TWGB: Wheels Within Wheels

 

I joke from time to time that we aren't ever leaving the 2016 election, and it's not actually that funny--we're in 2024, but the Trump hush money trial feels like old home week, what with characters from earlier in the Trump Saga popping back up. This week, we will hear from former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who plead guilty to a campaign finance violation regarding Stormy Daniels, Last week, in a story that was overshadowed by the trial, former 2016 Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort decided to step back from his involvement with the 2024 Republican National Convention--for which he was going to work for free, as he did for Trump's campaign. 

"Free" for a value of "access to our political infrastructure" which actually does have value. 

We are never leaving 2016. The Russian disinfo op that tried to blame Ukraine for the DNC hack that profoundly affected the 2016 election (in Trump's favor?) still has echoes in the Trump impeachment and the current-day GOP House still trying to impeach Joe Biden. The story of what happened to Stormy Daniels, now a little bit better understood as coerced sex--a situation not much different from the "casting couch" or the cartoonish image of a boss chasing a secretary (just imagine it in the White House) reminds us of all the stories we just barely heard in 2016 in the wake of the Access Hollywood video, which were drowned out by Wikileaks.

Weekend At Herman's

Just in case you thought Biden's candidacy was going to be anything other than completely nuts, team Trump has released a new video. #JoeBiden #KamalaHarris https://t.co/GjAC8VDaVF

— Herman Cain (@THEHermanCain) August 12, 2020

Who are these people and why do they think this is respectful of a man who died because of the damn Trump plague? Because I don't know how Mr. Cain felt to the end, but in any respect, just go post on your own account. Go do your political shit on your own account. Because this man died of a disease that should have been contained by a responsible government action, and was actually spread further because of gross negligence. I don't know if this account is handled by anyone connected with his estate or if it is in the hands of some political dweebs who worked for him. But there is something ghoulish about his digital skin trying to discuss anything as "completely nuts" when a man we know to be deceased is apparently plugging Trump from the beyond.

I don't care that someone says it--it just feels fucked up to do it under the name of someone who passed. Pardon the flippant blog-title, but I dunno. Maybe this continuing to be a Trump stan account as if Cain was not deceased after a somewhat long and preventable illness feels like no, someone else is being way more flip than me.

(Also me:

bringing a screencap if someone has the presence of mind to delete the weirdness. Because I saw what I saw and so did everybody else who saw it.)

In TrumpWorld, Grab-Bag Investigates You!

Imagine that nothing else happened today, but that a president who was accused during his campaign of being a "puppet" of a foreign dictator, who spoke effusively at times of that foreign dictator, when faced with a mandate from congress that overwhelmingly voted to put sanctions on that dictator for interfering in that election, just said "No, because it's such a deterrent to them doing stuff with us." Umph! Like, a deterrent to influencing more of our elections or making other decisions as a sovereign nation? 

It would seem from an actual real-time event like that, just as we have had other real-time events that kind of suggested that Donald Trump was doing the bidding of Russia, this should bother the Congress that passed that act bringing those sanctions, but what actually happened was they decided to release a memo that was made by Devin Nunes, who I will be referring to as Trump's Renfield, and did not release a memo drafted by House Democrats. 

This seems odd. It's like Congressional Republicans both understand that Russian interference was a real thing, but also will only pay the merest lip service to doing anything about it. Huh! And yet, the same House is investigating DOJ decisions for a while, now.  As if the real sin in today's politics is finding fault with Trump.

In other news, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is leaving because there's really only so much a person can put the hell up with before one's legit retirement and maybe one's Director is giving strong hints where the exit door is. He joins a storied company that includes Sally Yates, Preet Bharara and Jim Comey. 

I wouldn't wonder what lessons the DOJ in general and the FBI specifically are taking from this politicized display regarding their office and the approach it shows regarding the rule of law. It might not be what the authors of this deplorable exercise had in mind, though.

