Obama got elected by a landslide a few weeks ago, and a vocal minority in the southern states rushed to show just how stupid, ignorant and backward they are by signing a multitude of petitions asking the newly elected President to allow their states to secede.
I would compare this to a political version of the Jackass movies or the Darwin Awards. We stand watching with our mouths open while some poor fool attaches a rocket to his car like Wile E. Coyote before flying off into the side of a cliff. You can't talk these people out of their stupid ways. These folks are a few tea bags shy of a load. They are rowing with both oars out of the water. They are just not all there. There is no there there.
For anyone reading this who is unacquainted with the real South as it really is, and not the parody on TV, you have no idea how embarrassing such petitions are to the vast majority of people in the red states, even those who voted overwhelmingly for Mitt Romney. Let me assure you, even most Republicans do not want to re-fight the Civil War, thank you very much. Frankly, most Southerners never wanted to fight it in the first place.
The Democrats trapped inside these red states merely do a collective facepalm and point out the cognitive dissonance of people who hypothetically have a brother on SSI, a sister on food stamps, an uncle who works for TVA, a parent on disability, and a Grandma who gets Medicaid for nursing home care . . . yet they are vowing to secede from the government who pays for all that. You've got millions of people in red states who drive the interstate highways, hunt and fish in National Forests, benefit from Obama tax cuts, benefit from Obamacare (or soon will), and never give a thought to where those things come from.
In begging to secede, they are figuratively cutting off their nose to spite their face in the name of . . . spite, or anger, or outrage that a black man has once again been legally elected by a majority of the citizens of the United States. Secession-minded people will swear up and down they are not racist because how dare anyone call them that since they know and work with black people, go to school together, and are even friends with some of them! (*sigh* - yes people really say that stuff)
But of course they don't like it that people of color have just as much right to be President as a white person - and that's the problem. They are stuck in the Jim Crow days, and hate it that Karl Rove couldn't steal the election for them. And it doesn't help that they are hopped up on Fox News and Rush Limbaugh talking points.
It's racism. There is no other explanation for the knee-jerk reaction of this secessionist crowd. You can call it "bad-sportsmanship" over the election if you are a really nice person and have on your rose-colored glasses, but that is the understatement of the year.
The idiots signing these petitions are not representative of their states and they are the last ones to care that they reinforce the uneducated racist stereotype of white people in the South. They don't even think about what they are doing or how it might seem to others. Like their heroes Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, they are simultaneously selfish political narcissists and intellectual cretins. Probably everyone they know feels the same way, so they have no empathy for another view, and no respect for Democrats. It's not about thinking - prejudice is an emotion to them. They learn it at the feet of their parents, or from their grandparents, or worse - their pastors and coaches and even teachers. It's like a genetic disease passed from generation to generation in some communities - and the main sympton is rank stupidity.
Let's call this the "Sound and the Fury" crowd to quote both Mississippi author William Faulkner and his inspiration, William Shakespeare.
Macbeth: To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Exactly - signifying nothing, because nothing is really going to happen. As soon as people on Twitter began making jokes about the secessionist petitions, and someone made a petition to Deport anyone asking to secede, they suddenly got all defensive. They didn't REALLY want to secede, but merely to send a "message" to Obama. What message? That they hate the President? Why? Didn't you accept Bill Clinton when he was elected? The only answer that makes sense is that Obama is black and doesn't fit their world view of what a "real" American President should look like.
No one understood the "Confederate" crowd clinging to the not-so-glorious past more than author Faulkner:
"The past is never dead, it's not even past."
But Faulkner also said:
"To live anywhere in the world today and be against equality because of race or color is like living in Alaska and being against snow."
It would be nice if they would think about that in Mississippi, or Texas, or Tennessee, or Alabama, etc., and if some of these idiots would think twice before rushing to the internet to show their ignorant racist side once again.
When all you have is a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail.
When the only advice you get from your party is to "be aggressive" and "attack Obama" and you desperately want them all to like you and to never be criticized for being wimpy, that is what you will do. You will attack Obama in every situation, even if it makes no rational sense, and even if it threatens international peace.
