’s harder than it looks to outperform the market. It takes skill, drive and a bit of luck (though we can make some of our luck).
It’s relatively easier to manage those producing the gains. Easier still to ride the cash pile – when times are good.
The poster child for this isn’t Romney; it’s Jonathan Gray. Mitt was the lottery winner, not the shrewd, committed investor.
1500 new jobs available at the Sumter tire plant.
http://www.wistv.com/story/19133482/1500-jobs-available-at-continental-tire-site
How does one borrow money for a negative interest rate? Do I loan Brad $1000 and set it up for 10 $80 payments and consider it a good business transaction?
@Doug,
I suspect, the policeman, fireman, and teachers who have been cut previously will qualify for those jobs – they may be underemployed right now, instead of unemployed, but if/when they are able to go back to teaching, policing, and being fireman, they will free up the jobs they were holding when underemployed for the unemployed to fill.
Well, Mark, you are the expert. Bulls eat, bears eat but pigs go hungry, or the Burnie Maybank version, “pigs eat but hogs get et.” From my remove, it seems like in a boom real estate market, the trick is to get out before it crashes. You can make money easily early on with a modicum of smarts, but you have to figure everyone else has a high-end loft project for downtown, too. Get in and get out quick. The ones who move slowly or underestimate turn around time get stuck in a downturn.
Interesting, even sound commentary, but very shortsighted.
“Does he really want to be President…?” -KF
Other of Mitt’s statements have certainly cast far more serious doubts on the sincerity of his candidacy than his Olympics question.
In fact, I understand the reason for his question and, at least to me, it adds credibility to his sincerity.
Consider: Mitt is credited not only with business acumen at Bain Capital, but with relevant success at the U.S. Winter Olympics (2002) – one year after 9-11.
Before Romney, the event was running a $379 million budget deficit with plans to scale back the Games or move them entirely under consideration. Under Romney’s leadership, however, the Games ended up clearing a profit of $100 million, despite the threat of terrorism.
Romney could not attend the London 2012 games without addressing the a priori probability of terrorism (which his question did), to which UK officials replied in the affirmative.
Had Romney not asked, and were a terrorist act to occur in London’s Olympics venue, the MSM would have discredited Romney’s involvement for the security preps in Salt Lake just in time for November.
Obama’s latest executive order… race-based discipline in public schools.
http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/27/obama-backs-race-based-school-discipline-policies/
@Scout
How many of those jobs are we talking about? Think there are enough to move the unemployment rate under 8% nationwide?
Die deutsche Flussgabelung
Complete with digraph S?! Wer sind Sie?
And Steven: the Daily Caller?
Hmmm. Someone must’ve had a bad weekend; 10 posts on a single thread.
@Kathrine – I saw the link on another forum. But did you notice that this story was ignored by main stream media?
@Kathrine – Here’s another link, more to your liking.
http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/07/africanamerican-leaders-join-obama-for-executive-order-130234.html
Kathryn,
I am not expert on anything.
You talking’ to me?
It may have been ” ignored ” by reputable media because it lacks indicia of truth.
@Kathryn – No I’m apparently talking to a brick wall.
So the main stream media doesn’t report on the president’s executive orders?
Here’s a more credible source for the “truth”.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/07/26/executive-order-white-house-initiative-educational-excellence-african-am
@Kathryn
What was untruthful? The photo in the Oval Office from last week shows Obama surrounded by purported black leaders as he signed a bill to create another government department specifically tasked with helping blacks with their education needs.
The timing of this executive order is “interesting” as the issue of black students lagging behind others apparently just cropped up recently. Couldn’t have anything to do with the election in November, right? It’s very convenient to establish this department three plus years into his first term so that we voters wouldn’t actually have to measure the outcomes before Obama’s re-election. Oh, I am so cynical… And how will we measure this federal program’s success? Answer: we won’t.