In other news, we are sad to hear that Julian Assange is in bad shape because he lacks Vitamin D and the courage to just suck it up and deal with the thing where he took off his condom and tried it.  It's rumored he also doesn't smell great and sent DMs to Sean Hannity parody accounts.  Which does not only suggest Assange's mind has gone a little soft, but also that he and Hannity have possibly had a previous correspondence or so. 

Anyway, what I am saying is, the history of dirt against Trump seems to have been spot on, and the dirt against Clinton and the DNC seems to have been spotty. Trump and his admirers striking out against the investigation seems to me not like they see wrongdoing there, but like they are afraid it will be found with their team.

I'm just saying, as I always do: It looks bad because it is bad.

All Buzz, No Fly?

EXCLUSIVE: Long-held belief by top Republicans that @SpeakerPaulRyan will be the nominee: https://t.co/QzZP6BoN9q pic.twitter.com/CzvwA0yEgq

— Mike Allen (@mikeallen) April 4, 2016

The idea that Speaker of the House Paul Ryan can swoop in and get the 2016 GOP nomination for president sounds great, except for all the details. Like, when he was being talked about for Speaker, activists were calling him "too establishment"--so how would that change in a big year for insurgents at a brokered convention against Trump?  You know, the guy who suggested there could be "riots" if he did not win the nomination. Ryan has reportedly emphatically said no.

Which I guess is being treated like a firm "maybe".

But really--I was shocked when he became Romney's running mate. His House gig is a good gig, and a VP run didn't seem like a step up. I don't know how much good a failed Presidential run does him. (I do not see success, here.)  Also--

Who in the heck would replace him as Speaker!?  (I know, I want Nancy Pelosi. I want lots of things...)

It's Complicated

Mitt Romney basically made an anti-endorsement of Donald Trump today at one press thing, and Chris Christie at another press conference explained at that he is not either a hostage, so stop saying that. Then Trump called Romney a "choke artist" and suggested he could have gotten Romney to blow him back in 2012.

It's not politics or drama--it's reality tv.

Scared Mittless?

I can't help but start this post by considering how very nearly it was entitled "You People are Making Romney Run Again, You Know". It looked for all the world like he was planning on running again. The very insider-y Mark Halperin had been persuaded by the knowledge that Romney still believed he would be the best candidate in the field. It was a strong, plausible argument, and a lot of media outlets bit on it before former MA Gov. Romney announced that he would not be seeking the nomination.

Can't blame them though--it's way more likely that someone is going to notify the press that they are planning to be doing something than that they aren't. But by making the announcement this way, Romney ends speculation and I suspect makes room for other candidates, like Christie and Walker, to start doing their serious preliminary calculus. (This announcement likely has no impact at all on the decisions of Huckabee, Santorum, Jindal, Perry--you know. The guys Romney knew he was a better candidate than, already.)

Things related and not.

You know--last month there were no war casualties. And that seems so much like progress. 

So because I am a Generation X pessimist, I want to take it back--to where we began--with the Secretary of Defense immediately post-9/11 talking about waging war on Iraq.

With the intelligence all pointing toward bin Laden, Rumsfeld ordered the military to begin working on strike plans. And at 2:40 p.m., the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying he wanted "best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H." – meaning Saddam Hussein – "at same time. Not only UBL" – the initials used to identify Osama bin Laden. 

Now, nearly one year later, there is still very little evidence Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. But if these notes are accurate, that didn't matter to Rumsfeld. 

"Go massive," the notes quote him as saying. "Sweep it all up. Things related and not."

How many casualties in the time since? Necessary--y/n? I say, "No." This was a clusterfuck of Cheneyian proportions. The hawks done f-ed up.

What say you all?

A Portrait of the Candidate as a Bit of a Jerk

Well, we kind of knew Romney was a bit of a jerk, but this is really not very nice, is it?

