From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE
What's Sauce for the Goose, My Friends…
How to make an anti-Romney political ad by following the Romney campaign's own rules. Step one: take an innocuous and true statement by Mitt Romney, like this:
"You Olympians, however, know you didn't get here solely on your own power. For most of you, loving parents, sisters or brothers, encouraged your hopes, coaches guided, communities built venues in order to organize competitions. All Olympians stand on the shoulders of those who lifted them. We’ve already cheered the Olympians, let’s also cheer the parents, coaches, and communities. All right! [pumps fist].”
Step two: rearrange snippets of that statement with some of his other greatest hits, and
voila:
How Team Romney plans to win the ad war
"Look, you can't have any Olympians working on our property. I'm running for office, for Pete's sake! Corporations are Olympians my friends. Of course they are! I like to fire Olympians who didn't get here solely on your own power. [Pumps fist] We've already cheered the Olympians---let's also cheer the cheesy grits. Strange things are happening to me! I'm not concerned about the very poor, the parents, coaches and communities. I’m not sure about these Olympians, they don’t look like you parents made them. Did you make those? No, they came from the local 7-Eleven or whatever. I'll tell ya what---ten thousand bucks? Ten thousand dollar bet, you Olympians?"
Third, add an announcer flourish: "If Mitt Romney is willing to gamble on our Olympic athletes…what will he do with America's future?"
Lock your scruples in a box, book your airtime, and you're off to the races dressage competition.
Easy!
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Note: The C&J firewalker event will go on as planned because, unlike that idiot Tony Robbins' disaster, mine simply involves throwing popcorn at Chuck Norris.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Labor Day: 41
Days 'til the Grainger County Tomato Festival in Tennessee: 3
Number of Americans over 50 who are either in foreclosure or at least three months behind on their rent: 1.25 million
(Source: AARP)
Percent of Americans surveyed who say they had no religious affiliation in, respectively, 1990 and 2011: 6%, 19%
(Source: Pew Research Center)
Number of the 570 David Hasselhoff cardboard advertising cutouts that have been stolen from Cumberland Farms stores in New England and Florida: 550
(Source: AP)
Maximum fines that will be levied against streakers at the London Summer Olympics: $30,000
Number of national anthems the London Philharmonic Orchestra recorded for the medal ceremonies: 205
(Source: Parade)
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
This president is dangerous to the Republic, and wants to tear it down brick by brick. That we’ve elected someone who obviously hates America is absolutely horrific, and shows us just how important educating the electorate of this nation truly is.
---Commenter fguy at RedState
All together now: 1…2…3…
Right, Texas?
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Puppy Pic of the Day (via Kossack BeadLady): Do Not Disturb.
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Yeah. Demons of love, baby.
CHEERS to a year of "I do's." Gay couples in New York started
getting married one year ago today. As the proverbial knots have been tied throughout the state over the past twelve months, one right-wing myth has been busted all to hell: that gay relationships are short and rocky. Tell that to all the now happily-married same-sex spouses who have been together 10, 20, 30, 40 years or more…you'll
get an earful. If you're one of the people who got gay-hitched over the last year, allow me to take a page from Romney spokesman Ed Gillespie and say: "Retroactive Mazel Tov!"
JEERS to the loud, loud aftermath. Saturday we were listening to Maine's highest-rated AM talk station (a clue to their slant: they air Rush, Beck and Hannity), and the local morning host opened the phones so callers could weigh in on the Aurora massacre. I kid you not, he only made it to the SECOND caller before the conspiracy theories started flying. Yes, Caller #2 was convinced that the shooter's guns and body armor were provided by the United Nations. Why the United Nations? According to the caller, the real question is: why not the United Nations? [Twitch Twitch] Honest to god, whenever I start feeling optimistic about our country I'm reminded that these people are running around (worse: driving around) this country in large enough numbers to be dangerous. God bless our Valium.
