Why Mitt Screws Up

Another interesting analysis of why Mitt Romney is looking more and more uncomfortable on the public stage and making more and more mistakes….

I just hope people are paying attention and asking themselves if this man really is capable of being President in a diverse and changing world….

It’s obvious to me Romney is only really comfortable with the wealthy elite, his family and other Mormons.  How can people expect him to “get” their lives and problems if he lives in such a small bubble.  Of course, he screws up when he steps outside this small world….

It’s the only world he knows…

From Justin Frank at Salon.com:

 

But what is not hard to do is to think about what most likely motivates this behavior that puzzles so many in the media – including supporters who are frustrated with Romney’s unwillingness to disclose more of his tax returns. I think the force behind this behavior is massive anxiety, pure and simple. He is anxious about revealing who he is and about interacting with people he doesn’t know. He appears to have much less experience than Obama in interacting with people from all walks of life. Basically, he is uncomfortable except within his own family and in the presence of those who share his wealthy background and Mormon faith. There are many ways to defend against overwhelming anxiety, one of which is to act certain about every answer given.

What comes out besides this sense of smiling certainty are signs of anxious contempt toward others – whether it is how the British run their Games or saying that kids who can’t afford college should borrow money from their parents. Put together, these and many similar statements – his pleasure at firing people or his belief that corporations are people (is that why he can comfortably bankrupt some?) – are all evidence of a hostility not dissimilar to stories about his bullying of others during his prep school days. At this stage, I suspect Mitt Romney is too anxious to be an effective president.

via Why Mitt screws up – Salon.com.

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Fran Lebowitz on New York, New Money, NYU and the New Political Order

This clip is about 13 minutes long, but it’s the weekend….

I can’t think of many better ways to spend time than with Fran Lebowitz and her witty, honest social commentary…

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Was Jesus Lily-White? Race and the Mormon Religion

Race, Politics and Religion….

Three of the most volatile topics in the world, and all addressed in this fascinating article by Jamie Reno in “The Daily Beast” with author Edward Blum’s thoughts on the impact of the various perceptions of Jesus’ race and appearance on the Presidential Campaigns.  Blum is the co-author of the upcoming book “The Color of Christ”, which I just pre-ordered from Amazon.com.

This particular article on race, Mormonism and how Romney and President Obama view Jesus really is worthwhile reading.  And I’ve spent enough time in Salt Lake City to know people really should take a hard look at the Mormon view on race.  Among other things…..

This is just one topic the book addresses.  I can’t wait to read the entire book on the bigger context of the perceived Color of Christ and it’s role in American history.

Here is a brief excerpt and a link to the full, fairly short article.

So what does Blum think Obama would say if he were asked if Jesus were black? And what does he think Romney would say if he were asked if Jesus were white?

“I think Obama would say that the United States is too diverse for any one color to be recognized as the color of Christ or God,” he says. “Obama has stressed that the Golden Rule is his main political lesson from Jesus. I rarely hear Romney mention the Golden Rule in his political positions.”

Blum believes Romney would have a harder time with the question of Jesus’ skin color. “The problem with this question would be intense for Romney because God has a body in Mormon theology, just as humans do,” Blum says. “God and his son Jesus are described as white by the Mormon prophets and in the paintings.”

via Was Jesus Lily-White? Author Edward Blum Discusses Race and the Mormon Religion – The Daily Beast.

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Is There Something Really Wrong with Mitt Romney?

Interesting and frightening article from Joan Walsh at Salon.com….

She goes so far as to suggest Romney is s not just insensitive, entitled and socially incompetent, but may have a personality disorder…

Hat tip to Jon Aravosis  at Americablog.com where I first saw this mentioned…

I’ll just keep watching and we can all draw our own conclusions as time goes by….

Here is an excerpt from Ms Walsh’s article and a link to the full column:

I’ve written that Romney’s many gaffes reflect his enormous sense of entitlement and lamentable lack of empathy. Surveying British Olympics logistics, he felt entitled to hold forth on its flaws harshly, because that’s the sort of thing he did at Bain Capital. Perhaps Romney thinks the British should have outsourced the Olympics. Or maybe he sees an opening for a leveraged buyout, to make it more efficient. At any rate, the guy who said, “I like to be able to fire people who provide services to me,” is a guy used to mercilessly appraising a situation and delivering a slashing verdict. He clearly feels he’s entitled to do that anywhere.

