Mormon Mitt's Defining Moment

Mon Dec 03, 2007 at 09:15:45 PM PST

Romney will get the plasticky android vote but the nomination? Only if he can give one hell of a speech on what the talking heads have taken to calling his "Mormon Problem," which is funny enough all on its own.

Mitt's initially attempted to make his "Mormon Problem" a non-issue with the master stroke of claiming he'd like to talk about it but he's not allowed:

"Is there going to be a special speech? Perhaps, at some point. I sort of like the idea myself. The political advisers tell me no, no, no — it's not a good idea. It draws too much attention to that issue alone."

It was a positively brilliant distraction: we all end up thinking that he's just an idiot that can't think for himself and is too stupid to cover this potentially damaging fact up rather than a Mormon that is...well...a Mormon. Look, stupiding your way to the president worked just fine for George 'Dubya' Bush not once but twice and Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi is on the record as suspecting the same strategy hard at work for Fred Thompson. Well, sort of hard at work. At work. Point is, post Dubya, stupid is the new smart in American politics, so why shouldn’t Mitt jump onboard as well?

All for naught, it seems his advisors now tell him he is indeed allowed to talk openly about his Mormon problem, for which we all await with baited breath and which the media has already dubbed Romney’s ‘JFK speech’ (offend anybody? No? Moving on...). This in reference to Kennedy’s very successful pitch to the masses in 1960, the major difference being that Mitt wouldn’t dream of saying he’d keep his Faith seperate from his job but rather that his Faith is just as pro God, pro Bible, pro Jesus, pro-Torturing-and-Nuking as yours is and a mighty Amen to all that.

Can he pull it off? Dunno. Tough row to hoe. Many feel he'd have better luck being elected as an Atheist than a Mormon. A Mormon? Multiple wives? This is America. Might as well start marrying the livestock. Blacks not having souls until the late sixties? Might not be a big deal with the Far Right who evidently still doubt they have souls in 2007 but these are the kind of things that can come back and haunt a would-be presidential contender that needs to win more than just the Big Business and Bible Belt vote. Secret, fireproof underwear? Sounds like James Bond stuff to me and I'm all for it. Seems like a good idea for just about anybody, let alone a presidential candidate, so maybe it's a good place for him to start.

His all knowing handlers have claimed Mitt’s speech is "not going to be a lesson in Mormon doctrine" but rather "an open discussion of how important and critical faith has been and is in Romney’s life" and "how faith is what shapes our values.."

And if that’s the case, Mitt’s sunk and his advisors are punks. People don’t really want a good sermon but if they did, Huckabee’s got that market cornered like no candidate in history. (Did you know he’s the only running candidate with a theology degree???? Bet yer ass! Talk about qualified!) Yessiree, Mike Huckabee, who asserts that he doesn’t even think we’re primates, which is funny and weird all at the same time, has the religio-chops to sermonize rings around any and all comers, Romney obviously included, which would be great if he were running for Pope, scary and extremely backwards since Huck’s running for President of the United States. Nonetheless here we all are.

Nope, Mitt’s gotta make the case for not just a religious president but a Mormon one or he’s dead in the water and to do so he’s gotta shed light on the ‘Otherness’ that clings to him like a wet fart and has from the start. That means (at the very least) confronting the multi-wife thing (only weird Mormons, a minority of what we like to call the ‘Other Mormons’ do that sort of thing and I am certainly not one of those), the no souls for black folks until the late sixties thing (yeah, well, somebody had a revelation, okay? Old Testament meets New Testament, okay? You either believe in revelations or you don’t, okay? Okay?!?) and the fireproof secret undie thing (Steve Young wore secret Mormon fireproof underpants while quarterbacking the Niners through how many championship seasons? How many Superbowl rings did your underwear ever get you? None? Boom! Done! Mormon’s fuckin' RULE!!!).

He takes these issues head-on and in the manner I’ve laid out then he has a chance against the possibly sleeping actor, the creationist preacher, the confused war vet and the transvestite. Anything less and he’s officially an also-ran.

Truth Decay: Deconstructing Rove

Sun Dec 02, 2007 at 11:30:38 PM PST

To many, including former Whitehouse chief of staff Andy Card, Karl Rove's latest blossom was laughable on it's very face. The ineffectual, kowtowing Democrats were somehow responsible for anything at all to do with the run-up to the Iraq War? Yes, it’s ridiculous. Yes, it is entirely unassociated with what actually happened. Shake your head and laugh at him if you like. I don't laugh. Betcha Orwell wouldn’t either. It's not funny.

Karl Rove is not ‘the National Enquirer’. He’s the man that got George ‘Dubya’ Bush elected, not once but twice. Everything the man does is strategy. It's who he is. So why lay out the stinkin'est most obvious of laughable lies for all and sundry?

You and I may never forget who started this thing, when and why they started it but none of us can expect the same from our brothers and sisters. Or the people we work with? And that gaggle of folks that hang out around the watercooler and yammer daily about the latest American Idol winner? They’ve already forgotten much and are looking to forget yet more. Rove is never, ever afraid to underestimate the intelligence, the memory or the attention span of the common man. On that, and that alone, he and I are in full agreement.

