NEW VIDEO: Rafael Cruz, father of Senator Ted Cruz, caught lying on tape about President Obama, trying to discredit Obama's Christian beliefs - Watch the video evidence! - UPDATES: Some inconvenient facts about Rafael Cruz

Rafael Cruz, father of Senator Ted Cruz, is a shameless liar

Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight.

Proverbs 12:22

By Patrick

Junior Senator Ted Cruz recently got into a lot of trouble, as the mastermind behind the infamous "shutdown" which could have caused a global economic catastrophe, if the USA had defaulted (read: Debt Deadline Approaches: Here’s What Would Happen If U.S. Defaults).  

But there is also a second fact that political observers recently became aware of: Ted Cruz is not alone. If you want Ted Cruz, you also get his father Rafael Cruz, who currently tours the country, giving outrageous speeches in which he spews hate and lies. His primary target is President Obama, and just a few days ago, some particularly shocking quotes by Rafael Cruz were highlighted by David Corn at Mother Jones, in an article which thankfully received a lot of attention.

Quote from Mother Jones:

In April, Rafael Cruz, the father of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), spoke to the tea party of Hood County, which is southwest of Fort Worth, and made a bold declaration: The United States is a "Christian nation." The septuagenarian businessman turned evangelical pastor did not choose to use the more inclusive formulation "Judeo-Christian nation." Insisting that the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution "were signed on the knees of the framers" and were a "divine revelation from God," he went on to say, "yet our president has the gall to tell us that this is not a Christian nation…The United States of America was formed to honor the word of God." Seven months earlier, Rafael Cruz, speaking to the North Texas Tea Party on behalf of his son, who was then running for Senate, called President Barack Obama an "outright Marxist" who "seeks to destroy all concept of God," and he urged the crowd to send Obama "back to Kenya."

David Corn quoted from a speech which Rafael Cruz gave to the North Texas Tea Party on September 12, 2012. The original clip with this half-hour speech by Rafael Cruz has subsequently been deleted from youtube. However, not only were some key excerpts for example shown at MSNBC, but a substantial portion of the speech is also still available on youtube.

Watch the report by Chris Matthews at MSNBC:

Interestingly, there is more: Although the whole speech from September 12, 2012 has now been deleted from the internet, I already downloaded the full clip even before David Corn published his article at Mother Jones. I did this in preparation for our own post about Rafael Cruz, which we published on October 3. Today I looked at this speech again in order to check whether there are more "nuggets" to discover. It should come as no big surprise that this effort was successful!

Rafael Cruz exposes himself as a shameless liar: While many of his "facts" are just "extremist opinions", which are difficult to "fact-check" in the traditional way, he also makes some factual statements about President Obama in this speech which are open for scrutiny. Rafael Cruz claims that Barack Obama never uses the word "Creator" when Obama recites the Declaration of Independence, and that he never uses the words "under God" when he recites the Pledge of Allegiance. These claims by Rafael Cruz are shameless lies, and the truth can easily be discovered. Apparently Rafael Cruz thought that his Tea Party audience is gullible enough to believe this nonsense (and they probably are).

Actually, Rafael Cruz gets it wrong in two different ways. He, the self-described great American patriot is apparently not aware that the Declaration of Independence uses the words "by their Creator", and not "by our Creator", as Rafael Cruz wrongly quotes in his speech. Apparently Rafael Cruz himself, who inexplicably became an American citizen only in 2005, which is no less than 48 years after he left Cuba, is not fully familiar with this important American document.

But most importantly, his main claims about President Obama are outrageous lies. Rafael Cruz just regurgitates with great conviction some long-debunked nonsense which seems to be pretty popular among radical right-wingers, as "RightWingWatch" already exposed in 2012 ("How Many Times Does Obama Have to Say 'Endowed by Their Creator' Before the Right Will Stop Lying?").

The truth is easy to prove. I created the following video clip, which contrasts the claims by Rafael Cruz in his speech on September 12, 2012 with the real quotes by Barack Obama (special acknowledgement again to RightWingWatch).

Watch:

Rafael, the bible does not like liars. Do you, an evangelical pastor, really act according to the bible? Or is it all just a political game for you? You should make up your mind, and fast.

