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PoliGAF 2012 |OT3| If it's not a legitimate OT the mods have ways to shut it down

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Gruco

Banned
I dunno, the town hall is going to provide Romney an awesome chance for him to make gigantic bets to demonstrate how confident he is in his answers. Going to be tough for Obama to compete with that.
 

markatisu

Member
Obama comments to Telemundo
Responding to GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s statements that Obama’s initial response was disgraceful, Obama said: “As president, my obligation is to focus on security for our people, making sure that we gather all the facts, making sure that we're advancing American interests. And not having ideological arguments on a day when we are mourning the loss of outstanding folks who have served our country very well.”
 
They're argue that these aren't moderate Muslims.

You know that's how it will play out.

Not to mention those will be 'shopped with alternate slogans. I'm surprised people aren't mocking the misspellings.

Smirkgate is silly. It is just his reaction to everything. The guy made millions buying companies and laying people off, so it is not like he is the most empathetic person. We already knew that.

The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson talks about how high-profile/big success CEOs often have a very distinct lack of empathy, and how that even contributes to their success.



Kosmo, the purpose of reporters coordinating their questions is so that no matter who is called on, an important question can't just be ducked by calling on Jeff Gannon.*

* "How are you going to work with [Senate Democratic leaders] who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?"
 
I dunno, the town hall is going to provide Romney an awesome chance for him to make gigantic bets to demonstrate how confident he is in his answers. Going to be tough for Obama to compete with that.
Romney: I bet you ten million dollars that you're wrong!

Obama: I don't even have ten million dollars.

Romney: Clearly an embarrassment of a president then.

(Headlines: Romney shames Obama at debate for being poor)
 

Gray Man

Banned
I really don't like most of the GOP, but I still can't help but feel bad for Mitt Romney. It seems like he want's to be a lot more moderate than he appears to be, but has to run so far to the right to get those GOP votes. Its sad he can't show support for a Healthcare system that he helped set the framework for.

I guess on the flipside it speaks poorly about his character, on account that he is flip flopping for the GOP...
 
I really don't like most of the GOP, but I still can't help but feel bad for Mitt Romney. It seems like he want's to be a lot more moderate than he appears to be, but has to run so far to the right to get those GOP votes. Its sad he can't show support for a Healthcare system that he helped set the framework for.

I guess on the flipside it speaks poorly about his character, on account that he is flip flopping for the GOP...

I thought this at first. Now, I want to see him turned into a Republican Dukakis for trying to score political points on the death of several American public servants, including one who's probably done more for more people than he ever has and lying through his teeth to do it.

Even if I wasn't disgusted morally, this incident, piled onto literally every other time he opens his mouth on Foreign Policy, means not only do I want to see him nowhere near being an official voice for America, but I want to see his dreams of being that voice crushed.
 

Gotchaye

Member

article said:
"Certainly in this situation, what we're going to expect is that (the Egyptian government is) responsive to our insistence that our embassy is protected, our personnel is protected, and if they take actions that they’re not taking those responsibilities, as all countries do where we have embassies, I think that’s going to be a real big problem.”
article said:
the U.S. “doesn't have an option of withdrawing from the world ... we're the one indispensable nation."
Why won't he stop apologizing?

I just love that first quote. It's very understated. Very "nice country you have there".
 
Ty Cobb was the greatest hitter of all time and he batted about .355. And he is still the greatest hitter. There isn’t something in my 63 years I couldn’t have done better except con my wife into marrying me.
inUFPmBqQmeoH.jpg
 
I really don't like most of the GOP, but I still can't help but feel bad for Mitt Romney. It seems like he want's to be a lot more moderate than he appears to be, but has to run so far to the right to get those GOP votes. Its sad he can't show support for a Healthcare system that he helped set the framework for.

Fuck that. He won the nomination and he can now do anything he wants. He is totally free to choose a more moderate path if he wants. Such a strategy might even work. What . . . like the GOP base is going to vote for the Kenyan Muslim if Romney were to adopt a bunch of moderate positions?

