Play Cheney for me

Mitt Romney is so desperate to be President that he's willing to whore himself out as the handsome second coming of Darth Cheney.

The truth is that the Bushists pissily and irresponsibly dismissed the concern the Clinton administration had about al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. (Note to wingnut trolls: Sure, Clinton could have succeeded against these enemies, and he didn't, but he at least identified the priority problem, where Mayberry Nero told his briefers that they had covered their asses.) The Bushists were focused instead on redeeming Bush I's PNAC-deplored failure to depose Saddam Hussein.

Romney's varmint-huntin' (see, really a country boy despite the $5000 suit!!!!!) is so lame he's going to need to shoot a friend to prove he's really the NRA's boy Cheney successor.

As a bonus, he's happy to defend the so-called free market's allocation of life-saving to those who can pay the most for it. Hey, works for him (and screw you).

Mitt Romney is the perfect expression of Republicanism - willing to say any bullshit, filled with rhetoric that misrepresents reality, a whore for the ruling class. He is the most obviously insincere politician since... Man, I'm having a hard time coming up with a politician who's more insincere than Mitt. Mostly, it's talk show hosts. Except John Boehner! Strom Thurmond, maybe - staunch racist shtupping the colored help but still making his black daughter come in through the back door.

I was slow to see the essential dishonesty of Romney, but I'm making up for lost time.

Shoe fits

Many homophobes object to being called homophobes! We'll see whether Antonin Scalia objects publicly or only privately. Racists didn't like being called bigots either. Still don't.

Lots of wingnuts dust off their Greek (oh, my, maybe not!), their English suffixes to say that they are too not afraid. They're big boys. They wear big boy underwear. But they don't want anyone gay thinking about their underwear. As if.

The fear that '-phobe' refers to here is the fear of how society might change with full acceptance of homosexuality. It doesn't mean Barney Frank is saying homophobes live in fear of the neighborhood gay activist kicking their butt.

Of course, based on their stereotypes of swishiness, they probably do fear that a gay man might know enough tae kwon do to make them his beeyotch. That would be sooo humiliating for a mighty 101st Fighting Keyboarder.

Wargaming Mitt and Meg

Mitt "So Insincere Even the Republican Base Could Tell" Romney is still aiming for the Presidency in 2012. He has started to organize his life so that he doesn't face the same ridicule for his personal housing empire that John McCain did last year.

Mitt's spending money to be more of a player, and Meg Whitman in California is perfect for him. Everything that's true about her is that she's a wealthy Republican, just like Mitt. She's even pro-choice, maybe not even expediently and insincerely the way Mitt was in 2002 here in Massachusetts. But what they both are about is making the world safe for billionaires, and the rest of us are on our own.

The objective for liberals, besides beating Whitman in California, is to make Romney pay with the Republican base for supporting her. In this, Sarah Palin is our natural ally. After all, we really want Obama to face her when he runs for re-election. She'd be the weakest general election Republican since, uh, McCain.

Our point of leverage, of course, is abortion. We need video of Romney waffling and excusing Whitman's heterodox Republican views to kill him with the Republican base.

The script for an ad against him would have this outline:

• Mitt Romney - pro-choice in Massachusetts in 2002
• Mitt Romney - claimed conversion epiphany to pro-life in 2006, just in time to run for President
• Mitt Romney - backing a pro-choice candidate for governor of California in 2010
• Mitt Romney - what does he really believe? Can we count on him? Does he believe in anything besides wealth? Is ambition instead of principle what guides him?

That ought to push the Republicans to go one more cycle without being willing to nominate a candidate outside their frothing wingnut base.

The torch has been passed

Of course, I hope that Ted Kennedy surmounts this latest health crisis, but his brother's words ring in my ears, "Let the word go forth from this day forward that the torch has been passed to a new generation."

This new generation will miss those who led the Civil Rights movement, as well as those such as Robert Byrd, also ill and infirm, who overcame the prejudices they had been taught to be convinced of its justness.

Lysol won't cover the stink

Calling what McCain has been doing a "strategy shift" is sweet. "Going negative" or "attacking" would have been much more vivid and accurate.

I especially liked this bit of frippery:

Even the luggage handling is smoother, those who travel with McCain say.

Those reporters who travel with McCain?

This is all just politics. Our press corps doesn't expect anything higher minded. Shouldn't we?

Prevailing wind

Blood 'n' guts McCain tacked hard into the prevailing wind to visit the far-off land of Bushist Republican dead-enders. Now that the nomination is in hand, he's sailing back downwind seeking the center of the electorate.

Now, he's saying mean things about the sainted Duhbya:

"Only a fool or a fraud talks tough or romantically about war," McCain says over mournful strings against a bleak backdrop, including the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. "I hate war, and I know how terrible its costs are."

How many issues can McCain take both sides of?