Tuesday Mop-UP 

A Few hours after Gate, Chait makes the same point about the awkward dichotomy between Christie and Ann Romney on the matter of love.

However, he then comes up with a more clever point:

"The theme of Chris Christie's keynote address tonight was toughness, leadership, disregarding the polls, and doing the hard, unpopular thing..."...You see, Mr. President — real leaders don't follow polls. Real leaders change polls."...

...I see two problems with this choice.

First, it's an awfully strange way to attack President Obama, who pushed for all sorts of policies — health care reform, a reorganization of the financial sector, an endorsement of gay marriage — that carried huge political risks. Second, it's an even worse endorsement of Mitt Romney, who at every stage of his career has remade himself into whatever the electorate at any given moment appeared to desire." http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/08/chris-christie-against-love-except-of-self.html nymag.com   

Chait, with a nod to Robert Caro, bitch slaps Artur Davis (and Charlie Crist). http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/08/arthur-davis-latest-betrayed-democrat.html nymag.com   

Arizona GOP bags a Quayle. Arizona House primary results: Ben Quayle booted from Congress www.politico.com

The Platform 

The Romney campaign defines the enemy:

Welfare Queens and fact checkers. Romney Camp Bets On Welfare Attack www.buzzfeed.com    

The GOP platform: It's the Stupidity, Stupid. GOP platform: the 10 oddest items www.washingtonpost.com  

It would be unfair to say that the Republican platform endorses genocide against LGTB persons abroad; however, it would be fair to say that this is the one area in which the GOP respects the sovereignty of foreign nations. Draft GOP Platform Defends Anti-Gay Laws in Africa www.motherjones.com   

Rand Paul 

Rand Paul seems an odd choice as the voice of the GOP's Asian outreach. 

Rand tells us about the Cambodians making donuts and other heroic Oriental entrepreneurs.

Imagine how difficult it would be for the Tang family if there were no roads to get to their donut shop.

Pol Pot didn't like infrastructure either.  

Rand Paul seems to think who gets to appoint the Supreme Court is the dispositive issue.

For once, we are in agreement.  

Rand is now regurgitating the Paul family viewpoint on national security. It is only for a couple of minutes, but it has got to be an uncomfortable moment for Romney. That being said, it's not quite like letting Buchanan mount the podium.  

You did build that. Rinse. Repeat.  

MSNBC might do well to learn that letting Rand Paul and the rest of the clown car talk is far more damning to the GOP than cutting away to a panel discussion about what dicks they are.  

Ron Paul is undecided. Maybe Romney, maybe Johnson, maybe he'll stay home.

His supporters will do what they want to--no one controls them, including him.

Some people quote Ayn Rand; others live it. Ron Paul: I’m an ‘undecided’ voter - Mackenzie Weinger www.politico.com  

John McCain 

I find it hard to criticize McCain on the matter of national security, since it is the one area where his convictions are sincere, but before he complains about "Leading from behind," he might want to consult with Colonel Khadafy.  

McCain, champion of transparency in government, just attacked Obama for being transparent.  

McCain just endorsed staying in Afghanistan.

If the GOP really wants to make that the issue du jour, bring it on.  

McCain just endorsed two more wars. I cannot say a case could not be made for each (though not both), but is this really the race Mitt Romney wants to run?  

The GOP wants to end dependency on the US government by Americans. McCain wants to replace it with dependency on the US government by foreigners.  

So busy typing I apparently missed two separate Islamic nations McCain wants to invade.  

Hard to reconcile the national security section of Rand Paul's speech with the belligerence of John McCain's  

Switching Channels 

Right now on PBS, a blonde with a large rack and a dweeby man who looks like a cross between Ben Stein and Marcus Bachman are doing a high school amateur nite version of a Sonny and Cher comedy routine--subject: ObamaCare.

I keep waiting for them to break into another chorus of “V-A-M-P Vamp.”  

David Brooks reports the pro-Paul Maine delegation has walked out and is marching through the halls.  