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Further reading at Politicalgates:

Ted Cruz's father Rafael Cruz in taped speech: Suggests that Barack Obama is a "Muslim", says that Obamacare provides "suicide counseling" and that the "RINO's" should be replaced by "Constitutional Conservatives" - In earlier interview Rafael Cruz says that his son is "destined for greatness", and explains how he politically educated him

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The radical religious friends of Senator Ted Cruz: Anointed by Dominionists who want to "wage war to restore America to our Judeo-Christian heritage" - The overlooked religious extremism of the new rising star of the GOP

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UPDATE:

The conservative non-profit organization "FreedomWorks" conducted a radio-interview with Rafael Cruz in February 2013, in which he explains in more detail his "official" life story: How he fought for Fidel Castro for four years (!), at the age of 14 to 18, how he was imprisoned and tortured, how he then somehow escaped to the USA, how he didn't speak English, still got a place at an university in Texas, then went briefly back to Cuba (?), but apparently was so appalled by Castro's version of communism that he promptly returned to the USA, disappointed about the "hope and change" that Fidel Castro had promised.

He conducted the interview with an ultra-conservative female host, who obviously thinks that government healthcare is the embodiment of evil, and who marvels how great it was how in the past when US citizens, after they got sick, first turned to their "families", then their "churches", then their "communities", and only then to the "government." Rafael Cruz, whose son Ted enjoys the luxurious Goldman Sachs-healthcare plan, immediately agreed with her. Oh, the good old days! Cruz also says in the interview that people turn into "slaves of the government" when they accept Government handouts or use any other services.

Daddy Cruz also has more incredibly original thoughts. He further says in the interview that that Democratic Party today follows "socialist policies", which are "not the policies which made America great." He also claims that America turned to Socialism when Carter was elected, and that Ronald Reagan then magically fixed the economy already in his first year. I guess Reagan waved his magic wand!

Listen to the interview:

When you search for speeches by Rafael and Ted Cruz, you find that they very often spoke at events by "FreedomWorks." These fake conservative grassroot organizations are really the cancer of America. They are the secret armies of the billionaires, and today you don't need "real" armies on the streets any more, what you need is an "online army".

Wikipedia duly notes: "Volunteers - 600,000 online activists"

These are the kind of brainwashed people who leave these crazy right-wing comments on the internet everywhere.

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The "official" life story of Rafael Cruz is full of huge holes. We will continue to investigate.

Media outlets published in the past a number of very informative articles about Ted and Rafael Cruz. One of the most detailed is an article called "Cruz's life defies simplification" by the Houston Chronicle from October 2012. Some interesting details can be found there.

Quote:

He (Ted Cruz) was born in Alberta while his parents were working abroad as pioneering computer programmers in the energy exploration business. He obtained citizenship as a newborn through his American mother. Yet he favors building a border wall, boots on the ground and greater militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border.

He's opposed to the Dream Act to help immigrant children who arrived here illegally. Yet his father, grandparents and aunt emigrated to Texas and benefited from U.S. policy and programs that grant legal permanent residence to virtually any Cuban admitted to the U.S. after January 1959.

(...)

(Ted) Cruz insists he's looking no further ahead than November. If elected, that accomplishment would be a tribute to his father, who as a teenager arrived in Austin to attend UT with only $100 sewn in his underwear and washed dishes at 50 cents an hour to cover expenses.

"To have suggested to that 18-year-old boy washing dishes that his son might serve as a U.S. senator would have been unimaginable," Cruz said. "That's the opportunity America offers. That's freedom."

Both of Cruz's parents got scholarships that covered tuition but paid their own expenses in college. As a married couple, they co-founded two different seismic data processing businesses. They were working in Alberta oil fields when Ted was born in 1970, returning to Houston in 1974 when a slump hit and they sold their first company.

Interesting! So Father Cruz wasn't opposed to the government when he benefited from its policies.

Also, Daddy Cruz in reality got a much softer start in the USA than he wants his Tea Party audiences to believe. He boasts about the apparent hardships he faced after entering the USA at any given opportunity with his "I started off as a dishwasher" tale.

However, that students in the USA get their tuition paid and then have to work to cover living expenses strikes me as pretty normal. I heard a lot of these stories in the past. Our readers, many of whom have studied decades ago, can certainly provide more insights.