P.S. The shooter made an appearance in court yesterday. A blue-ribbon panel of unhinged people took one look at his eyes and immediately inducted him into their hall of fame.
He still turns the world
on with his smile..
CHEERS to defying expectations. Twenty two years ago today, President George Bush---the relatively normal George Bush---
announced that David Souter was his pick to replace liberal-leaning justice William Brennan on the U.S. Supreme Court:
Bush, who appeared nervous at the outset of the press conference, insisted he had not applied a "litmus test" of how Souter ruled in previous cases. The president noted that Souter had been considered for a previous Supreme Court opening late in the Reagan administration and added, "I have selected a person who will interpret the Constitution and, in my view, not legislate from the bench."
Souter's liberal leanings took conservatives---and liberals, frankly---by surprise. (I believe their exact words were, "What the F....??!!") But he did exactly what his appointer said he would: rule fairly and un-legislatively. We wish him a long and happy retirement in New Hampshire cracking walnuts with his gavel. If anyone's earned it, he has.
CHEERS to coming up with a football cliché that cleverly encapsulates yesterday's NCAA ruling against Penn State over the child-molestation-and-cover-up scandal, which includes a sixty-million dollar fine, no bowl eligibility for four years, and vacated victories going back 14 years. [Memo to self: don’t forget to come up with that football cliché or you'll look pretty stupid.]
JEERS to another tour in hell. Maine's 488th Military Police Company is going back to Afghanistan for another year-long deployment. As we wish them a safe trip and even safer return, we pause to reflect on the fact that someone born on the day the war began is now knocking on puberty's door. I hope they learn to enjoy our little misadventure over there---it's going on their credit card.
"Potato!" "Puhtato!" "Tomato!" "Tomahto!"
"Let's settle this with nukes."
CHEERS to great moments in standing around fake display kitchens. Fifty three years ago today, on July 24, 1959, Richard Nixon---then Ike's veep---engaged in a verbal fisticuffs with Nikita Khrushchev on the merits of capitalism versus communism, an event that became known as the
"Kitchen Debate." It was a civilized discussion until the Soviet leader got pissed and gave one of Nixon's aide's a nipplectomy with a cheese grater. (Khrushchev later paid to have them replaced, after which the aide sent him a brief note: "Thanks for the mammaries.")
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Five years ago in C&J: July 24, 2007
JEERS to Alberto Gonzales. Y'know, it's not that he's a serial liar. It's not that he doesn’t defend the Constitution like he should. It's not that he thinks habeas corpus is a new pop-a-matic game from Milton Bradley. It's not that he does the president's bidding instead of the nation's. It's not that he hires and fires U.S. attorneys for political reasons. It's not that he condones torture. It's not that he thinks the Geneva Conventions are "quaint." It's not that he's nothing more than a crony stooge lackey. On second thought, yeah...it is.
CHEERS to mo money, mo money, mo money!! For the first time in a decade, the minimum wage skyrocketed yesterday from $5.15 to $5.85 an hour. And I know just what I'm going to buy with my windfall: a skylight for my cardboard box.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to sheared madness. I was just thinking the other day that, y'know, I haven't heard any good man-in-goat-suit stories lately. I get kinda cranky when I suffer from a man-in-goat-suit story deficiency. Thankfully, just in the nick of time: Man-in-goat-suit story!!!
I wonder if the goat guy
is friends with the demon sheep.
[Phil Douglass of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources] said a man hiking Sunday along Ben Lomond peak in the mountains above Ogden, about 40 miles north of Salt Lake City, spotted the person dressed like a goat among a herd of real goats. … "People do some pretty out there things in the name of enjoying wildlife. But I've never had a report like this," Douglass said. "There's a saying we have among biologists---You don't go far enough, you don't get the data. You go too far, you don't go home. The same is true with some wildlife enthusiasts."
And peeping Toms. From what I hear.
Have a nice Tuesday. Go team, yeaahhhhhh!!! Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
The Bachelorette Finale: Emily Maynard Picks Bill in Portland Maine
---People
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