Just a few days ago, Romney was getting loads of armchair advice from frustrated Republicans who are livid because he is crashing and burning in every national poll. But their efforts to light even more of a fire under Romney seems to have lit the fuse to the bomb that is Romney's Libya response. For instance:
He (Romney) should be very aggressive and he should be adamant in his attacks . . . he needs to be severely aggressive.
~ Sarah Palin on Fox, via Last Word
The Romney campaign's going to have to make some changes. They're going to have to go ideological! They cannot continue on this 'Obama Mr. Nice Guy' bit. They just can't do it. It isn't going to work.
. . . I'm not saying go out and say Obama's a bad guy. But he's got to be tied to this economy. His policies, his ideas, his ideology. Liberalism is still a dirty word in this country - use it! Rush Limbaugh on his radio show
Speak Up, Mitt!
. . . It’s not enough to float like a butterfly. You have to sting like a bee. No sting, no victory.
~ William Kristol on the Weekly Standard
I keep going back to the millions and millions of dollars paid to these political consultants.
Election after election, we hire people who have lost previous campaigns; who've run campaigns that have failed; who have message campaigns where the message fell flat, and they keep getting re-hired. I don't understand that. I don't know why those are the people you hire.
. . . you're in this, you have one shot, man. This is going to be the first line of your obituary: you won or you lost. It's all on the line for the country, and it's all on the line for you.
~ Conservative Laura Ingraham on her radio show 9-10-12
Ouch - no candidate wants to see the word "obituary" especially when he is sinking in the polls. That's scary talk.
And finally, this from Jennifer Rubin who wrote a scathing analysis of Romney's 9/11 speech on the same day that the campaign decided to push back on Libya. Rubin told them to "seize the moment" and not put things through the "mushy" "Boston Blender," which is a pointed slap at Romney's closest surrogates from his Massachusetts days, the guys Romney trusts to write his policies and speeches:
On Romney's 9/11 Speech to the National Guard Association
This was a wasted opportunity when he could have shown some mettle. His foreign policy message, not unlike his domestic policy message, is getting put through the Boston blender, it seems, coming out mush. That would be mush with no flavor.
. . . Now is not the time for sweet vignettes; it’s time for him to seize the moment. That requires Romney to sharpen and beef up his message.
~ Jennifer Rubin on Washington Post
"Beef it up" guys, or your foreign policy is "mush." I wonder what Jennifer Rubin will write about today, if she still has a job?
All this free advice is looking strategically WRONG on so many levels now, going against the best interest of the candidate and the party. But perhaps they did all the voters a huge favor by throwing the spotlight on Romney's foreign policy incompetance.
On Tuesday night, the Cairo Embassy issued a statement trying to cool things down surrounding a volatile situation involving an anti-Islamic film made by an Israeli, which said:
"The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others."
That's a rather standard representation of the U.S. position on freedom of religion, right? But because it wasn't anti-Islam in a Moslem country, the stupids came out of the woodwork to condemn it.
Apparently President Obama can’t see Egypt and Libya from his house. On the anniversary of the worst terrorist attacks ever perpetrated on America, our embassy in Cairo and our consulate in Benghazi were attacked by violent Islamic mobs. In Cairo, they scaled the walls of our embassy, destroyed our flag, and replaced it with a black Islamic banner. In Benghazi, the armed gunmen set fire to our consulate and killed an American staff member. The Islamic radicals claim that these attacks are in protest to some film criticizing Islam. In response to this, the U.S. embassy in Cairo issued a statement that was so outrageous many of us thought it must be a satire. The embassy actually apologized to the violent mob attacking us, and it even went so far as to chastise those who use free speech to “hurt the religious feelings of Muslims.” (Funny, the current administration has no problem hurting the “religious feelings” of Catholics.)
But where is the president’s statement about this? These countries represent his much touted “Arab Spring.” How’s that Arab Spring working out for us now? Have we received an apology yet from our “friends” in the Muslim Brotherhood for the assault on our embassy?