But could it be more than entitlement and an odd personal style? I’ve found myself wondering over the course of the campaign whether Romney has some kind of personality disorder, so dissociated does he occasionally seem from the well-worn routines of normal human interaction. Maybe we should be asking to see his medical records and not just his tax returns. I don’t mean to be flippant about that or insensitive to any kind of problem he may struggle with. But his struggles are our struggles; he’s running to be our president. There is something very odd about Mitt Romney.

via Joan Walsh – Salon.com.

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White Baptist Church in Mississippi Bans Black Wedding

Unbelievable….

I guess things haven’t changed much in Mississippi over the last 50 years….

And of course it’s the Baptists leading the march backwards in time….

I don’t mean the Independent Baptist Churches, who had to leave the Southern Baptist Convention when the Southern Baptist Convention really went crazy and started trying to lead a return to the 19th Century-especially for Women, Gays and Minorities.  The Southern Baptist seem to think of the days of white male dominance as “the good old days”.

I mean these Southern Baptist Churches like the one I grew up in….

The ones whose motto isn’t “What would Jesus do?” but rather “What will the neighbors think?”

Add “First” to any Baptist Church name in the South and you can usually up the judgmental and pretentiousness factors by 10 as they like to think they are among the most “Socially Prominent” Churches in any little town….

It’s hard to believe even they are still this far out of step with time, but the people in these kinds of Churches just don’t seem to be very open to any kind of change at all….

To them, it will always be 1956….or 1856.

From TheRawStory.com:

A black couple in Crystal Springs, Mississippi says that a predominantly white Baptist church refused to let them get married because of their race.

Charles and Te’Andrea Wilson told WLBT that the day before they were to be married, the pastor of First Baptist Church of Crystal Springs informed them the ceremony would have to be moved due to the reaction of some white church members — even though the couple had attended the church regularly.

“The church congregation had decided no black could be married at that church, and that if [the pastor] went on to marry her, then they would vote him out the church,” Charles Wilson explained.

“He had people in the sanctuary that were pitching a fit about us being a black couple,” Te’Andrea Wilson added. “I didn’t like it at all, because I wasn’t brought up to be racist. I was brought up to love and care for everybody.”

Dr. Stan Weatherford, the church’s pastor, was forced to perform the marriage at another church after he was taken by surprise by his congregation’s outrage.

via White Baptist church in Mississippi bans black wedding | The Raw Story.

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Tampa Strip Clubs Await GOP Cash Bonanza from the Republican Convention

It must be hard living up to all those Family Values the GOP subscribes to….

Apparently, so hard that they all break loose at Strip Clubs as soon as they get out of town…

I especially love the comments about the “Promise Keepers” in this New York Times Article….

And they are all going to be even more excited to see the Sarah Palin look-alike stripper…..

Or, I guess maybe this is just their version of “Trickle Down” economics…

Hypocrites….

From the New York Times:

As Tampa gears up for the Republican National Convention, the biggest party it has ever held, the city and its businesses are primping and polishing for the August arrival of tens of thousands of visitors. Like it or not — mostly not, for city officials — Tampa’s well-known strip clubs have joined the welcome wagon.

Club owners here say they have schmoozed with their counterparts in former host cities, like Denver, and have been told that revenue pours in during conventions, sometimes quadrupling earnings from a Super Bowl week. As for party affiliation, this is one place where the country’s caustic partisan differences fall away, owners say.

Angelina Spencer, the executive director of the Association of Club Executives, which serves as a trade association for strip clubs, said an informal survey of convention business in New York and Denver had determined that Republicans dropped more money at clubs, by far.

“Hands down, it was Republicans,” she said. “The average was $150 for Republicans and $50 for Democrats.”

As further evidence of the clubs’ nonpartisan appeal, Don Kleinhans, the owner of the 2001 Odyssey, said when the Promise Keepers, a male evangelical group, came to town years ago, business was rollicking.

“We had phenomenal numbers all weekend, and they walked in wearing badges and name tags and weren’t shy at all,” he said.

via Strip Clubs in Tampa Are Ready to Cash In on G.O.P. Convention – NYTimes.com.

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“Mitt the Twit”

At least that was the headline in the UK Newspaper “The Sun”  and other UK papers this morning….

Seems his diplomacy trip has made quite the impression…

Just not the one he intended…

He makes George W Bush look like a skilled diplomat….

Here is a great summary of his Greatest Diplomatic Blunders- so far:

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Penis Stolen By Thieves

Well, this will teach him to be more careful where he puts it!