Punctuality mattered to Romney. Christie’s lateness bugged him. Mitt also cared about fitness and was prone to poke fun at those who didn’t. (“Oh, there’s your date for tonight,” he would say to male members of his traveling crew when they spied a chunky lady on the street.) Romney marveled at Christie’s girth, his difficulties in making his way down the narrow aisle of the campaign bus. Watching a video of Christie without his suit jacket on, Romney cackled to his aides, “Guys! Look at that!”

Really? Binders full of chunky ladies might like a word with the former presidential candidate. I will settle for "jerk".

Taking it All the Way Back to Romney for A Sec

In the interest of not turning this blog into "OMG Ted Cruz" Central, I came across a tidbit from the 2012 Presidential campaign of one Williard Mitt Romney that may explain the present situation of the filiblusterer.

Per a recent study, in the final weeks leading up to Election Day, one lone investor on InTrade wagered millions to skew the data in Romney's favor.

Not so fast, Vixen, you may be thinking. That piece of info is interesting, but not necessarily a part of the Romney campaign. Tut, says I. Whoever did it might not have been a part of the campaign, but insofar as people put stock in these things, I can see someone doing it for the potential influencing factor. And I don't say that without reason--after all, this is a campaign that saw fake Twitter followers,  fake Facebook "likes", skewed internal polls, and "unskewed" external polls. It was as if there was an overriding popular delusion that if they "built Mitt", the voters would come. As a result, they experienced real confusion about the strengths and weaknesses of the campaign.

I think I'm seeing the same thing with respects to the Obamacare defunding saga. From the Tea Party Town hall takeovers to today, an awful lot has been invested in making the ACA seem like the most unpopular, oppressive piece of legislation in all of recorded history or something (even Godwinning over it, right, Sen. Cruz?) But that's just magnifying the yodeling yahoos of the echo chamber. It isn't going to necessarily influence people outside the right wing cocoon, and the folks continuing the war against the law of the land seem, themselves, to be mislead about the popularity of shutting down the government over it. Ratcheting up the hyperbole, or making showy gestures like the "filibluster" of Ted Cruz, are exacerbating the problem, not addressing it.

Right now, one of the smartest things I've heard today actually comes from Sen. McCain.  Via Huffington Post:

McCain also recalled the the 2009-2010 debate over Obamacare -- before Cruz was elected to the Senate -- saying "the people spoke" on the issue when they reelected President Barack Obama in 2012. McCain said lawmakers shouldn't "give up our efforts to repair Obamacare" but said it wasn't worth shutting down the government.

Repair it? Like, actually address the already-passed legislation and amend the things they don't like as if they were a part of a functioning legislative body or something, instead of having a temper tantrum?

Sounds solid to me. Sounds realistic.

The 2012 GOP Primary Is Still With Us, Weirdly Enough

When Michele Bachmann's 2012 presidential campaign started to take a massive dump, I was kind of sympathetic but concerned.  To my jaded eye, Michele Bachmann's campaign always looked like a form of trolling rather than a serious effort, and deep in my guts, I always thought Ron Paul, as a kind of rear-guard Goldwater winger, was also doing his part to run a presidential campaign to score points and #profit. Which is why the problems with the Bachmann campaign starting with Sorenson struck me as weird. I was interested with the allegations that Kent Sorenson was "bought" by the Bachmann campaign. But the evidence and the Bachmann campaign's own allegations suggested the obvious reason he didn't "stay bought".  Iowa did not know they had a pimp.

He got a better offer. My immediate response was that the Paul campaign looked more viable, at the time--but the current story is that maybe there were reasons.

This whole affair is making me somewhat re-evaluate my estimation of both the Bachmann and Paul campaigns' seriousness. Were these really a "straight shoot" and not "work" to make shit interesting for "Inevitable Mitt"? Did either of these candidates really think it was worth it to score points so much that they were violating campaign law in Iowa--up in the corn, feeling their oats? This makes me pre-emptively re-evaluate my estimation of Rand Paul's obvious 2016 trolling. He could be for reals.

