I was so glad to see Hillary Clinton so fiesty with Congress after her recent illness. Of course the Tea Party didn't cut her any slack - she was grilled mercilessly by Congressmen and Senators over the Benghazi incident. Chris Matthews compared her to Gulliver among the Lilliputians, a giant among the little people, in Jonathan Swift's famous novel. Their questions were really ad hominem attacks used to boost their own pitiful careers with an ever-diminishing GOP. The Good Old Boys belched out Fox News talking points that bore little resemblance to reality. "Read the report," Hillary kept saying to them, because it was obvious they hadn't read anything, and were playing "gotcha" more than trying to get to the bottom of the murders of four government officials.
Poseurs like John McCain were especially egregious. He has been using Benghazi since before the election to help himself to another committee chairmanship (Harry Reid nixed that idea) and to wring out more air-time on Sunday morning talk shows. He pretended that Benghazi is somehow different from every other overseas attack, as if this time we should have known from the first moment everything that happened and why. McCain, who has more top secret security clearance than almost anyone, surely knows better. His performance was disingenuous faux-outrage. By contrast Hillary appeared dignified and full of common sense.
The joke of the day was when Senator Rand Paul said if he had been President, he would have fired Hillary for not reading every telegram from Benghazi. President? Delusions of grandeur much? Not to mention the fact that if George W. Bush had read all his telegrams and reports from, say, FBI agents here in the United States, then 911 need not have happened either. Right, Senator Paul? 3000 people died in that attack, plus thousands more over the course of two wars longer than any our military has ever engaged. But please, Senator Paul, proceed with your delusional life. We all know Hillary is much more likely to be President someday, not you.
With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk last night who decided to kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator.
Using Benghazi as a Republican talking point is imploding for the Right.
First it had no effect on the election, except to make Mitt Romney look like an idiot.
Then John McCain and Lindsey Graham tried to get themselves a new committee in the Senate to investigate Benghazi, but Harry Reid put the kibosh on that.
They spent days attacking Susan Rice, which only made them seem petty and hypocritical.
Now McCain is back-peddling as fast as he can, even scheduling a meeting with Rice and the acting head of the CIA.
And Fox News is under fire for blowing it all out of proportion in the first place.
United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice will meet with senators on Capitol Hill Tuesday to answer questions about the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi, Libya. CBS News has learned her appearance will include a morning meeting with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who has been among her biggest critics since her initial remarks on the attack.
. . . Rice will be accompanied by acting CIA Director Mike Morell while Graham and Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., will also attend Rice's meeting with McCain, which was requested by Rice's office following the Republicans' criticism. On November 14, President Obama defended Rice from the criticism from GOP senators, saying that "If Sen. McCain and Sen. Graham want to go after somebody, they should go after me." He added that to "besmirch her reputation is outrageous."
In the video below, the Fox anchor gives the spiel about "four people died" and that makes Benghazi significant. But journalist Tom Ricks puts it in perspective. After all, the four who died must have know the risk factors of their jobs in Benghazi. Weren't they probably briefed that such a thing could happen in a volatile country like Libya? Get real. Oh, and the GOP cut funding for security at consulates, so for that they are to blame. Sh** happens in a war zone.
Transcript under the video:
Transcript via Media Matters
JON SCOTT (co-host): Pressure mounting on the Obama administration over its response to the deadly attack on our consulate in Benghazi, as [Fox News correspondent] Catherine Herridge reported just minutes ago. Several top GOP lawmakers are backing off their criticism of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, instead focusing on the White House. Two senators even expressing concerns about a possible White House cover-up. Let's talk about it with Tom Ricks. He is author of The Generals. He has spent decades covering our military. He joins us now.
Senator John McCain said in the past he would block any attempt to nominate Susan Rice to become U.N. -- I'm sorry, secretary of state. She's currently the U.N. ambassador. He seems to be backing away from that. What do you make of it?
RICKS: I think that Benghazi generally was hyped, by this network especially, and that now that the campaign is over, I think he's backing off a little bit. They're not going to stop Susan Rice from being secretary of state.
SCOTT: When you have four people dead, including the first dead U.N. ambassador -- U.S. ambassador in more than 30 years, how do you call that hype?
RICKS: How many security contractors died in Iraq, do you know?
SCOTT: I don't.
RICKS: No. Nobody does, because nobody cared. We know that several hundred died, but there was never an official count done of security contractors dead in Iraq. So when I see this focus on what was essentially a small firefight, I think, number one, I've covered a lot of firefights. It's impossible to figure out what happens in them sometimes. And second, I think that the emphasis on Benghazi has been extremely political, partly because Fox was operating as a wing of Republican Party.
SCOTT: All right. Tom Ricks, thanks very much for joining us today.
