Take Him Off The Fire, He's Done

The revelations derived from the now-infamous video of Mitt Romney speaking at a private fundraiser last spring have been sending shock waves throughout the media, across the entire political spectrum. Two questions dominate the talk: "Did he really say that?" and "Does he really mean it?"

YES, HE SAID IT, AND OF COURSE, HE MEANT IT.

Mitt, as I've said many times before, is Thurston Howell III, except that unlike Thurston, Mitt lacks a conscience. Jonathan Chiat at New York Magazine eloquently described the person now fully revealed:

The video exposes an authentic Romney as a far more sinister character than I had imagined. Here is the sneering plutocrat, fully in thrall to a series of pernicious myths that are at the heart of the mania that has seized his party. He believes that market incomes in the United States are a perfect reflection of merit. Far from seeing his own privileged upbringing as the private-school educated son of an auto executive-turned-governor as an obvious refutation of that belief, Romney cites his own life, preposterously, as a confirmation of it. (“I have inherited nothing. Everything I earned I earned the old fashioned way.”)

Mitt really believes that he's earned everything that he has in this life, and now he thinks he's earned the right to be the President of the United States of America. President of just 53% of the population - the upper 53%, to be sure - but nonetheless President.

How could Romney have been so foolish as to speak so plainly and offensively? Easy. Mitt was in his element, amongst other plutocrats who all think that "they made it on their own," notwithstanding that first stock portfolio (Romney) or apartment building (Trump) that Dad gave them. Not a minority in sight, except for the waitstaff. Everyone relaxed after a nice meal (no rubber chicken for this crowd!), some 25-year-old brandy, and the comfort of being in a crowd of the "right" sort. None of those uppity blacks or pushy Jews that they have to pretend to tolerate at the office, just their old prep school buddies and fraternity brothers.

Among his own people, Mitt felt comfortable, a feeling that he can't seem to find on the campaign trail. He was able to relax and share his thoughts. Listen to the tape. There's none of the halting, uncertain rhythm to his speech that marks his public appearances. Here he was smooth, relaxed, thoughtful. Able to let his mind stretch and his thoughts teach out, able to really get into the strategy of his campaign and share it with his brethren. Fortunately, we have a record of that, this video.  

And now we know what Mitt really thinks of us.

We haven't seen all of the video yet; David Corn said Monday night on the Rachel Maddow Show that there are other sections of the recording that will be released today (Tuesday) and later this week. I'm sure that we'll hear other excerpts that will not only sink his campaign, but machine-gun the survivors floundering in the water. 

Take Mitt off the fire, he's done.

What To Do About Mitt

After today's revelations, something permanent and pervasive must be done. Just saying "fuck you, Mitt!" and voting Democratic isn't enough. We need to make the name "Romney" have a new meaning, the same way something similar was done to "Santorum." Google "santorum" if you don't know what I mean.

I'm open to suggestions, and I'll post the best ones. Let's go!

Older But Worth Noting

Illness has delayed my impressions of the DNC & RNC conventions, but I believe this piece by Ta-Nehisi Coates identifies the GOP's basic problem with Obama, upon which I'll expound later:

To paraphrase a commenter from a few years back, in GOP eyes, Barack Obama is a spellbinding orator always in need of teleprompter; the disciple of a radical Christian preacher who reigns like a secular-atheist determined to bring about a new era of Islamo-fascism; an Ivy-league wimp hailing from the gutters of Chicago; a white culture-hating racist who is not really black, but half-white; an anti-military peacenik who pals around with terrorists, who insists on killing terrorists, who insists on bragging about killing terrorists; an avowed Marxist specializing in the shadow arts of crony-capitalism and Leninist theories of banker bail-outs.

They've never figured Obama out. They have no contact with people who like him, or remain utterly blind to people like him, even as people like him become America.

Labor Day