He's chosen to stick to these hard-right positions of his own free will so there is no reason to feel sorry for him.
 
RE: Foodstamp guy.

Wasnt unfriended, but the entire status update, including my reply, was deleted.

Guess pointing out the hypocrisy got to him.

I consider it a mission accomplished.
 
RE: Foodstamp guy.

Wasnt unfriended, but the entire status update, including my reply, was deleted.

Guess pointing out the hypocrisy got to him.

I consider it a mission accomplished.
This is actually how it usually goes down. A friend of mine was bitching about Obama giving illegals "amnesty" because of the DREAM Act-lite executive order, and I posted "Did you know that Ronald Reagan gave amnesty to 3 million illegal immigrants in 1986?" and linked to the wiki article for the law. His profile pic was of Reagan.

He deleted the entire thing.
 
This is actually how it usually goes down. A friend of mine was bitching about Obama giving illegals "amnesty" because of the DREAM Act-lite executive order, and I posted "Did you know that Ronald Reagan gave amnesty to 3 million illegal immigrants in 1986?" and linked to the wiki article for the law. His profile pic was of Reagan.

He deleted the entire thing.

Better than doubling down right?

Romney should take note.
 
This is actually how it usually goes down. A friend of mine was bitching about Obama giving illegals "amnesty" because of the DREAM Act-lite executive order, and I posted "Did you know that Ronald Reagan gave amnesty to 3 million illegal immigrants in 1986?" and linked to the wiki article for the law. His profile pic was of Reagan.

He deleted the entire thing.
God damn. I hope one day to lay down such ownage on facebook too. I'm being serious...
 
RE: Foodstamp guy.

Wasnt unfriended, but the entire status update, including my reply, was deleted.

Guess pointing out the hypocrisy got to him.

I consider it a mission accomplished.
I've always been a proponent of shining the biggest light you can find upon hidden things and then taking note of who and what scurries back into the shadows.

And a mirror is one of the most effective ways to shine that light.
 

Forever

Banned
The Salon article does an especially good job of highlighting just how much of a shitbag Romney is.

That it’s fundamentally dishonest hasn’t stopped Mitt Romney from repeating his central critique of Barack Obama’s foreign policy over and over – the idea that the president “went around the world and apologized for America.” So it shouldn’t be surprising that Romney’s response to the attacks on U.S. diplomatic installations in Egypt and Libya was rooted in the same caricature of Obama as apologizer-in-chief.

“It’s disgraceful,” Romney’s statement, which was released late Tuesday night, read, “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.”

That’s not at all what happened, of course. The actual chronology goes something like this: As anti-American protests inspired by a crude Terry Jones video began gathering steam, the U.S. embassy in Cairo – and not the Obama White House — put out a statement condemning “the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims — as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions.”

The obvious intent was to cool the passions of the protesters. As Marc Ambinder explained, it was “exactly what Americans inside the embassy who are scared for their lives now and worry about revenge later need to have released in their name.”

Protests were also building in Libya, and sometime later the U.S. consulate in Benghazi came under siege, with news breaking late Tuesday night that a State Department official had been killed. It was around this time that two major American political figures released statements. One came from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and read: “I condemn in the strongest terms the attack on our mission. We are heartbroken by this terrible loss. There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.” The other was Romney’s.

It has since been learned that a total of four people – the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and three of his staff members – were killed in the attacks. President Obama has now issued a statement condemning the assault, praising Stevens, and pledging “all necessary resources to support the security of our personnel in Libya, and to increase security at our diplomatic posts around the globe.”

The foolishness of Romney’s reaction is glaring. Pretending that the statement from the U.S. embassy in Cairo was anything other than a completely understandable and reasonable attempt by its occupants to save their own lives borders on disgraceful. Romney’s implication that the statement was issued at the height of the attacks is also false; it was actually released earlier in the day, a preventive measure aimed at keeping the protests from turning violent.
 