John Thune 

Thune: Of course we built that. Farm subsidies had nothing to do with it.  

Rob Portman 

Portman: Which one would you choose to invest your life savings?

I agree.

But, I also know who I’d choose to ask for some help if I lost my job at some firm Romney gutted.  

Listening to Dubya's budget director talk about how to fix the economy is listening to Hannibal Lecter talk about vegetarianism  

Governor Fortuno 

The governor of Puerto Rico reminds me of one of the husbands on Weeds  

Tim Pawlenty 

I wanted to say something about T-Paw, but I dozed off   

Mike Huckabee  

For a pretty good speaker, Huckabee seems awful pro forma. 

Huck's refrain of "we can do better" is awful ponderous, but it's a welcome break from "we did build that." 

Huck just blamed the Dems for the inability of the Senate to pass anything. This is a bit like blaming the guys who owned the newsstand in the WTC for 911.

Banning Abortion isn't imposing upon someone's religion, but providing contraceptives requires we wear scak-clothe and ashes.  

Condi Rice 

Condi, please don't talk about the Dems who practice segregation: they included Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms.  

Condi is once again putting the focus on national security, which is not the campaign I'd be running  

Condi: McCain in a dress, advocating more wars  

Got so bored with Condi, I went to EBay

Did I miss anything?  

Have to admit the establishment GOP version of their complaint articulated by Condi doesn't sound that scary (and at times is even enticing). 

But like Condi. its support in the Party is skin deep (perhaps not the best choice of words).  

Have to admit, it did my heart good to see the standing ovation Condi got talking about her triumph over a once segregated society. 

Susana Martinez 

It's minority woman nite!

Hope they get Aretha to play  

Sue Martinez said her gun weighed more than she did.

A scary thought.


 

She turns on and off that accent at will--sort of like the President.  

Martinez talks about her legislature cooperating with her, but fails to say who standing in the way of cooperation in Washington.  

Martinez: No more barriers! (except maybe to voting)  

John Galt 

Wieseltier gives a serious shivving to the philosophical underpinnings of Paul Ryan and draws enough blood to feed the Vampire state for a month. His Grief, and Ours www.tnr.com   

Paul Ryan enters playing looking a bit like Springsteen, without the talent or the soul.  

Ryan cites Mitt's character; the question is, which one is he playing this week?  

Ryan just blamed Obama for the closing of a GM plant in his town (during the Bush Administration!!!).  

And certainly, if Romney had been President, things would be different.

All the GM plants would have closed.  

Ryan now gives us the revisionist history of the Bush recession (the first thing the GOP's given to a black man since Lincoln left office).  

Shameless lies about Medicare for the man who proposed its final solution  

ObamaCare, the greatest threat to Freedom since Pol Pot closed all Cambodia's donut shops.  

Paul Ryan, who singlehandedly killed a compromise on the debt ceiling, just blamed Obama for the downgrade in our credit rating.

What chutzpah! I am starting to think that he may be the one who killed his father (stop whining; it's an old Jewish joke).   

He just blamed Obama for not adopting the Simpson/Bowles plan he voted against ---I think his local DA should open an inquiry  

"You did build that"

Gee, I didn't see that one coming.  

Wow, now he's throwing out numbers, but G-d forbid someone should actually test them.   

Mitt Romney will be the Tom Joad of world justice.  

Ryan is clearly suffering from delusions, because the collectivist America he outlines as such a horror does not exist in any place but his imagination.  

And yes, we are a theocracy: deal with it!  

There seems to be an epidemic of good sense breaking out among "No Labels/Americans Elect" crowd who are looking for the non-existent middle ground between governing by compromise and annihilating government altogether (except for the Sex Police).

First Tom Friedman woke up and smelled the coffee; now Saletan.

Would it be too optimistic to expect that Bloomie will eventually get it too?

Probably. Why I’m Breaking Up With Paul Ryan www.slate.com