Romney's new campaign slogan!

There is something about those wonderful folks who have a natural devilish look in their eyes. We all probably know someone like this who, while everyone else is commenting and talking, holds their fire without a word. But at a well timed moment, that glint, that careful inner smile brings forth a real gem of a comment.

Good humorists possess this ability, and their zingers are more than just a clever turn of a word. More often they are an economy of insightful analysis with a wink attached. The late Molly Ivins kept Texas politicians in line with her straight up humor that cut deep into the hide and bowels of the Lone Star State's political morass of hubris and ignorance.

I read New York Times sports columnist Joe Lapointe's short opinion piece in a web posting a couple of days ago. It wasn't about sports other than to spotlight a really poor sport who has been in the international news lately. Joe was also a segment producer for "Countdown With Keith Olberman" on Current TV and his political take on things is always interesting.

Joe Lapointe's devilish smile

I was particularly inspired with his suggestion that Mitt Romney, who has endlessly slogged across America seeking the GOP presidential nomination, has set a definitive tone for a new campaign slogan. The slogan's theme reached a zenith at the end of July as Mitt, with a traveling press corps on board his plane, flew to London, Israel and Poland to try out his diplomatic chops as a potential leader of the Free World.

This was to be showcase of his leadership and character; a preview of what he might be like as President. His debut showed the world a dismal, wooden, uninformed and elitist multimillionaire. Mr. Romney was savaged in the international press for his shocking diplomatic gaffes.

The last stop was in Poland, and Romney had hardly made himself available to the press corps for questions during the whole trip. Instead he sought  to escape discussion of his alienation by the entire British population after casting  doubts about London's readiness to host the 2012 Olympics. He also managed to enrage the Palestinians by his seeming racist comments while pandering for big campaign bucks from Jewish donors at a tony dinner event in Israel. As the Poland visit was wrapping up, the press corps was begging him to answer some questions.

As Romney was hurrying to get into his limo after placing a wreath in Warsaw, reporters were shouting questions at him, and as Joe Lapointe described it:

A Mitt Romney spokesman may have invented a slogan that is just as simple and is, unintentionally, the clear and unvarnished essence of the Romney campaign.

The slogan is “Kiss My Ass!” uttered by Romney flack Rick Gorka in Poland Tuesday as reporters tried to question the aloof, wealthy and disconnected Wall Street Republican vulture who hopes to oust President Obama in November and seize the remnants of our economy for redistribution to the one per cent already holding most of the wealth and power.

Lapointe then suggested that this perfect bit of campaign prose is a natural for Democrats, Liberals and Progressives to launch a counter-advertising campaign:

Don’t even mention Obama.  Just film commercials and print posters and bumper stickers with Romney’s smiling face and the phrase “Kiss My Ass!” next to it.  Do the same with the phrase “Elect the Vulture!”  Use the Fox News Channel propaganda method of defining the enemy and then attacking the caricature you’ve created.  And if Romney and his supporters don’t like it, they can kiss our ass.

So with such an inspirational challenge, I immediately dashed off to Photoshop-Land and knocked out a quick bumper sticker which I offer to all who might want use it in any way you like!

( Click on it and it becomes 'bumper size.' Have fun! )

Conservative Ideology and those emails ...

Graphic by Larry Ray

If you occasionally or even regularly receive odious forwarded emails from right wing Conservatives, Tea Party types (and that could include some of our own relatives) you might fire off a reply email debunking the bilge in these emails. But after reviewing the concise overview of conservative ideology, below, it may be easier for you to just hit the delete button for these emails instead of trying to reply with logic and reason.

I have a close friend who has worked hard and who has done extremely well for himself and his family. His deep seated genuine sense of charity and fair play for his fellow man causes him to continue to react and reply to the hateful, selfish and certainly racist emails forwarded to him by his early classmates who are now also very well off old friends.

The emails come largely from white men who are now independently wealthy. Most are now retired physicians, bankers, attorneys and such. My friend tries to reply to them with documented facts that refute, point-by-point, the foul, dubious and appalling warnings and claims in the forwarded emails he receives.

His earnest efforts to change their minds seems only to increase the volume of right-wing conservative emails he receives. 

My many entreaties for him to just stop acknowledging their selfish and loathsome emails were reinforced a few days ago by another of his friends, a down to earth man who is a moderate liberal, rancher, philanthropist and early Silicon Valley entrepreneur. 

He told my friend the same thing I have been telling him, but much more forcefully, by penning the brief outline below of the bare ugly truth about ingrained Conservative zealotry:

The ideology and logic that Conservatives cannot get past . . . 

There will always be poor people. So, there is really nothing you can do about that. So, just let people make their stupid decisions, and even die as a result. They deserve it. You can't do anything about it, anyway. So, just relay tasteless jokes over the Internet instead. I mean, why worry? People are inherently sinners, it's human nature, and therefore individuals are untrustworthy, lazy and gaming any system you throw at them. So, one should put trust into corporations, which are superior to individuals because they have boards that balance out the evil individuals - even if that corporation produces drugs that kill teenagers, spills oil into our environment, kills miners, steals money from Main Street, etc. Why? Because in the end, corporations are more trustworthy than individuals, who in the end are our elected individuals in a democracy, and who, by conservative definition, are individuals who are sinners all and simply can't be trusted. In fact, they need a Judeo-Christian ethic to overcome their unstable human nature. Ergo, you can't trust government, which is made up of individuals who all game the system. So, it' a better bet to have our children and environment in the palm of the profit machines than in the hands of elected officials, who might try to regulate the dangers of those corporations... 

This bare-bones description, certainly a bit of hyperbole and grim humor, nonetheless pretty well nails the historic greed and arrogant assumptions of the Conservative core of the GOP. That Americans are being asked to vote for this bunch of robber barons once again so soon after the eight disastrous years of GOP control in the White House from which we are still trying to recover is truly amazing. 

Also amazing is that so many angry and fearful Americans are just plain dumb as chickens. They feel that voting for Mitt Romney will make things better for them. And, indeed, Romney's hollow and ever changing positions and promises are just so much cracked corn chicken feed. 

Better to just hit the delete button on those far right emails. Remember, "If you are in an argument with a fool, make sure he is not similarly occupied." 

It's also a good idea to hit the delete button for Republican candidates on your ballot as we vote this November. President Obama has a lot more of the GOP's greedy, tangled mess left by Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney to clean up.