There is definitely much more to discover about Rafael Cruz. There are many, many open questions. We will keep digging!

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UPDATE 2:

For a long time, Ted and Rafael Cruz were silent when others published false stories about how Rafael Cruz "escaped Fidel Castro" - which completely distorted the truth.

In 2011, the "Dallas Morning News" didn't let them get away with this apparent "lying by staying silent" (h/t BanditBasheert):

But what the stumping GOP Senate candidate hadn’t clarified, until asked by The Dallas Morning News this week, was that his father departed for the U.S. in 1957, more than a year before Fidel Castro came to power.

“Y’all know my heart,” Ted Cruz told the Austin Republican Women last month. “My dad fled Cuba. He was imprisoned and tortured as a teenager, and came to Austin penniless, seeking freedom. The reason I’m running is simple. He fled oppression once. And you have my word that I’ll fight every day to protect freedom here, so that none of us have to flee oppression a second time.”

Cruz hasn’t incorrectly described when his father fled from Cuba, as has U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. According to the Washington Post, Rubio said on three occasions since 2006 and on his official Senate website that his parents came to the U.S. after Castro’s forces overthrew Batista in January 1959. They actually arrived here in May 1956, the Post said.

Cruz, though, has remained silent as journalists and political activists incorrectly placed his father among the many Cubans who left the island nation after Castro took power, rather than as someone who fought on the same side as Castro to topple a rightist dictator, though he departed for Texas before the revolution succeeded.

“He was a guerilla, throwing Molotov cocktails and blowing up buildings,” Ted Cruz told the Austin American-Statesman for a profile published in January 2006.

Earlier this month, Liberty Institute president Kelly Shackelford introduced Cruz to 3,000 Christian conservatives at the Values Voters Summit in Washington, D.C., as “the next great conservative hope.”

“He’s the combination of the intellectual skill and principle of [Utah GOP Sen.] Mike Lee and the story, the personal story of a Marco Rubio — his dad having escaped Fidel Castro, came into the United States, working as a dishwasher,” Shackelford said.

Last month, a Houston Chronicle political blog described Cruz as “a Cuban American whose family escaped from Castro tyranny.”

In an interview Monday, Cruz professed not to be aware of confusion about when his father, Rafael Cruz, left Cuba.

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Election 2012 Postmortem: How "It's Our Turn" Died

by Sunnyjane

The Day the Universe Hiccuped and the GOP Went Nuts

According to whichever online horoscopes they'd been tracking, or whichever dead psychics they'd been channeling, the Republicans somehow thought they had the 2012 election in the bag.  After all, they had suckered buckets o'money out of donors who didn't even like the candidate.  They had wiz-kid internal pollster (heh) Karl Rove promising them the sun, the moon, and the stars that Mitt Romney would not only win the presidency, but would keep the House in GOP control and deliver a Senate majority to top things off.  

It's hard to tell what voodoo formula Karl Rove was using to concoct a numbers scenario that convinced the candidate, the campaign, and the cash contributors that in the early morning hours of November 7, there would appear before them a President-Elect Romney.  As everyone knows, the candidate is a spreadsheet guy: Show me the bottom line, don't bother me with how we get there. 

Is it just coincidental that so many Republican governors ended up in swing states?  Hardly.  It was obviously all part of the Grand Plan to make Barack Obama a one-term president.  As it turned out, the President lost only one, North Carolina, which happened to be governed by a Democrat.  How's that for irony?

Of the other eight battleground states -- Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin -- seven have an agent-in-place Tea Party or Republican governor. (New Hampshire is governed by Democrat John Lynch, who will be replaced in January by Democrat Maggie Hassan.)  And where did most of the voter suppression occur?  That's right, dear readers, in those swing states.  And as far as voter suppression goes, we can throw in Pennsylvania for good measure.

But on paper, it must have seemed a great strategy for a Republican victory.  So certain were they of victory that they predicted a -- wait for it -- LANDSLIDE for their candidate.

Goodness!  What could possibly go wrong?

A Flawed Campaign for a Flawed Candidate

Mitt Romney came into the 2012 election cycle via Bain Capital and the Massachusetts governorship.  At Bain, he achieved great success, mainly by taking over American businesses and outsourcing them to China, which turned out not to be such a great reputation for the I know how to create jobs image he tried so hard to promote.  

