Political Theatre category archive

Via Sampler, an image site (some images NSFW).

Via Contradict Me.

The innerwebs alert me that, in Newsweek, Michael Tomasky asks, “Is Romney a wimp?”

And the Commander Guy answers.

Via C&L.

Der Speigel considers the Mittsteps in Europe:

In the end, Mitt Romney tried to find something positive to say about his European adventure. He said an important lesson he had learned is that “rejection of one kind or another is going to be an important part of everyone’s life.”

The remark didn’t come after the Republican presidential candidate’s snafu-filled European tour over the past week. He made it after spending two years as a missionary for the Mormon Church in France in the 1960s, according to his biographers Michael Kranish and Scott Helman . . . .

Fast forward to last week in Europe, and things haven’t really gone any better for Romney. His visits to Britain, Israel or Poland didn’t go very well. The result has again been rejection of one kind or another. And the candidate has only himself to blame for this gaffe-filled tour.

Frolicking through the wingnutosphere.

I think I posted this once before, but it turned up in my RSS feed and is worth rerunning.

Warning: Almost as tasteless as the old white men in the Republican Party.

Mike Gruss, columnist for my local rag, is fed up with the political commercials, and the conventions haven’t even happened yet. A snippet:

Once upon a time in our history, commercials were what made television great. Indie-rock songs as jingles. Cars driving in completely impractical ways. The Dos Equis guy.

Those commercials were the building blocks of the American dream to get fat and stupid. But in the wrong hands, (dramatic music here) and during the wrong season, television commercials are miserable and force us to do things like read books or play Solitaire on our phones.

(Out of context black-and-white clip from cable news here.)

Candidates promise to make America better, but then they go on TV and make everything worse by playing their stupid ads over and over again. Is this the America you think we want?

Shaun Mullen drafts the obit.

Dr. Gerry Mander explains British manners to Mitt the Flip the Brits the bird:

Dear Mitt

It is not uncommon for Americans visiting Britain to be surprised at the extent of cultural difference between us. You say sidewalk, we say pavement. Our pants are something you wear underneath your pants. But when it comes to transatlantic diplomacy, the important thing to bear in mind is that, in this country, when you are invited to a “tea party”, it means a polite exchange of anodyne chat over a hot beverage brewed from leaves, not a deranged nationalist cult based around hatred of government, guns and religious fanaticism.

Follow the link for more advice from Dr. Mander.

Alyona explains how Mitt the Flip off the Brits distracted from real news about real Frackers.

You are the puppet, they are the strings.

President Obama explains something beyond the kin of Wingnut World: Society is, well, societal.

Too true to be funny:

Via Delaware Liberal, where Jason 330 points out in the comments:

This shows how tough it is to satirize the Club for Growth and their flunkies in the GOP. It would only take a few minor word choice changes in the script to make that conform tot he prevailing wingnut talking points.

I remember sitting on the swing on the side porch in the late ’50s, after reading some apocalyptic article in Readers Digest, thinking that it was good that I lived within 40 miles of the largest military complex in the world, since the firewall from the nuclear bomb would take us out and we wouldn’t have to worry about the aftermath of World War III.

The Cold War was entering the chilly stasis where it would remain for the next three decades. The United States and the Soviet Union had recently had dueling “atmospheric” H-bomb tests. The Korean stalemate had not yet solidified and the failed revolution in Hungary was a recent event. “Who lost China” was a political bludgeon in campaigns (as if China had ever been ours to lose), and Ike was sending the first “advisors” to Viet Nam.

Trudy Rubin considers Mitt the Flip’s foreign policy statements, then wonders whether he is still sitting on that swing, lost in the past.

Romney’s foreign affairs statements have a Rip Van Winkle quality, as if he had just emerged from a sleep of two decades. His cold war language suits the bipolar world of the 20th century, not the current era.

One telling example: Earlier this year, he made the stunning claim that Russia was “our number-one geopolitical foe,” prompting former Secretary of State Colin Powell to comment, “C’mon, Mitt, think. That isn’t the case.”

Romney’s cold war mind-set prevents him from coming to grips with the major global problems he would have to deal with. In October, in a major foreign policy speech, he insisted: “This century must be an American century. In an American century, America leads the free world, and the free world leads the entire world.”

Can you buy your own twits-to-go?

(George Smith’s experience leads him to believe so. See his comment here.)