It’s about time our president stood up for America and condemned these Islamic extremists. I realize there must be a lot on his mind these days – what with our economy’s abysmal jobless numbers and Moody’s new warning about yet another downgrade to our nation’s credit rating due to the current administration’s failure to come up with a credible deficit reduction plan. And, of course, he has a busy schedule – with all those rounds of golf, softball interviews with the “Pimp with the Limp,” and fundraising dinners with his corporate cronies. But our nation’s security should be of utmost importance to our Commander-in-chief. America can’t afford any more “leading from behind” in such a dangerous world. We already know that President Obama likes to “speak softly” to our enemies. If he doesn’t have a “big stick” to carry, maybe it’s time for him to grow one.
- Sarah Palin
Clearly, Priebus, the guy who compared women to caterpillars, and Ms. Palin Malaprop are two of the stupidest people EVER to reach a level of eminence in our society.
So why does the Romney Camp follow their lead? I guess we have to assume they are just a confederacy of dunces as well. Because look at Romney's statement from Tuesday night, which echoes Palin and Priebus: via Washington Post
I’m outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi. It’s disgraceful that the Obama administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.
I also believe the administration was wrong to stand by a statement sympathizing with those who had breached our embassy in Egypt, instead of condemning their actions. It’s never too early for the United States government to condemn attacks on Americans and to defend our values.
The White House distanced itself last night from the statement, saying it wasn’t cleared by Washington. That reflects the mixed signals they’re sending to the world.
The attacks in Libya and Egypt underscore that the world remains a dangerous place and that American leadership is still sorely needed. In the face of this violence, American cannot shrink from the responsibility to lead. American leadership is necessary to ensure that events in the region don’t spin out of control. We cannot hesitate to use our influence in the region to support those who share our values and our interests.
Today Republicans want answers about who is running the show:
Who told Mr. Romney to issue a political broadside against the commander-in-chief the day after a U.S. ambassador was murdered?
~ Joe Scarborough of MSNBC
O'Donnell points to Richard Williamson, Romney foreign policy adviser, quoted in The Daily Beast:
When asked if the Romney campaign did the right thing by releasing a statement slamming Barack Obama for a failure of leadership in the wake of a series of brutal attacks on foreign embassies in Libya and Egypt, Richard Williamson paused for several seconds before saying just three words: “It was accurate.” . . . Pressed further if it was right to issue a political statement before the dust had cleared and the death toll was known, a statement that condemned President Obama but didn’t mourn those lost, Williamson said simply, “Sure.”
“Ty Cobb was the greatest hitter of all time and he batted about .355. And he is still the greatest hitter,” Williamson explained later in the interview. “There isn’t something in my 63 years I couldn’t have done better except con my wife into marrying me.”
O'Donnell calls that "The craziest thing I've ever read from a campaign spokesman . . . it is absolutely nutty." And rightly so. Foreign politics, especially in the Middle East, is not a game, so spare us the lame sports analogies. However, with advice like that, it's easy to see why Romney went to Britain and insulted their Olympic Games.
O'Donnell goes on to presume that Williamson would be fired post haste, but I'm not so sure. Look at Eric Fehrnstrom, hapless "etch-a-sketch" guy who is still running Romney into the ground months later. For a man who "likes to fire people," Mitt is almost too loyal to his inner circle of clownish advisers.
That is also the opinion of Washington correspondent Sam Stein of The Huffington Post who said on the show:
"No, I think he'll stay on the payroll, unfortunately. Unfortunately, it's a bad analogy.
There's an issue here which is Mitt Romney could have conceivably waited twelve hours, woken up, seen the news, and said, 'Listen, we all mourn the loss of life here, but it's time to really look at President Obama's strategy, vis-a-vis the Arab Spring.' And that would have sparked a conversation that may have been more damaging to President Obama than what's transpired currently.