In an attempt to gain some required political creds, Romney ran for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 and won.  He had promised job creation and touted that he knew how to solve budget problems.  On these two issues alone, Democrats and Independents voted for him.  However, it soon became apparent to not only those two factions, but to loyal Republicans, that Mitt Romney was full of crap.  By the end of his term, Massachusetts had fallen to 47^th in jobs growth, manufacturing fell to third in the nation, and start-up businesses fell by ten percent, consistently lagging behind the national average.  For the unkindest cut of all, Governor Romney outsourced government jobs to India and China.

During the primaries, we began to see a Mitt Romney that no one particularly cared for, and his unlikeability factor increased exponentially after he clinched the nomination.  He came across as crude, entitled, and unapproachable to all but his own clique of One Percenters. Exposing the American electorate to wife Ann didn't do anything to diminish the image that was rapidly emerging in the developing solution of voters' minds.  In fact, people began to dislike Ann as much as they did her husband.  In the same interview in which Mitt said, Start packing to the question on what he had to say to President Obama, Ann told the nation that It's Mitt's time...it's our turn.  That probably would have been quickly forgotten in the chatter of a vigorous campaign had she not continued her verbal assaults, such as You people when talking about Mitt's refusal to release more of his tax returns; There are going to be cuts made to a lot of programs people aren't going to like; I don't consider myself wealthy;  I love the fact that there are women out there who don't have a choice and must go to work; etc.  American women were not seduced by this privileged woman who pretended to understand and sympathize with their issues.

It also didn't add to Mitt's charm or credibility factors when he boldly stated in the second debate that parents are to blame for their children's violent tendencies, and then his son, Tagg, announced the next day that he had wanted to rush the stage and punch the President.   Hmmm...

But never mind, the campaign said, Mitt was definitely going to win this thing!  So, what went wrong?

It Was The Message, Stupid.  In the seemingly never-ending Republican primary season, Romney did his damnedest to out-conservative the other severely conservative candidates.   

  
Except for diehard racists and the majority of  evangelical and Mormon worshipers,   Mitt Romney had irritated, insulted, ridiculed, and lied to every core constituency he needed to win the presidency in 2012: young voters, college students,  senior citizens, women, LGBTs, African Americans, Latinos, the poor, single parents, and the middle class.  And, pet owners and animal lovers in general.

Mitt Romney's stump speeches and campaign ads were full of lies -- many of which he kept repeating: Jeep was going to China.  The President had gutted Medicare by $716B and had taken away the welfare-to-work requirements. Steve Benen of The Maddow Blog has spent much of 2012 chronicling Mitt Romney's lies; these writings alone are worthy of a book on how the 2012 Republican candidate conducted his campaign.

A fact Romney and his campaign failed to comprehend: Americans do not appreciate being lied to.  Nor do they appreciate their intelligence being insulted.


Faith-Based Voting Will Get Us Where We Want to Go

Oh, really?

And, the icing on Rove's cake:

 

An Idiot Abroad

This pretty much sums up the adequacy of Mitt Romney to be the Republican presidential candidate:

A (Very) Brief Look at the Vice Presidential Candidate

Like with Sarah Palin in 2008, America dodged a bullet with the lying, know-nothing fool, Paul Ryan.

Here a Conspiracy, There a Conspiracy...

In a fit of complete nuttiness, I had actually contemplated the notion of adding to this post some of the ridiculous conspiracy theories that floated around during President Obama's first term in office.  When reality presented itself, I realized it would take approximately sixteen posts to adequately present them all.  However, it took the genius of Rachel Maddow  to brilliantly address the entire issue in only 206 words: 

Ohio really did go to President Obama last night.  And he really did win.  And he really was born in Hawaii.  And he really is legitimately President of the United States – again.  And the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not make up a fake unemployment rate last month.

And the Congressional Research Service really can find no evidence that cutting taxes on rich people grows the economy.  And the polls were not skewed to over sample Democrats.  And Nate Silver was not making up fake projections about the election to make conservatives feel bad.  Nate Silver was doing math.