I don't know if that scares me enough. I guess I won't know until 2016. If anyone ever wonders where I go when I am not posting, I am recalibrating my cynicism, because sometimes I believe it must be broken.

(X-posted at Rumproast.)

Odd Tales From The 2012 Best of the Worst: Michele Bachmann Edition

A story about a debate coach exerting unusual influence on 2012 GOP presidential primary candidate Michele Bachmann comes to us from Buzzfeed:

Michele Bachmann's high-profile debate coach, Brett O'Donnell, developed an "unnatural" and "Rasputin-like" relationship with his candidate during her failed 2012 presidential campaign, another former aide told BuzzFeed, a charge O'Donnell denies. 

Peter Waldron, an evangelical organizer who served as Iowa field coordinator for Bachmann and helped her win the Ames straw poll said O'Donnell exercised an "unusual power over Mrs. Bachmann." Waldron and other former Bachmann staffalso currently say the Congresswoman has yet to pay them for debts owned from her short-lived campaign. 

"He prohibited her husband, Dr. Marcus Bachmann, from sleeping in the same room with wife while on the campaign trail," Waldron said in an email to BuzzFeed. "He prohibited legendary consultants Ed Rollins and Ed Goeas from attending debate prep sessions. He told her when she could get off the bus (Waterloo event with Gov. Perry), he wrote most of the words that came out of her mouth, he wrote all of her speeches."

Complicated Gifts

Reflecting back on the year that was, I think it's apt the the post-election season seems to have provided the liberal blogger so many gifts. Things like this New York Magazine story about the National Review cruise, rich with detail that keeps the shaden right on freuding.  It's a stocking stuffed with images of the clueless, the bitter, the regretful, and ruminations on the unbearable whiteness of being Mitt Romney.  For that matter, this tasty tidbit served up by Romney Number One son, Tagg, is fascinating as a psychological study despite its brevity for the depths it possibly reveals--

Is it possible Mitt Romney did not really want to be president? How does one run for about seven years without actually wanting to be president? He faced a contentious field in not one, but two primaries. He fund raised, he fibbed, he glad-handed, he glibbed, in short, he gave every indication to the outside world that, why yes, he might very much like to live in the White House (not that this is necessarily synonymous with being president). And yet he did not win, and his campaign was not run very well. Who knows what this explains?

But there's more--I've discussed the recent embarrassment of Speaker of the House John Boehner in the face of his unruly coalition, but this vignette from his negotiation with the President:

Mr. Obama repeatedly lost patience with the speaker as negotiations faltered. In an Oval Office meeting last week, he told Mr. Boehner that if the sides didn’t reach agreement, he would use his inaugural address and his State of the Union speech to tell the country the Republicans were at fault. 

At one point, according to notes taken by a participant, Mr. Boehner told the president, “I put $800 billion [in tax revenue] on the table. What do I get for that?” 

“You get nothing,” the president said. “I get that for free.”

reads just a bit like wish-fulfillment (although my post had to do with a Mitch McConnell viewpoint-correction--which may well be coming, yet).

Could there possibly be more? A shake-up at Freedomworks that hasn't entirely shaken out yet?  A tiff between Breitbrats? The NRA revealed to be spittle-flecked wackaloons?

None of these things are necessarily cheery, and yet in a small way, they toast the chestnuts of my heart, as I hope they do yours.

And on this seasonal note, have a happy thing you do, folks, and love and light and cool things to you all.

(X-posted at Rumproast.)

Pat Robertson Discusses Getting the Wrong Election Call from God

He had believed that God told him it would be Romney:



What I think probably happened is that he got the answer "Obama" when he polled God, but then decided the sample wasn't representative enough.

The Best is Yet to Come

And won't that be fine?

