In our first installment of "Why Romney Lost", we focused on Mr. Romney's comments on Libya.
Since then, the RomneyBot 2012 has erred greatly in its programming, providing additional reasons for its eventual demise in November. And by demise, we mean a complete auto-destruct sequence. It's really that bad.
Yes, it WAS quick, wasn't it?
Since then, the RomneyBot 2012 has erred greatly in its programming, providing additional reasons for its eventual demise in November. And by demise, we mean a complete auto-destruct sequence. It's really that bad.
Yes, it WAS quick, wasn't it?
Credit for cartoonish brilliance goes to Daryl Cagle. "Leaked" indeed.
Not lies, exactly.
The Romney-Ryan ticket's string of utter baloney has been well documented in the last few weeks. As The Guardian's Oliver Burkeman points out,
"These incidents all involve candidates emitting words from their mouths, in roughly grammatical order, to sound plausible, as circumstances demand. These statements aren't the truth, nor a deliberate attempt to evade the truth. They're pure bullshit."
John Stewart's brilliant rundown stating even his own dad wouldn't vote for him, how he uses his wife sparingly on the campaign trail "so people don't get tired of her", and how he wishes he were "born mexican".
Stephen Colbert: The press went after Romney "like a poor person going after a basic need."
And the Onion's settling of the matter with "Now That My Campaign Is Over, I'd Like to Talk To You All About The Church Of Latter-Day Saints".
Hear Ye! Listen! When comedians can base half of their show on what you did six months ago, that's a bad day. When that six-months-ago event surfaces just as they are winding down with material from the previous week's gaffe, you, perhaps, should consider your Presidential run a failed business enterprise and cut your losses, Mr. Bain.
By contrast, GOP attempts to attack Obama have been mutton-mitted, executed with about as much precision as an armor-piercing bullet fired from a sniper rifle made of broccoli. The website obamalies.net, a supposed chronicling of erstwhile fibs by the POTUSA, is one such Breitbartian example. Clicking one-layer deep into their links to politifact reveals that the site is a mostly sham, attributing quotes to Obama that were uttered by Julian Castro, claiming something as a lie that was disagreed upon by experts. This mirrors a seemingly boundless propensity of right-wing hacks to take bald-faced lies and pass them off as truth. It's a ridiculously sickening attempt to say you're fact checking, but why bother with the facts?
Even the most lefty of lefties doesn't go this far. "Chronicling of Mitt's Mendacity", a blog on Rachel Maddow's website, is an obviously partisan attempt to discredit Mitt. It does not stoop this low, instead relying on repeating itself(because Romney does repeat the same points over and over, whether true or false). If you're an impartial observer, you're left scratching your head in wonder at the crass attempts at manipulation by the Romney campaign and their supporters. One side, complete BS supported by nothing. The other side, some BS, at least supported by an approach that resembles critical thinking. Not a difficult November choice, at least not if you're trying to think through things.
And that is me trying to be non-partisan.
"RomneyBot 2012 Self-destruct Sequence Initiated"
The failed part of the RomneyBot 2012 is clearly the programming. While Romney's programming has clearly been designed to gain favorable audience reactions, it was not created with different audiences in mind. In other words, when the RomneyBot 2012 speaks to a specific audience, it kills. Take that speech out of context and play it to a different audience, and it falls, shall we say, "a bit flat".
David Brooks NYT op-ed on the ineptitude of the campaign, "Thurston Howell Romney" mirrors this idea in his conclusion:
"Personally, I think he’s a kind, decent man who says stupid things because he is pretending to be something he is not — some sort of cartoonish government-hater." (emphasis added)
The Romney-Ryan ticket's string of utter baloney has been well documented in the last few weeks. As The Guardian's Oliver Burkeman points out,
"These incidents all involve candidates emitting words from their mouths, in roughly grammatical order, to sound plausible, as circumstances demand. These statements aren't the truth, nor a deliberate attempt to evade the truth. They're pure bullshit."
John Stewart's brilliant rundown stating even his own dad wouldn't vote for him, how he uses his wife sparingly on the campaign trail "so people don't get tired of her", and how he wishes he were "born mexican".
Stephen Colbert: The press went after Romney "like a poor person going after a basic need."
And the Onion's settling of the matter with "Now That My Campaign Is Over, I'd Like to Talk To You All About The Church Of Latter-Day Saints".
Hear Ye! Listen! When comedians can base half of their show on what you did six months ago, that's a bad day. When that six-months-ago event surfaces just as they are winding down with material from the previous week's gaffe, you, perhaps, should consider your Presidential run a failed business enterprise and cut your losses, Mr. Bain.
