OH MY! CHARLES PIERCE ON MITT ROMNEY

From The Politics Blog at Esquire:

Comes now this pure piece of manufactured product, this vacant replicant of American plutocracy, to lecture a country in the middle of a fragile recovery from an economic disaster brought on by the other soulless replicants on the topics of our vanishing work ethic, and the great moral cleansing power of onrushing poverty. And, because he cares less about the country he's planning to lead than he does about the next nickel he can squeeze out of it, he's doing so with rhetoric that owes more to George Wallace than it does to George Romney, who was a decent Republican in the days before greasy-beaked vultures like his spalpeen hijacked the party. (Which is pretty much what E.J. Dionne was saying recently.) Willard is working the old poor-people-are-robbing-you-blind melodeon again while his real targets are anyone who receives any kind of federal government assistance of any kind whatsoever. And don't fall for the old "states do it better" dodge. Willard knows full good and well that the states can't carry this kind of load, either, and that the costs will just get passed down to lower and lower levels of government until nobody can pay for anything, and the programs that he'd like to see eliminated because it will help him get elected simply disappear.

Charles Pierce always writes with intelligence, knowledgeability, and, quite often, irony that bites, but the piece is one of his best.

Read the entire article here.

Romney is so smooth looking, so well-coiffed and well-tailored, that he doesn't look real. Just look at his shining eyes in the picture. Does Romney look like a man who would ride his dog on the roof of the car on a family vacation?

According to a 2007 Boston Globe profile of the candidate, Romney’s oldest son, Tagg, yelled, “Gross!” as he noticed a brown liquid flowing down the back window from the Irish Setter Seamus, who had been riding on car’s roof for hours.

“As the rest of the boys joined in the howls of disgust, Romney coolly pulled off the highway and into a service station,” the Globe noted. “There, he borrowed a hose, washed down Seamus and the car, then hopped back onto the highway. It was a tiny preview of a trait he would grow famous for in business: emotion-free crisis management.”

When the Wall Street Journal questioned him about the incident, Romney said:

“Uh…,” Romney said, clearly caught off guard by the question. “Love my dog.”

“That’s all I’ve got for ya,” he added.

I've never forgotten the story of Seamus riding on top of the car. Perhaps Seamus could do without Mitt's version of doggie love.

A CAUTIONARY WORD ON AUSTERITY

From the New York Times:

For a year now, Britain’s economy has been stuck in a vicious cycle of low growth, high unemployment and fiscal austerity. But unlike Greece, which has been forced into induced recession by misguided European Union creditors, Britain has inflicted this harmful quack cure on itself.

Austerity was a deliberate ideological choice by Prime Minister David Cameron’s ruling coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, elected 17 months ago. It has failed and can be expected to keep failing. But neither party is yet prepared to acknowledge that reality and change course.
....

Austerity is a political ideology masquerading as an economic policy. It rests on a myth, impervious to facts, that portrays all government spending as wasteful and harmful, and unnecessary to the recovery. The real world is a lot more complicated. America has no need to repeat Mr. Cameron’s failed experiment. (My emphasis)

But that's just where we're headed here in the US, with the obstructionist Republicans in the House and the Senate who will not cooperate with a jobs bill. Make no mistake: theirs is not an ideological or principled stand. The goal of the Republicans is to block all efforts to get the economy on the upswing but rather allow the situation go from bad to worse over the next year, in order that they may electioneer on the failure of President Obama. That's just how cynical the Republicans are. They will sacrifice the people and the country for the sake of politics.