Oh, I guess it’s too late for that lesson…

Today’s strange news from the Huffington Post:

Thieves stole a man’s penis while he slept, according to police.

Fei Lin, 41, of the Niqiao village near Wenling City, in east China’s Zhejiang province, told police he was asleep when the thieves burst into his room and put a bag over his head, according to CEN/EUROPICS and as reported in the Daily Star.

“They put something over my head and pulled down my trousers and then they ran off,” Lin said. “I was so shocked I didn’t feel a thing – then I saw I was bleeding and my penis was gone.”

Police believe the attackers were jealous lovers of several local women whom Lin was having affairs with, the Austrian Times reported. Lin denied taking part in any infidelity.

Emergency workers and police searched for Lin’s anatomy but turned up nothing, according to TNT Magazine. The penis thieves are nowhere to be found, but police said they’re looking for the jealous lovers.

via Fei Lin’s Penis Stolen By Thieves.

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Bush Recalls ‘awesome’ Presidency: ‘I was famous and powerful’

What is he, a twelve-year-old or does he just have the vocabulary and mind of one?

Or did they mix up some quotes from a Justin Bieber interview?

I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that this man was president for 8 long years….

But we all know it’s true and we are still paying for the mistakes of those who put him in office….

From RawStory.com:

In a recent interview, George W. Bush fondly recalled his eight-year presidency as “awesome,” but said he wasn’t eager to get back into public life.

“I really don’t want to be in the public eye anymore,” the former president told the Hoover Institute’s Peter Robinson in an interview posted to YouTube on Tuesday.

“Look, eight years was awesome,” Bush explained. “You know, I was famous and I was powerful, but I have no desire for fame and power anymore.”

“I don’t want to undermine our president — whoever is president,” he added. “And a former president can do that. And I think it’s bad for the presidency itself.”

“I have found that life after the presidency is awesome.”

Bush left office in 2009 with a 22 percent approval rate, making him one of history’s least-liked presidents, according to CBS News. In all, 73 percent said they did not approve of the way he ran the country for eight years.

via Bush recalls ‘awesome’ presidency: ‘I was famous and powerful’ | The Raw Story.

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NAACP Official: Romney ‘Flew In’ His Own Blacks to Cheer NAACP Speech

Romney has to be the biggest trickster since Nixon…

And at least Nixon was good to his dog….

This is an amazing-and amazingly inept- attempt at Media manipulation….

This man is dumber than W and more dishonest than Nixon….

It’s a good thing he’s not too bright or he would really be dangerous with all that money….

 

An official with the NAACP suggested that Republican challenger Mitt Romney brought his own black supporters to the NAACP speech yesterday to give the appearance that NAACP members were applauding him. And when Romney later told Fox News that black people at the event gave him a standing ovation and said in a private meeting they would vote for him because of dissatisfaction with Obama, they were actually his own people, the official suggested.

The revelation was made on MSNBC’s “Ed Show” by Hilary Shelton, Senior Vice President for Advocacy and Policy and the Director of the Washington Bureau of the NAACP, who said Romney flew in black conservatives to stand up at the end of his speech, allowing Romney to claim he got a standing ovation.

“I spoke with a number of African-American leaders after the event and they said, you know a lot of folks don’t want to say they’re not going to be voting for Barack Obama, but they’re disappointed in his lack of policies to improve our schools,” Romney said in an appearance on Fox, where he said he expected to get booed by the crowd and he also claimed he got a standing ovation. “Disappointed in urban policies, disappointed in the economy. 14.4% rate of unemployment among African-Americans today. The president has not been able to get the job done. People want to see someone who can get the economy going, so I expect to get African-American votes.”

Hilary Shelton told MSNBC host Ed Schultz that the only African Americans Romney met with after his speech were those that he brought with him. He never met with any NAACP members. So while he wasn’t explicitly lying about meeting with black leaders at the convention, either he or somebody on his campaign knew that he was intentionally misleading Fox viewers.

Many analysts have also questioned Romney’s motives behind going to the NAACP convention and purposely inciting the crowd by referring to the healthcare plan as “Obamacare,” a term originated among conservatives and intended to be derogatory name-calling, and saying he would try to repeal it. In a piece on The Daily Beast, Michael Tomasky suggested that Romney sought the boos to excite his base of conservative white voters.

via NAACP Official: Romney ‘Flew In’ His Own Blacks to Cheer NAACP Speech.

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