Where Dubya’s legacy will always be the Iraq war, Rove’s will always be the permanent Republican 50% + 1 majority. As always, for this to be the case you and your fellow Citizens must remain angier at your polar opposites, (be they Far Right Religio-Nutjob or Bullgoose Loonie Lefty) than your ineffectual government or your powergrabbing leader. It’s worked swimmingly so far, why on earth should he stop now?

Create the mere perception of a debate on even the most obvious of Truths and soon both wings will happily fight it out for you, creating (or in this case, perpetuating) the most fertile of grounds for the schemer of schemers: an environment in which there is a lot of anger, a lot of confusion and no objective Truth. No objective Truth means maybe the Democrats did push America into the Iraq War, maybe Saddam did have WMDs, maybe Saddam did have connections with Osama, maybe it actually is okay to wipe one's arse with the Constitution and maybe there actually is no such thing as an objective Right or Wrong. That America even now debates the legitimacy of torture is proof enough of the success of this strategy in the last few years. This is to be expected in a society turning ever closer to Fascism. Orwell, if he was that type of guy, would say "I told you."

The grim thought I’ll wrestle with whilst trying to sleep: each and every time we rally at the next Repubbie (be they Senator, Governor, Talking Head or the guy next door) that inevitably repeats this most obvious of lies, Rove chuckles deeply to himself and rubs his porky hands together with sick glee, and why not. We’re doing all he could ever ask of us. And we’re powerless to do otherwise.

Genius.

Frontrunner Nothing: Why Hills and Gules Won't Win

Tue Nov 27, 2007 at 12:12:29 PM PST

Media coverage to the contrary I never bought for even ten seconds that Hillary Clinton is going to be the next President. She's not even the next Democratic contender. Too far Right of the Zeitgeist is my sense of it. People want out of Iraq and they don't want to go to Iran and Hills bolloxed it up badly when she voted to name the Iranian Whoozitswhatzits as a terrorist organization, knowingly opening the door for Retarded George to have one more vicious, failing stab at a Middle East Apocalypse during his mad reign. It's her biggest mistake yet. She can't blow it off, she just voted for it. Edwards called it 'a neocon dream' and scored huge points for that one sentence and rightfully so.

Media coverage to the contrary I never bought for even ten seconds that Hillary Clinton is going to be the next President. She's not even the next Democratic contender. Too far Right of the Zeitgeist is my sense of it. People want out of Iraq and they don't want to go to Iran and Hills bolloxed it up badly when she voted to name the Iranian Whoozitswhatzits as a terrorist organization, knowingly opening the door for Retarded George to have one more vicious, failing stab at a Middle East Apocalypse during his mad reign. It's her biggest mistake yet. She can't blow it off, she just voted for it. Edwards called it 'a neocon dream' and scored huge points for that one sentence and rightfully so.

Hills is the Republican-lite candidate, has her eyes on gaining the middle ground in the general election when she hasn’t won the first battle amongst her fellow Democrats. Edwards can go far by continuing to demonstrate how deeply cozy Hills is with the Big Business establishment and the status quo and should beat her like a drum daily for her vote on the Iran deal, all of which will benefit Barrack Obama more than anybody else.

As for the other media generated, Big Business champion/frontrunner, Guiliani toes the Bush-line without reservation and, in a sane world, should be utterly doomed for that and that alone. What it actually means is that Rudy 'Always 911' Guliani enjoys full neoconservative support, materials, funding, department of dirty tricks, timely governmental threat alerts, prob'ly Rove and the gargantuan weight of the Far Right, Fight-to-the-Death Cult. Having said all that, I just don’t believe anybody can win the Republican nomination if he’s been photographed wearing a dress on at least seven different occasions, which Gules most certainly has.

Vegas odds have it an even bet that should this man ever get elected he’ll get caught smooching an expensive portrait of John F. Kennedy while dressed up like Marilyn Monroe and singing "I Feel Pretty" inside of three weeks in the White House.

the Ongoing Media Hackjobbery on Nobel Prize Winner Al Gore

Tue Oct 16, 2007 at 09:52:28 AM PST

As of 12:30 last Saturday morning I watched a typically beautiful but vacuous CNN commentator casually bring up recent Nobel Prize winner Al Gore "inventing the internet" again, to chuckles all around. In 2007, that "the Most Trusted Name in News" CNN is repeating these well established falsehoods (the latest Vanity Fair covers the whole odious enterprise quite succinctly) goes a long way towards explaining just how terrified of this man Big Business really is and how far they’ll go to try to stick it to him again.

