Enthusiasm Teetering

Can any of these clowns beat Obama?   Not to precisely agree with Andrew Sullivan, but it's starting to look like the GOP has decided to save it's best for 2016.  Newt Gingrich may be able to handle a debate with the One but can he croon like Al Green?  Can he dance on Ellen's show?  Can he hobnob with the cool crowd of Hollywood, who often shape popular culture and influence the great unwashed moderate vote?  Can he escape his past or his divisive rhetoric?

Or Romney, the John Kerry of the GOP?   Or Santorum, who still has that boy next door that delivers your paper look and doesn't believe in contraception?   Or Ron Paul, who many view as a crazy uncle?   Take it as defeatism or whatever, but the enthusiasm for any of these people remains thin.  The eventual nominee will need enough pizzazz to get the voters out despite Hollywood, the elite media, and the billion-dollar Obama attack machine (aimed at moderates and soccer moms) telling everyone how great things have been for the last four years while pointing the horrible un-coolness of the Republican candidate.

Granted, unforeseen events could change the picture. Or maybe, as in 2008, it will come down to the VP nominee to arouse the enthusiasm again.  Let's see, Herman Cain was in South Caroline this past week doing a show with..... Stephen Colbert.   The bloggers say hmmm. But still..

So with that it's time for a musical selection.  Obama was channeling Green, maybe Romney could get up there and do his best with this..


BTW, don't miss the awesome guitar solo at 1:27! Romney could air guitar it, maybe.
 
MORE 1/21/12 Missed this the other day. Newt has already addressed the popularity issue and admitted the obvious, pointing out the obvious in the process. The question for Newt is whether he can effectively make this case amidst a blizzard of incoming fire while defending his past.

Tea Party Erupts...

..into the violence everyone said would happen. That's what happens when people show up at rallies with automatic weapons, after all...

In Atlanta, police in riot gear and SWAT teams arrested 53 people in Woodruff Park, many of whom had camped out there for weeks as part of a widespread movement that is protesting the wealth disparity between the rich and everyone else.

Mayor Kasim Reed had been supportive of the protests, twice issuing an executive order allowing them to remain.

Reed said on Wednesday that he had no choice to arrest them because he believed things were headed in a direction that was no longer peaceful. He cited a man seen walking the park with an AK-47 assault rifle.

These Tea Partiers must be stopped now, before someone gets hurt. Maybe it's time for another speech on civility from the "bully" pulpit.

Picture of the Day

During a stopover at a pub while visiting his ancestral home (on the honky side) in Ireland president Obama wolfs down a pint of 30 weight motor oil taken from the Gulf of Mexico during a toast to BP. The patrons all agreed it was pretty gutsy. The president was ahead of schedule on his European trip, again being chased by a menacing volcanic ash cloud.

Group hug in Nashville

Apparently the Tennessee House held a group therapy session yesterday. Embattled Democrat Rob Briley, the guy who got drunk last fall and led police on a high-speed chase around the outskirts of Nashville, then when captured sang the tune "springtime for Hilter in Germany" in the back of the squad car (suggesting the officers were part of Bush's coming police state), owned up to his problem in front of his peers Thursday.

Now, there's nothing wrong with forgiveness. There's nothing wrong with being thankful for a process known as diversion that wiped the evading arrest charge off the map and allowed Mr. Briley to remain a publicly-paid politician when most Tennesseans would have had a felony rap. Hopefully the man will mend his ways, we are all sinners, after all.

But wow, some of our elected Reps are apparently bigger sinners than we knew:

Moore noted that Briley "shined a little light to all of us that every one of us in this room have our own little demons that we deal with."

Moore added, "Some of us are alcoholics. Some of us are thieves. Some of us are adulterers. Truth of the matter is we reflect society."

After the House let out, Rep. Charles Curtiss, D-Sparta, called Briley courageous. "He earned a lot of respect today. He's got a lot of issues in his life, but the reality of it is that all of us have issues in our lives. The press has not caught up with all of us yet."

Curtiss said he thought some of Moore's language was too strong. "I would never say there were thieves in there," Curtiss said.

"I don't think there are any criminals in here," Curtiss said. "But we're a cross-section of society. There are people in there that drink, people in there that beat their wives, people in there unfaithful to their wives. No question in my mind about that."

Well, that's comforting, eh? Since they're all admitted sinners does that mean they'll soon pass a law giving all Tennessee residents the same heartfelt lenience the next time one of us gets drunk, evades police and calls them fascists? Not a chanc...hey wait, maybe if we pretend to be illegals?!

Iran to media: Gulf of Tonkin!

Regards the recent action footage released from one of three Navy ships buzzed in the Straits of Hormuz by Iranian speedboats, the real Iranian government has taken the Rosie approach:

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran's Revolutionary Guards accused the United States on Wednesday of fabricating video and audio released by the Pentagon that shows Iranian boats confronting U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf.

"The footage released by the U.S. Navy was compiled using file pictures and the audio has been fabricated," the state-run English-language channel Press TV quoted an official in the Revolutionary Guards as saying.

Disregard the fact the phony Iranian government had earlier said they had every right to unleash speedboats on any ship passing through international waters within their territory for purposes of identification and to test defensive responses, now we learn it was all faked. Word, dudes.

Actually, today looks like a truther twofer-- US caught fabricating a Gulf of Tonkin incident and New Hampshire primaries probably stolen by counting fake paper ballots. Wake up, sheeple!

MORE 1/9/08

The Iranian patrol boat games were serious, of course. For those not familiar with this site, the jesting above wasn't meant to downplay the seriousness, only to point out the running insanity of our world. I have to constantly fight the urge to go overboard with that. Family members are riding on those boats, one of them mine, so the reality is things are a little worrisome right now, especially with the president touring the immediate neighborhood.

MORE 1/10/08

The IRGC has released their own footage of the event, which doesn't include the "fabricated" part shown by the Navy of the patrol boats buzzing around the ships like angry insects or the audio about blowing up.

From the video it's barely noticeable, but you can see the blue color of the speedboats. The Navy ships are there. It doesn't take a genius to understand video editing. In other words, the Iranians have just provided corroborating evidence of the Navy's account whether they realize it or not. If there are tapes of that transmission all the Navy has to do now is release the rest of the transmission in sequence and voila, case closed.