Seriously, I'm losing patience with this witch hunt to blame Susan Rice for not instantly knowing everything about Benghazi, Libya. It's just crazy wingnut posturing in light of Obama's popular re-election, and they just need to stop the madness. It didn't work for Romney and it's going to backfire on them. We Dems heard enough of this crap during the election, which is now over, and they need to back off.
The first vid is audio only of John McCain being asked by a CNN reporter about why he missed a briefing on Benghazi to spend more time bashing U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, and the Senator has the angry reaction "Who the hell are you to ask me that?" Maybe he realizes he is embroiled in a witch hunt out of control which he started.
Obama had his first Press Conference since the election and ended up doing an epic smackdown on 2008's candidate, John McCain, and his today friend Lindsey Graham of SC.
The undynamic duo are threatening in heated language to filibuster the nomination of Susan Rice, UN Ambassador, to possibly become Secretary of State when Hillary Clinton leaves the position. McCain even said that Rice "wasn't that bright."
Geez ~ McCain is sounding more and more like Rush and Coulter and less like his former bipartisan self. He really ought to be ashamed.
He defended his pledge to block Susan Rice's confirmation if President Obama nominates her as the next Secretary of State, insisting that "she's not qualified" and criticizing her for asserting the attack was spontaneous in media appearances following the attack.
McCain criticized Rice for going "on national television in defiance of the facts 5 days later," and added, "She is responsible to the Senate of the United States...I was on 'Face the Nation' the morning she came on and told that incredible story and right after the president of the Libyan National Assembly said it was al Qaeda...and yet she never changed her story."
While McCain was open to the possibility that a select investigative committee could clear of Rice of "misleading the American people," and allowed that the president and Secretary of State Clinton held responsibility in the matter as well, he continued his sharply worded attack.
Referring to Rice, he said she was at a minimum, guilty of "not being very bright, because it was obvious that this was not a 'flash mob' and there was additional information by the time she went on every news show...in America."
He insisted, "The consulate in Benghazi was turned into a death house and somebody has to be held responsible."
The real problem is that Rice was not responsible for what happened in Benghazi, and considering the stuff the Bush administration handled badly - 911, Katrina, Iraq - it is the height of hypocrisy on the part of McCain and Graham to hold Rice hostage if Obama picks her to be Sec. of State. They never did that to Condileeza Rice!
"She made an appearance at the request of the White House in which she gave her best understanding of the intelligence that had been provided to her," Obama said. "If Sen. McCain and Sen. Graham and others want to go after somebody, they should go after me. And I'd be happy to have that discussion with them.
"But for them to go after the U.N. ambassador who had nothing to do with Benghazi? And was simply making a presentation based on intelligence that she had received?" Obama said. "And to besmirch her reputation is outrageous."
Obama said he didn't think it was debatable that "that when you have four Americans killed, that's a problem. And we've got to get to the bottom of it and there needs to be accountability. We've got to bring those who carried it out to justice."
"But when they go after the U.N. ambassador, apparently because they think she's an easy target, then they've got a problem with me," he said.
Obama said he would nominate Rice "if I think that she would be the best person" to succeed Hillary Clinton when she steps down as secretary of state as she said she would. However, he said, "that's not a determination that I've made yet."
Steve Kroft: Since the Benghazi tragedy, your opponent has attacked you as being weak on national defense and weak on foreign policy. He says you need to be more aggressive in Iran, haven't done enough to support the revolt in Syria, and that our friends don't know where we stand, and our enemies think we're weak.
Obama: Well, let's see what I've done since I came into office. I said I'd end the war in Iraq. I did. I said that we'd go after al Qaeda. They've been decimated in the Fatah. That we'd go after bin Laden. He's gone. So I've executed on my foreign policy. And it's one that the American people largely agree with.
So if Gov. Romney is suggesting that we should start another war, he should say so.
And Rachel Maddow reminded us on her show last night that one reason this ceremony was so moving and remarkable was that during the Bush Administration, displaying the flag-draped coffins of the dead was prohibited. The Bushies didn't want anyone to think about how many soldiers were dying in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama rescinded that order within 6 months of beginning his first term.
Maddow also covered the latest violence going on in the Middle East.
"This has clearly moved beyond demonstrations against an offensive internet video. It's become an opportunity for radicals in many countries to express their anger with the United States. And they've learned from watching each other that U.S. diplomatic facilities overseas aren't as protected as they thought."
~ Richard Engel on MSNBC
I'm speechless. This is such a strange story, and gets stranger by the minute . . .
This morning the Middle East continues to be a hotbed of violence and our our embassies are under threat in Yemen and elsewhere.