GhaleonEB

Member

The whole thing reminds me a bit of Romney's response to the Obama administration lawsuit to reinstate early voting in Ohio, to all residents rather than just the military. There he made up the story that Obama was trying to take away the military early voting rights, instead of expanding them.

He takes a series of events, creates a central lie out of them, and pretends that's what is happening. As ugly as McCain's campaign was at times, I can't recall them inventing such total fabrications out of whole cloth with this kind of frequency. Dude just makes shit up and runs with it.
 

Kettch

Member
The whole thing reminds me a bit of Romney's response to the Obama administration lawsuit to reinstate early voting in Ohio, to all residents rather than just the military. There he made up the story that Obama was trying to take away the military early voting rights, instead of expanding them.

He takes a series of events, creates a central lie out of them, and pretends that's what is happening. As ugly as McCain's campaign was at times, I can't recall them inventing such total fabrications out of whole cloth with this kind of frequency. Dude just makes shit up and runs with it.

Don't forget the whole "You didn't build that" thing. He truly is running against an invisible Obama.
 

watershed

Banned
I just love Team Romney's political instincts. Looking for anywhere to draw contrasts with the President even though they are completely devoid of any real foreign policy argument, they leap on the protests. Then when it turns out that was a bad idea, so afraid of looking like a vague, weak, flipflopper they double down on stupid. This politically tone deaf behavior and recent polling makes me feel better about this election.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
Don't forget the whole "You didn't build that" thing. He truly is running against an invisible Obama.

Yup, not sure how I could have omitted that one. Romney's entire campaign is premised on a series of blatant lies. (See also: Medicare cuts.)
I just love Team Romney's political instincts. Looking for anywhere to draw contrasts with the President even though they are completely devoid of any real foreign policy argument, they leap on the protests. Then when it turns out that was a bad idea, so afraid of looking like a vague, weak, flipflopper they double down on stupid. This politically tone deaf behavior and recent polling makes me feel better about this election.

I liked Ezra Klein's analogy:

When campaigns are losing, they get desperate. And when they get desperate, they make riskier political decisions. And so, Tuesday night, the Romney campaign made a risky decision.

......

Romney’s comments were, to be sure, unusually noxious and indecent. But this is also what happens when campaigns get desperate. Like a gambler who’s already lost too much, they begin taking risks in the hope of making it all back. And then, more often than not, they pay the price.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/09/12/the-romney-campaign-gets-desperate/
 

pigeon

Banned
I just love Team Romney's political instincts. Looking for anywhere to draw contrasts with the President even though they are completely devoid of any real foreign policy argument, they leap on the protests. Then when it turns out that was a bad idea, so afraid of looking like a vague, weak, flipflopper they double down on stupid. This politically tone deaf behavior and recent polling makes me feel better about this election.

Personally, I enjoy the small stream of posts to this thread from people whose Republican relatives just called to say they can't vote Republican any more.
 

Averon

Member
I mean, I sorta understand why Mitt Romney went on the attack with Libya (his campaign is failing, he's running out of time, and there are so few chances to change the dynamics of the race). But why gamble on an issue (foreign policy) where you're especially weak in? Especially when you're been "It's the economy, stupid!" since day one? It's as if Romney and his people are starting to believe this invisible, caricature of Obama they invented is real and that the American public can't tell the difference the Obama they seen and heard every day for the last 3.5 years and the Obama the GOP essentially invented.

Makes the Clint Eastwood/invisible Obama moment at the GOP far more revealing.
 

Puddles

Banned
Obama's reelection is still $6.05 on Intrade - that's pretty easy money

Haha, no. $6.34 a share now. It was $6.08 just two days ago. Obama share prices have been skyrocketing. I plan to put a large bet on Obama, but I won't have the money until next week, and watching Obama's share prices keep steadily increasing is torture for me right now. It feels like I'm watching my money burn.