In addition to civic duty, I'm willing to admit that part of the reason that I voted for Barack Obama was revenge. That was the last small, petty bit of silliness that the Romney campaign dragged around to the must-win states that they didn't win--an offhand remark from Obama:  "Voting is the best revenge!" Naturally, because this is what a flailing campaign does, they tried to construe this as something other than the obvious point:

You vote against Romney and move on. Don't hate--just win. 

I'm not as chill as the President is. I like winning, and I like that we did. But I still have some bad feelings, so let me sum up more ways in which it is revenge, and not just because "living well is the best revenge." (Which I will always hear in Ivana Trump's voice, interestingly.)

You also vote because the bastards don't want you to, and together we work on doing what we need to do. You look at the disenfranchisement, the long lines, the attempts to end early voting, the robocalls and leaflets that gave wrong election dates and the negative ads not designed to make people vote for a given candidate--but to make them give up their franchise in despair. You look at all that undemocratic fuckery and you have to vote. You have to try and change it. You have to believe that we can do better; but more than that, we have to do it together.

And for Obama's part, he has to keep the faith with us that we put in him--and his victory speech is long on the promise that he will keep that faith. But here's a thing he doesn't have to worry about now--re-election. His mandate is that he did get re-elected this time. He has four more years. It's all he'll get. So this "why doesn't he make a big friendly bipartisan gesture" talk I'm hearing?

Boehner and McConnell can fold that noise up into all sharp corners and sit on it until 2014.  If they want to continue to be obstructionist, that's fine--but the next referendum is on them. And voting is the best revenge. 

Endorsing Mitt Romney?

This post isn’t really intended to be a troll of you fine Roasters—clearly, I wouldn’t seriously suggest a literal endorsement of Les Mittserables in the least, but I did want to expand on Betty’s “How Low Will they Go?” post and especially Big Bad Bald Bastard’s comment regarding David Frum’s actual endorsement of a person who, to the very best I can estimate, we have only about a 47% chance of guessing at any time how he will act on any given issue. That’s well within a practical margin of error of a coin flip, no?  That makes him the Schroedinger’s Candidate for the purposes of this election—and if one of our economic problems is uncertainty, I don’t like the looks of Mitt for either our short-term or our long-term problems.

But let’s seriously examine what a Romney presidency really means in a situation where the US Congress is likewise GOP-controlled, supposing that people actually did knuckle under and vote for Count Mittula out of a kind of Stockholm Syndrome: 

The Teabaggers already have progress tied up in the basement, and if we don’t vote for Romney, they’ll start beating it with wet ropes! Or dry ropes! Or copies of Atlas Shrugged! It could get ugly! Oh noes!

I’m not in the mood to negotiate with hostage-takers just yet (what do I look like, the Reagan Administration?) Now, if you were to ask me, this would actually be more of a stellar argument against having a GOP-controlled anything. I would vote for Obama to particularly spite those bastards, and vote against any Republican just on the general principle that you can’t do me like that. After all, there are some GOP Senate candidates that are actually advertising on the hopes of Obama having coat tails, and a divided government becoming the hot, bipartisan thing. Fuck all that.  (Actually, as a Smark going back a handful of years, screw a bunch of Linda McMahon.) Even if you don’t love Obama—I’d say the best thing is for people to vote for Democrats because Republicans in charge of the House have seriously sucked. Their suckage is not about a failure of the White House. Their suckage is about thinking legislating ladyparts creates jobs because Jesus. Mitt Romney is not the guy who can fix that. Why? Because he at least half the time pretends to believe it—if he doesn’t actually believe it.  It’s hard to say.

So what is left for the people who want to endorse Romney to rely on? His business acumen? Seriously? As if that creates jobs! It didn’t when he was governor of Massachusetts and it’s dubious that it did when he was CEO of Bain. His job was to make money as the Bainiac-in-Chief, and as the Head Manager in Charge of The People’s Republic of “Taxamachusetts” (where he earned the title Governor FeeFee) he didn’t exactly earn plenty of points for either bipartisanship or fiscal awesomeness. Actually, in his only elected position, his veteoes were overruled by the majority Democratic state legislature more often than not, (No wonder he spent the half of his term that he spent thinking about being a part of the 2008 GOP presidential primary instead of being MA Governor bad-mouthing Massachusetts altogether, amirite?) And then there’s his record on civil rights. Which is so bad compared to what he promised when he ran for MA Senate against liberal lion Ted Kennedy, you know.