Chanting "death to America," hundreds of protesters angered by an anti-Islam film stormed the U.S. Embassy compound in Yemen's capital and burned the American flag on Thursday, the latest in a series of attacks on American diplomatic missions in the Middle East.
. . . The spreading violence comes as outrage grows over a movie called "Innocence of Muslims" that mocked Islam's Prophet Muhammad. The amateurish video was produced in the U.S. and excerpted on YouTube.
U.S. officials also were investigating whether the rampage in Libya was actually planned to coincide with the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.
It was widely reported yesterday that the person who made the controversial film was an Israeli Jew named "Sam Bacile," but that turns out to have been an alias. He is neither Israeli nor a Jew, but an Egyptian Coptic-Christian connected to extremist protest groups in California.
I'm exhausted just writing that. Imagine if I was a real journalist instead of a mere blogger. This story gets more complicated every time I visit the internet.
Anyway, the guy's real moniker is "Nakoula Basseley Nakoula," and he has several other aliases, which we know because he was convicted of a check-fraud scam.
Nakoula and Bacile are probably the same person. A cell phone number the AP used to speak to someone claiming to be Bacile traced back to the same location they met Nakoula. According to court papers, Nakoula has a number of aliases, including, "Nicola Bacily, Erwin Salameh and others." Jimmy Israel thinks they're the same person, too. He says when he asked Bacile for a legal name for registration with the Screen Actors Guild, Bacile said the name Bacile gave him was "Abnob Nakoula Basseley." He was also around 55, the same age the AP gives Nakoula.
If they are the same person, Nakoula's online activity likely violates a previous court order. The AP discovered Nakoula is currently not allowed to go on the internet or use a computer without approval from a parole officer:
Nakoula, who talked guardedly about his role, pleaded no contest in 2010 to federal bank fraud charges in California and was ordered to pay more than $790,000 in restitution. He was also sentenced to 21 months in federal prison and ordered not to use computers or the Internet for five years without approval from his probation officer.
Nakoula, who talked guardedly about his role, pleaded no contest in 2010 to federal bank fraud charges in California and was ordered to pay more than $790,000 in restitution. He was also sentenced to 21 months in federal prison and ordered not to use computers or the Internet for five years without approval from his probation officer.
The Youtube account, "Sam Bacile," which was used to publish excerpts of the provocative movie in July, was posting comments online as recently as Tuesday.
The person who identified himself as Bacile and described himself as the film's writer and director told the AP on Tuesday that he has gone into hiding. But doubts rose about the man's identity amid a flurry of false claims about his background and role in the purported film.
Nakoula told the AP that he was a Coptic Christian and said the film's director supported the concerns of Christian Copts about their treatment by Muslims.
. . . Pastor Terry Jones of Gainesville, Fla., who burned Qurans on the ninth anniversary of 9/11, said he spoke with the movie's director on the phone Wednesday and prayed for him. He said he has not met the filmmaker in person, but the man contacted him a few weeks ago about promoting the movie.
"I have not met him. Sam Bacile, that is not his real name," Jones said. "I just talked to him on the phone. He is definitely in hiding and does not reveal his identity. He was quite honestly fairly shook up concerning the events and what is happening. A lot of people are not supporting him."
Duh - I wonder why not? He is only connected to every Anti-Islamic cuckoo in the U.S. and must be a racist to create such a horrible piece of useless crap. If a Quran-burning preacher knows you (or any kind of book-burner for that matter), chances are you might cause some trouble in the world.
Cindy Lee Garcia, an actress from Bakersfield, Calif., has a small role in the Muhammed movie as a woman whose young daughter is given to Muhammed to marry. But in a phone interview this afternoon, Garcia told us she had no idea she was participating in an offensive spoof on the life of Muhammed when she answered a casting call through an agency last summer and got the part.
The script she was given was titled simply Desert Warriors.
"It was going to be a film based on how things were 2,000 years ago," Garcia said. "It wasn't based on anything to do with religion, it was just on how things were run in Egypt. There wasn't anything about Muhammed or Muslims or anything."
. . .According to Garica, her three days on set last July were unremarkable. The film's mysterious pseudonymous writer and director, "Sam Bacile," has claimed to be an Israeli real estate mogul. But Garcia said Bacile told her he was Egyptian on set. Bacile had white hair and spoke Arabic to a number of "dark-skinned" men who hung around the set, she said. (A Bacile associate also told The Atlantic he wasn't Israeli or Jewish.)
"He was just really mellow. He was just sitting there and he wanted certain points to be made."
Once, Garcia said, Bacile wanted a girl that "Master George" (aka Muhammed) was to sleep with to look seven years old, instead of 10, to heighten the outrage. But his Assistant Directors protested, saying that was too young.
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.