The problem I think Mitt Romney has is that there's about three different factions within the Republican Party with respect to foreign policy. There's the people who are unapologetically pro-international engagement, the Neocons who think you can use military might to shape the world in your image. There are people who want to do it more subtlely, they're more realistic. And then there are the people, the Rand Paul types who want to disengage from the international community. So whenever Mitt Romney wants to put out a statement on Libya, he has to contend with three separate factions within his own party about what that statement is. And I think they look at that and say 'It is a lot easier for us to just go after President Obama on character grounds, accuse him of sympathizing with the protestors,' than it is to craft something that might be a little bit confusing to members of their own party.
And that's where he gets in trouble. . . .
. . . What you had this morning was Mitt Romney's advisers literally tearing down a campaign rally to set up a more somber setting so that he could deliver this statement in a sort of drabby dark Jacksonville office. Whereas Obama, all he does is step out into the Rose Garden and by sheer fact that he's President, he looked Presidential. And you know sometimes we look too much at the optics and the setting, and I think in this case the optics and the settings are a huge part of the story.
. . . There was supposed to be a partisan detente yesterday for 9/11. They knew about the embassy being breached. They planned their statement and they actually lifted the embargo to get ahead of the news cycle. They were very much aware of what they were doing. The statement was signed off by Romney himself according to the New York Times report tonight. They knew what was happening and if it were a gaffe they would have backtracked today. Instead they went back and they said 'No, we stand by that statement in condemning what the Cairo Embassy put out.' So no, this planned from the beginning and they totally miscalculated what would happen once they decided to say that Obama was sympathizing with the protestors.
A picture really is worth a thousand words. This pic from AP photographer Charles Dharapak probably deserves a Pulitzer Prize for capturing the self-satisfied smirk of a candidate who just made a complete fool of himself but has so little self-awareness that he thinks he has won a huge victory. It's Mitt Romney believing he is Ronald Reagan when really he is Ted Baxter from the Mary Tyler Moore Show.
PHOTO: Mitt Romney leaves podium after speaking about U.S. consulate killings in Benghazi, Libya via @aptwitter.com/CharlesDharapa…
Romney grabbed a hornet's nest when he tried to use a volatile situation in Libya for political purchase last night right at the time that our Ambassador to that country was being murdered. Yes, Romney and his minions are that craven. His weird idea that Obama is "apologizing for America" makes no sense anyway, but to layer it on top of an American death on foreign soil is simply a jerkface thing to do.
That Romney decided it was wise to throw down on foreign policy when 9/11 was barely over is unforgivable. That he decided to do it at all has probably put the nail in the coffin for his chances at the Presidency, mainly because his own party is so disgusted with him now that they probably won't vote for him.
Sometimes the more subtle type of violence against women is the verbal kind coming from the Right-Wing Republican Tea Party Nutters. Take Todd Akin . . . please. He thinks that women can't get pregnant from "forcible" or what he calls "legitimate" rape because of "God's Protective Shield," which is something a couple of wingnut doctors made up. Insane. (More on that further down the page)
From what I understand from doctors, that's really rare. If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let's assume maybe that didn't work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist.
What we know is that Akin worked with Paul Ryan in Congress to redefine rape as either "forcible" or not, so that girls wouldn't be lining up for abortions and claiming "statutory rape." I guess he believes that statutory rape can lead to pregnancy, but not "legitimate" or "forcible" rape.
Ryan ... cosponsored the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act" with Akin in 2011. The GOP tried to narrow the definition of rape as it related to abortions with the measure. Only in instances of "forcible rape," the bill specified, would a woman be eligible to have her abortion covered under insurance.
The Romney/Ryan Ticket came out with a statement tonight that is slightly to the left of Paul's previous views on abortion:
Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan disagree with Mr. Akin’s statement, and a Romney-Ryan administration would not oppose abortion in instances of rape," Andrea Saul, a Romney spokesperson, told The Huffington Post.