See, despite the wishful thinking of the Log Cabin Republicans,  Mitt would be a garbage disaster for LGBT* people, because he gave money to NOM, for one thing. and he didn’t realize that gay couples might want to raise families for another.  If anyone thinks he would stand up against bullies against LGBT folks, well, he’s okay with acknowledging the LGBT folks, except for the B and the T . Or really being, you know, helpfultowards them.  (What can I personally say about that? Um, as a former teen who is bisexual and was bullied, I can from experience say more education and acknowledgement about and of bisexuality might be helpful.) And I don’t think you need to read “binders full” about women to know he doesn’t stand in your corner if you are a feminist.  Or just a woman, in general.

So what it comes down to, for me, is that, even leaving aside all Obama’s accomplishments and the ways in which (understanding foreign policy, macroeconomics, not being a mouthbreathing tool amongst other nations’ leaders) he’s simply superior, Romney is manifestly not the guy for the job. A serial lying bigoted know-little can’t understand why the job is even important, let along behave is if it was something more than the penultimate Big Deal on his CV. So I am manifestly not endorsing Mitt Romney.  Not to talk up Obama, which I could, forever! But to point out that whenever I see someone who supports Romney, I think so much less of that person. Uck. Him.  Such a lying sack.  After the Election—good riddance!

(X-posted at Rumproast.) 

Cher and Kathy Griffin have an Important Message Regarding the Election

Damn right.

Obligatory Election-Related WTF Team Romney Post

This is someone from Team Romney defending a bit of FEMA-bashing that Mitt Romney did in a debate last year, where he proposed that states take over in disaster situations (like states wouldn't also have to use tax money--and that in a big enough disaster covering several states they'd easily be able to a) do what is needed themselves and b) possibly coordinate with other states--logistic nightmare!):



The money-quote:

Most people don’t have a positive impression of FEMA and I think Mitt Romney was right on the button. But I don’t think anybody cares about that right now. I think people care about whether or not their power’s on, whether or not their basement’s going to be flooded. And I think that if the president gets too far in front of this and something goes wrong, people are going to remember, hey, my power’s not out, and the president’s talking about FEMA. I’m not a real big fan of FEMA. That could sway their vote.

I'm already pretty well turned-off on Team Romney for their wallowing in glee over their ability to use the terror attack in Benghazi as a campaign issue. But my read on this comment is "We'll make this Obama's Katrina see if we don't."

Look, I don't think this natural disaster will be resolved come Election Day, and there will definitely be tragedies and deprivations and I can't sugar-coat that--on the other hand, I want someone at the helm when shit's going south who believes in the mission of trying to do government right, because they genuinely believe that government can. And it's not because of some mystical faith in the power of Big Gov'm't, but rather, because of a belief in the power of people coming together to do what we need to do. The alternative is unthinkable to me--but not unimaginable.

I don't think people who can really say they are against FEMA because it doesn't poll well can do government well. I don't think people who can say "Leave it to the states" or worse yet "Leave it to private, for-profit agencies" can do government well. And yet sometimes, we do need it done well.  And that is another good argument for Obama.

UPDATE:

Just check this out about Romney basically still campaigning today in the midst of the natural disaster:

Romney’s event is bad enough – claiming it’s a “storm relief event” in Ohio, where he’ll just happen to be speaking and press has been invited.  (Why do you need press? Same reader Romney needed press on his trip to Israel.  It’s always about Romney.) 