By contrast, GOP attempts to attack Obama have been mutton-mitted, executed with about as much precision as an armor-piercing bullet fired from a sniper rifle made of broccoli. The website obamalies.net, a supposed chronicling of erstwhile fibs by the POTUSA, is one such Breitbartian example. Clicking one-layer deep into their links to politifact reveals that the site is a mostly sham, attributing quotes to Obama that were uttered by Julian Castro, claiming something as a lie that was disagreed upon by experts. This mirrors a seemingly boundless propensity of right-wing hacks to take bald-faced lies and pass them off as truth. It's a ridiculously sickening attempt to say you're fact checking, but why bother with the facts?
Even the most lefty of lefties doesn't go this far. "Chronicling of Mitt's Mendacity", a blog on Rachel Maddow's website, is an obviously partisan attempt to discredit Mitt. It does not stoop this low, instead relying on repeating itself(because Romney does repeat the same points over and over, whether true or false). If you're an impartial observer, you're left scratching your head in wonder at the crass attempts at manipulation by the Romney campaign and their supporters. One side, complete BS supported by nothing. The other side, some BS, at least supported by an approach that resembles critical thinking. Not a difficult November choice, at least not if you're trying to think through things.
And that is me trying to be non-partisan.
"RomneyBot 2012 Self-destruct Sequence Initiated"
The failed part of the RomneyBot 2012 is clearly the programming. While Romney's programming has clearly been designed to gain favorable audience reactions, it was not created with different audiences in mind. In other words, when the RomneyBot 2012 speaks to a specific audience, it kills. Take that speech out of context and play it to a different audience, and it falls, shall we say, "a bit flat".
David Brooks NYT op-ed on the ineptitude of the campaign, "Thurston Howell Romney" mirrors this idea in his conclusion:
"Personally, I think he’s a kind, decent man who says stupid things because he is pretending to be something he is not — some sort of cartoonish government-hater." (emphasis added)
This sentiment is echoed by CNN's Gloria Borger, who says of Romney:
"He sizes up a situation (or an audience). He figures out what he needs to do to cut the deal. Then he does it, and expects it to work."
While Romney claims only that it "wasn't elegantly stated", the rest of us - even conservatives - cringe at this kind of opportunistic truth-bending, calling it "clumsy" and "a bad day".
Of course this is all an unfair, out-of-context plot by the liberal elite media to take down a great American.
This is what Romney supporters are saying, in a classic post-apocalyptic failed political campaign style: "the media treated us unfairly. What about Obama's misstatements?".
Let's take a moment to credit the media for what it DOES. The media generally reports what they see as newsworthy truth and ignores what they see as less important lies. Whether that is ACTUAL truth or actual importance, we can debate that all day. In this instance, Romney's message is so patently plutocratic as to be unpalatable to the American people. Hence, newsworthy.
Angering the palate of a country that reveres McDonald's is no small task, but Mitt has accomplished this.
If you feel the media is treating Romney unfairly compared to Obama, consider this analogy:
If you see two guys walking down a hall, and one guy trips, and one guy takes out his johnson and starts making quacking sounds to the camera, don't expect coverage of the guy who tripped.
"He sizes up a situation (or an audience). He figures out what he needs to do to cut the deal. Then he does it, and expects it to work."
While Romney claims only that it "wasn't elegantly stated", the rest of us - even conservatives - cringe at this kind of opportunistic truth-bending, calling it "clumsy" and "a bad day".
Of course this is all an unfair, out-of-context plot by the liberal elite media to take down a great American.
This is what Romney supporters are saying, in a classic post-apocalyptic failed political campaign style: "the media treated us unfairly. What about Obama's misstatements?".
Let's take a moment to credit the media for what it DOES. The media generally reports what they see as newsworthy truth and ignores what they see as less important lies. Whether that is ACTUAL truth or actual importance, we can debate that all day. In this instance, Romney's message is so patently plutocratic as to be unpalatable to the American people. Hence, newsworthy.
Angering the palate of a country that reveres McDonald's is no small task, but Mitt has accomplished this.
If you feel the media is treating Romney unfairly compared to Obama, consider this analogy:
If you see two guys walking down a hall, and one guy trips, and one guy takes out his johnson and starts making quacking sounds to the camera, don't expect coverage of the guy who tripped.
Calling Mitt Romney a Flip-Flopper is like crying over spilled onions.
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