Just a bunch of educrat jobs pushing around papers and collecting big salaries. Won’t help educating students a bit.
Steven called it race-based discipline in public schools.
@Doug – The only one missing from that picture was the distinguished Rev. Jesse Jackson and that’s just because he’s trying to figure out how to explain his career politician son who apparently has decided to finish out his term in the nervous hospital.
“(vi) reducing the dropout rate of African American students and helping African American students graduate from high school prepared for college and a career, in part by promoting a positive school climate that does not rely on methods that result in disparate use of disciplinary tools, and by supporting successful and innovative dropout prevention and recovery strategies that better engage African American youths in their learning, help them catch up academically, and provide those who have left the educational system with pathways to reentry;”
That’s the text from the executive order. Sure does read like there would be a focus on “disciplinary tools” specifically for African Americans.
This should be a state issue and not fall under the domain of the federal government. It’s bureacracy pure and simple.
It’s also telling that it was not played up in the media by the White House. Wouldn’t want to put Obama on the spot to answer any questions about why he took over 3 years to even address this issue.
Pure political theatre combined with another wasteful expenditure of tax dollars.
Doug… the thing you just quoted sounds for all the world like the sort of thing that presidents do day in, day out, that does NOT make news under normal circumstances.
I’m for doing away with the federal Department of Education. But as long as there is one, I suppose this is the kind of thing it will be up to…
Oh, and what if it DOES promote disciplinary tools especially aimed at young black males? (Which, by the way; is not how I read that. I read it as saying something other than disciplinary tools needs to be tried.)
Basically, it seems to be saying that “the usual stuff isn’t working with these kids; let’s try something else.”
And that part — about the usual stuff not working — is something it seems we have something like a national consensus on. Both whites and blacks wring their hands constantly about what to do about dysfunction among young black males. So this seems designed to try to address this.
Seems like everyone would have a stake in getting more young black guys to get diplomas and to stay out of the criminal justice system.
If you don’t think there are already two sets of rules in public schools in Columbia based on race, you haven’t spent much time in them lately.
If you think the federal government can solve the problem from the top down, you’re living in a dream world.
Okay, Brad, now you are the one being disingenuous…
How do you mean, Mark?
And Doug: I just said I agree with you that there shouldn’t be a federal Department of Education. But as I said, as long as there is one, I suppose this is the sort of thing that you would expect it to be doing.
Certainly nothing particularly newsworthy about it. There’s nothing at all surprising about the phenomenon it seeks to address. I hate to be cynical, but yet another program aimed at trying to help young black males with their achievement gap is pretty much dog-bites-man, and not the other way around.
Oh, I meant that people who get worked up about this story (Doug’s perspective on tax waste excepted) – as on the Daiy Caller blog (whatever that is) – seem to exhibit a certain racially tinged perspective. So I thought it cynically amusing that you said “seems like everyone would have a stake in getting more young black guys to get a diploma.”
@Kathryn – Did you read the first paragraph? In most newspaper articles it give you pretty much all you need to know.
“President Barack Obama is backing a controversial campaign by progressives to regulate schools’ disciplinary actions so that members of major racial and ethnic groups are penalized at equal rates, regardless of individuals’ behavior.”
“Basically, it seems to be saying that “the usual stuff isn’t working with these kids; let’s try something else.””
So Brad, you’re in favor of this? Discipline for whites and less strict discipline for blacks because they have a higher drop out rate?
If a black student and a white student get in a fight, you’re saying it’s okay for the white student to get a 3 day suspension and the black kid has to clean erasers after school for one day. This is the type of crap that makes people put their kids in private school.
I agree with Brad – I read it to be saying, let’s try the carrot more now and lay off the stick to get these kids engaged.
So would y’all also be in favor of trusting SC to provide special education, which currently is federal, assuming the federal department of ed were to go away. My turn to be cynical now. I wouldn’t trust SC to do special needs kids justice.
Yes, Scout, this…