Yesterday, there was a brief opportunity to buy 900 Obama shares at around $6.18 a share. Missing out on that felt worse than the time I decided not to buy Nintendo stock in 2006.

I asked once before somewhere on gaf but I forgot to check if anyone answered. How do you make money on this?

If Obama wins, all of your shares pay off at $10 each. If Obama loses, you lose all your money. So if you buy an Obama share right now for $6.34, you make $3.66 if he wins.
 
I see. Reading the wiki I see they fudged up the primary where Romney was called the winner, but later Santorum won after all. Lol ouch. Betting on Obama seems like a pretty safe bet right now though and the return is pretty nice. Nothing crazy obviously.
 
Just finished watching the Romney press briefing. His over hyping on the Cairo Embassy's message of sympathy is really troubling. It's one thing to be unapologetic here in America or in Florida with Jones. It's quite another in a city that has close to 20 million Muslims. Is Romney suggesting that the Embassy staff fall on their swords in defense of the freedom of speech for idiots?
 
Just finished watching the Romney press briefing. His over hyping on the Cairo Embassy's message of sympathy is really troubling. It's one thing to be unapologetic here in America or in Florida with Jones. It's quite another in a city that has close to 20 million Muslims. Is Romney suggesting that the Embassy staff fall on their swords in defense of the freedom of speech for idiots?
Romney himself condemned the movie in the same manner. So I can't even figure out what he is complaining about.
 

Mario

Sidhe / PikPok
Is Romney suggesting that the Embassy staff fall on their swords in defense of the freedom of speech for idiots?

Who even know what he is suggesting.

The embassy statement was neither an apology nor was it in any way trying to impose limits on free speech. Its already not doing the things he wants the US not to do.
 

Diablos

Member
US embassy in Yemen stormed in film protest

Protesters have stormed the grounds of the United States embassy in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa.

They were demonstrating against an anti-Islam film made in the US, which has provoked anger around the Muslim world.

On Tuesday, the US ambassador to Libya was among several people killed in a fire started after the US consulate in Benghazi was stormed.

There have also been clashes in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.

Witnesses in Sanaa said a number of vehicles had been set on fire in the compound of the embassy.

Police opened fire in an attempt to hold back the crowds, but they managed to gain access to the building.

Earlier on Thursday, US officials said they were investigating whether the attack in Libya was planned, citing suspicions that a militant jihadist group may have co-ordinated the violence
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19584734
 
I think it's pretty obvious what Romney was doing.

1. He thought the statement came out after the attack. From that perspective, it looks like they were saying "guys guys, we agree with you. stop hurting us," which would look like weakness.

2. Romney was then informed the statement came out prior to the attack and was basically what he already asserted.

3. This left Romney with 3 options.

a. do nothing and not sure what the expect

b. reverse course and look weak and also dumb for jumping the gun

c. double down, try to change the narrative, and pray it works.

4. He chose c.





Regarding these protests, it's so dumb to protest the US gov't here considering this has nothing to do with them. Sigh.
 

Mario

Sidhe / PikPok
Regarding these protests, it's so dumb to protest the US gov't here considering this has nothing to do with them. Sigh.

I imagine for those who have mostly only known oppressive regimes that they would find it difficult to understand that US citizens could operate so freely and autonomously.
 

Astaereth

Member
It's an independent film whose backers are anonymous, whose director used a false name, and whose actors were told it was a period film. It was redubbed in post to include insulting references to the prophet Mohammed.

The film is not in release anywhere and is only available in clips (a few shorter ones and an 11 minute one) on Youtube which were uploaded back in July and seized upon recently by religious figures in the Middle East.

There's some noise that the attacks are not spontaneous demonstrations but planned attacks on behalf of Al Queda, who are pissed because their leadership keeps getting drone'd.

Until there's more evidence it could go either way. But either way Romney looks dumb here.

Edit: oh, and apparently the filmmakers have said it was paid for and made by Jews, something which does not appear to be true. So it's all very shady.
 
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