While Saul's statement is consistent with Romney's position on abortion, it's a clear departure from Ryan's position, which is that abortion should only be legal in cases where the life of the mother is at risk. Ryan sponsored a fetal personhood bill, which would effectively criminalize abortion and some forms of birth control without exceptions for rape victims.
“I’m as pro-life as a person gets,” he told the Weekly Standard in 2010. “You’re not going to have a truce.”
Mother Jones has an article detailing just where Todd Akins (and probably Paul Ryan) got this misinformation about rape and pregnancy. Turns out there are some whacked-out doctors on the right who are spreading misinformation and these anti-women wingnuts then use it to make policy.
My question: Why would grown-up supposedly educated men believe this nonsense?
. . . John C. Willke, an anti-abortion doctor, writes on the website Christian Life Resources about how pregnancies resulting from rape are "extremely rare" because of hormones and stuff:
Finally, factor in what is certainly one of the most important reasons why a rape victim rarely gets pregnant, and that's physical trauma. Every woman is aware that stress and emotional factors can alter her menstrual cycle. To get and stay pregnant a woman's body must produce a very sophisticated mix of hormones. Hormone production is controlled by a part of the brain that is easily influenced by emotions. There's no greater emotional trauma that can be experienced by a woman than an assault rape. This can radically upset her possibility of ovulation, fertilization, implantation and even nurturing of a pregnancy.
. . . In 1998, Fay Boozman, a Republican candidate for Senate in Arkansas, got in trouble for embracing this idea. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported that Boozman said the inability to get pregnant from rape stemmed from "God's little protective shield"—a report Boozman denied before saying that it was in fact an "adrenaline rush" that prevented conception from rape.
The you-can't-get-pregnant-from-rape falsehood is apparently something that enough people believe that Planned Parenthood includes it on its pregnancy FAQ page.
I don't think even God's Protective Shield can help Todd Akin now. He's going down!
Honestly, how much more of this can we women take before we have to go march in the streets? This evil idiocy towards women is like a Frankenstein's monster that keeps going and going and going . . .kicking women where they are most vulnerable. What does this say about the GOP and the future of this country? I. Just. Can't. Stand. It.
On Pregnancy from Rape:
From what I understand from doctors, that's really rare. If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let's assume maybe that didn't work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist.
~ Congressman Todd Akin, R-Missouri, running for Senate
We're going to prove to Missourians that Todd Akin is out of touch with their problems, out of touch with the pain that they feel, and out of touch with the views that they hold dear.
~ Akins opponent, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri
As a woman & former prosecutor who handled 100s of rape cases,I'm stunned by Rep Akin's comments about victims this AM bit.ly/NahiHz
— Claire McCaskill (@clairecmc) August 19, 2012
UPDATE: Akins Issues a Statement - "Whoops, I misspoke off-the-cuff." OMG
St. Louis - Congressman Todd Akin just released the following statement regarding his interview on the "Jaco Report" broadcast this morning in St. Louis:
"As a member of Congress, I believe that working to protect the most vulnerable in our society is one of my most important responsibilities, and that includes protecting both the unborn and victims of sexual assault. In reviewing my off-the-cuff remarks, it's clear that I misspoke in this interview and it does not reflect the deep empathy I hold for the thousands of women who are raped and abused every year. Those who perpetrate these crimes are the lowest of the low in our society and their victims will have no stronger advocate in the Senate to help ensure they have the justice they deserve.
"I recognize that abortion, and particularly in the case of rape, is a very emotionally charged issue. But I believe deeply in the protection of all life and I do not believe that harming another innocent victim is the right course of action. I also recognize that there are those who, like my opponent, support abortion and I understand I may not have their support in this election.
"But I also believe that this election is about a wide-range of very important issues, starting with the economy and the type of country we will be leaving our children and grandchildren. We've had 42 straight months of unacceptably high unemployment, trillion dollar deficits, and Democratic leaders in Washington who are focused on growing government, instead of jobs. That is my primary focus in this campaign and while there are those who want to distract from that, knowing they cannot defend the Democrats' failed economic record of the last four years, that will continue to be my focus in the months ahead."