But Paul Ryan’s event takes the cake.  Paul Ryan will be “visiting” two storm relief efforts in Wisconsin to “thank” volunteers – it sounds like he’s actually visiting campaign offices that are somehow doing something for hurricane relief. It seems they didn’t learn their earlier lesson about impeding storm relief efforts by holding these phony events that don’t address the real needs of the disaster relief agencies: money.

But pay attention to what his message is whilst he's calling his campaigning a "relief effort":

"We're counting on Ohio," Romney continued. "I know the people of the Atlantic Coast are counting on Ohio and the rest of our states, but I also think the people of the entire nation are counting on Ohio because my guess is, my guess is if Ohio votes me in as President, I'll be the next president of the United States." 

Romney's remarks on the storm came at the end of his stump speech here this morning, and are indicative of the delicate balance the GOP challenger must maintain between keeping up a campaign predicated in no small part on criticizing the record of President Barack Obama, and not looking opportunistic or unconcerned about the impact of a potentially devastating weather event affecting a large portion of the country.

Yep--a stump steech with an appeal to maybe give a little something, but the most helpful folks? The swing state that might make him president. Seriously, Mitt Romney?   You being president is the most important thing to people about to get fucking flooded?

Have. No. Family-friendly. Language. To Describe. This.

Joss Whedon Makes the Case for Romney

Of course, if you aren't pro-ZomneyApocalypse, there's always the Other Guy.

Of Horses and Bayonets and Mitt's Militant Me-Tooism

Just to clear this out of the way, I think if there was one clip from the debate that sums up the differences between President Obama and Governor Romney, it's this:



Romney had mentioned the ship-strength of the navy previously, and it was weird and outdated then, and somehow he never corrected himself before repeating it again during the debate. Thus, Obama gets to snark on him about horses and bayonets. (And for fuck's sake, Politico et als--he said "fewer" horses and bayonets, not "none".  Dig the taters out of your ears, as my sainted granny might say.)  For that matter, in a gaffe that Obama did not seize on, Romney made the surprising comment last night that Syria was Iran's "path to the sea"--which he said before, is geographically nonsensical, and somehow he never got told not to repeat it.  Behold--a map:

Iran does not lack for paths to the sea--like its own coastline! But the phrases "Iran's path to the sea" and the  criticism of our current naval strength sound pretty good to the Governor.  That should sound really bad to people who know better.

You know what else sounds good to Governor Romney--or at least, sounded good to him last night?  Most of what President Obama is doing.  Take a look at this (after the jump):

Madeleine Albright: Mitt Romney "Not ready for Prime Time"

This is a very appropriate lead-in* to tonight's presidential foreign policy debate:




I'm still as disgusted at Romney's behavior over Libya as I was when it became obvious (as in, right away) that he was going to make political hay out of it.  But then, there is always room for me to feel just a little more contempt: 

Appearing on ABC’s The View this past Thursday, Ann Romney claimed that her husband, as governor of Massachusetts, “went to every funeral” of fallen soldiers from the Commonwealth. She spoke of the difficult role he had “to comfort those that have lost a loved one and have gone in harm’s way. 

But Mitt Romney did not attend every soldier’s funeral; there were at least two cases where he did not. 

And in one of those cases, a Gold Star mother claims that, far from comforting, Romney left insensitive phone messages – messages that she calls “bullying” and her husband describes as “abusive." 

“I can’t believe you haven’t returned my call,” Romney said on one of the voice mail messages, according to Stephany Kern, speaking at her Westerly, Rhode Island home this past Saturday. “Here I am making a second call; I haven’t heard from you.” 

Kern did not save the messages. This is the first time she has spoken publicly about them.

She didn't need to keep those messages for me to feel comfortable believing what she relates.  That's the guy who referred to our servicemen and women as if they were items on a "laundry list".   This is the candidate who would be horrible for veterans, soldiers, and their families. 

Not ready for prime time? Not ready this time or any time.

*As always, I'll be keeping up with the lively snark at Rumproast's Live-Blog of the event.