Forget FoxNews, everyone knows they’re propaganda fiends and utterly full of shit but an alarming amount of people still trust supposed Leftist (but actually centrist) outlets like CNN or the NYTimes, either of whom have no problem toeing the party line when push comes to shove and both of whom pulled as much of a hatchet-job on Gore in 2000 as anybody else. Hopefully it goes without saying that they will of course do so again given half the chance. Or else they’ll try to convince him, and you, and everybody else, that Gore doesn’t need to run, that he has nothing to prove or that he will only hurt his cause of increasing awareness of Global Warming. All of which is, of course, utter horseshit on the face of it but that’s the script as I perceive it for this week in the MainStreamMedia. All of which means you and yours have work to do. Especially when (not if) he actually does announce he’s running.

There were many excuses for the Media to claim and repeat ad infinitum falsehoods about (not by) Gore in 2000, the result of which being nothing less than the Gore/Bush vote being as close as it was, making the vicious power seizure by Bush Sr. via his buddies on the Supreme Court even possible. Blame the media or ‘Fourth Estate’ as much or more than anybody for the mess in Iraq, the total evisceration of your Constitution and the Murderous Run of the NeoCons. And be pissed about it, would you? Know why? Because they’re still doing it. As recently as 12:30 last Saturday morning.

It’s abundantly clear: the jackals and greedheads also know he’s going to run and think they’ve got all their artillery all lined up, same as last time. Do they though? Hasn’t the battlefield changed at least a little? They think the ways of the old are going to work in the Now and it won’t, and I don’t even have to tell Gore fans, of all people, cuz you know it better than anybody: It’s a brand new world. It’s a "YouTubeMySpaceFaceBookWikiBlogWorlde" and in it, for a change, people are actually being held accountable. Politicians are seeing their own fithy lies come back and smack them in the face, for the whole www to see. Media hackjobbers like O'Reilley and the rest of his demogoblins are having all their lies repeated, deconstructed and disproven on sites like the DKos or crooksandliars.com seven days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 a year. And the whole world is really watching now. Everybody has their digi-cams and their laptops and their websites and their blogs and I just have to believe your folks’ll fight for him. For it. For us? Organizations like yours have to be the first line of defense against dark Repubbie and yes, even Democrat dirty play. Why should Al, ever again, have to dirty his hands with this muck when it gives the common folk such raw pleasure exposing these lying whores (and for this I apologize to actual whores everywhere) for what they are.

And it’s not just about writing letters to people and getting their support for Gore, it’s about writing letters to CNN and asking them not to rebroadcast proven falsehoods generated by the sick and depraved Right Wing or else losing the not insignificant viewership groups like yours represent. See where I’m going with this?

Let’s face it, I’m not an American. It’s not my fight. It’s just so totally and uniquely yours. It’s up to you guys to make this thing happen. Fact is, never before in human history has one single society’s decisions and choices meant so much to so many. The world. Save the planet or keep burning it, that’s the choice that Gore brings to the table and the interesting part is that so many people already know this. Even the people who hate his guts know he runs for something much larger and more important than an office.

Love him or hate him every man-jack out there knows he represents not only a change but a dramatic departure from the status quo, a vast and interdependent effort to be made not only by every American but every citizen of the First World. He’s become a living symbol of the dedication to the kind of large-scale, interdependent, international action required to save the earth, action that America can lead, genuinely lead and the world would follow. Maybe not right away but when one of the very biggest polluters on earth lays down that kind of example how can my own country, no small polluter in its own right, not follow?

Your People have to understand that this next election is the deal breaker. You and Al gotta package the thing like it’s never been packaged before. The Choice of the Greatest Generation of Americans. Cuz you know what? It actually is precisely that, should you decide to make it that. Make yours the generation that decides how they want to live and how they want to treat the world and the earth and everything else and not only that but how they want to be treated! How they want their votes counted, how they want their bridges, levees and infrastructure maintained, how they want their governments to interact with other governments and Nations. Ultimately, this generation, if and only if it gets its shit together, might just get to kick-start a Renaissance and who knows, maybe it takes nothing less than that to save America. And everything else.

The good news? Such things have happened on this earth before and will undoubtedly happen again. The point is that never before has there been this absolutely breathtaking opportunity for an entire populace to knowingly decide upon and seize a Renaissance. And the rest of the world will follow, I promise you.

I know, it asks a lot from a buncha tv-heads (and that’s no slight against you, believe me, a comparable percentage of my own countrymen are actively lobotomizing themselves with Reality TV, meaningless sitcom shlock and the like), but it all comes down to how the next election is framed and cutting through the window dressing, the background noise and the omnipresent bullshit. Fortunately in Al Gore you have one of the more articulate, gifted and intelligent men to ever run for president.

Look at it this way, you do it, you get him elected and you’ve forced your country to try to lead the fight to save the planet. How relevant does that make your particular generation of Americans? How epic is this choice? Sounds like one of your BLOCKBUSTER movies, doesn’t it? "In a world gone mad, one man..." Okay, you write it. Act it out. Do it. Are you doing it? Well, here’s the thing: you’ve already done a lot but you’ll need to do much more.

Good luck on it, we’re all going be hoping for you, and, between hockey games, watching and cheering for you.

-iSenseChange

p.p. I believe in you. Now get off your asses.

RandomMP3age: "Sex and Candy" by Marcy Playground