And Climate Change is real.  And rape really does cause pregnancy sometimes.  And evolution is a thing.  And Benghazi was an attack on us, it was not a scandal by us.  And nobody is taking away anyone’s guns.  And taxes have not gone up.  And the deficit is dropping, actually.  And Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction.  And the Moon landing was real.  And FEMA is not building concentration camps.  And UN election observers are not taking over Texas.  And moderate reforms of the regulations on the insurance industry and the financial services industry in this country are not the same thing as communism.

END NOTE

 

  

And here endeth the coverage of the non-election of Willard Mitt Romney.  Democracy is in safe hands again.

 FORWARD!

Voting for an Illusion - Mitt Romney, the next Richard Nixon?

by Blueberry T

Joe McGinniss warned us about this.  More than four decades ago, McGinniss wrote a brilliant book called The Selling of the President, 1968.  (I wrote about it previously in this post.)  In what was then a ground-breaking approach, McGinniss “embedded” himself in the campaign, gaining unparalleled cooperation from and access to Nixon and all his handlers.  His sharp observations and clear, engaging style gave us an intimate view of history in the making.  His first book became a best-seller and instant classic of the genre, pulling back the curtain to show how Richard Nixon’s campaign remade Nixon’s image through very effective, in some cases subliminally manipulative, advertising and marketing techniques.  Nixon’s team (which included Roger Ailes, now of Fox News, among others) skillfully overcame the negative preconceptions that many people had of Nixon, stemming from his losing campaign against Jack Kennedy in 1960 and his bitter statement to the press (after losing the 1962 California Governor’s race) that “you don’t have Nixon to kick around any more.” The team successfully created a new impression – an illusion, really – of a warmer, more positive and somewhat more likable candidate.  Enough that people could overcome their initial reactions and vote for him. 

As we found out the hard way, over the years of his presidency and afterward, however, the illusion that they created was far from the truth.  The real Nixon was a complex and calculating man who did some good things (Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, EPA, China), and was far more moderate than any Republican currently on the national stage.  But as history showed, the mean-spirited, foul-mouthed, conniving and paranoid “Tricky Dick,” with his long list of enemies about whom he actively schemed and plotted, and who thought he was above the law, was a far truer image than the warm, fuzzy,“soft-focus” illusion of his 1968 campaign. 

McGinniss warned us, not only about Nixon, but about the manipulative false imagery of campaigns that sell voters a “product” that has little or nothing to do with reality.  Voters didn’t pay attention, but campaigns did.  The formula was repeated in 1980 with Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America” theme – and imagine how much easier a “sell” this was, working with a warm, personable guy who just happened to be a professional actor with a ready-made fan base!  Many voters bought the illusion, hook, line and sinker. 

It’s happened often since then – in fact, all modern campaigns use these techniques – but the attempt to sell Sarah Palin as someone with the qualifications to be Vice President of the United States should have been a major wake up call (or, more like sirens going off) to voters to start paying attention to the “man behind the curtain.”  As the Berenstain Bears teach young children, “appearances can be deceiving.”  In fact, they are often deliberately deceiving, usually by making something look good that is not at all good for you/us.  It is our job as citizens (and the media’s, though sadly they are not too good at it any more) to sort through what is real and what is fake.  Buyer beware.  Thankfully in 2008, Palin’s own woeful ignorance and word salad, along with the brilliant parodies by Tina Fey, the persistent questioning by Katie Couric, and the dogged investigative work by bloggers like us, helped to reveal her for the fraud that she is, and prevented that particular nightmare from coming to pass.  In a beautiful symmetry, Joe McGinniss played a key role in revealing “The Real Sarah Palin” and putting an end to her political aspirations going forward.

But now, here we are again in 2012, with the same fake imagery and marketing techniques being used to package a candidate as someone he is not.  Once again, the focus is on impressions and style, not substance.  How else to explain an image like this, where many media outlets reported that Mitt Romney lied through his teeth at the first debate, yet that message was lost and the debate was almost universally declared as a resounding victory for Romney over President Obama?  (I say this, fully recognizing that President Obama failed to take the many open goal shots he had to call Romney on his dishonesty.)

Plus, this time, Romney has upped the ante.  We’re not just dealing with a few lies about a Bridge to Nowhere and Palin’s executive experience as mayor of the booming metropolis of Wasilla, Alaska.  Now we are dealing with a candidate who is carrying lying, distorting and misrepresenting who he is to levels never before even contemplated.  The sheer number of lies that Mitt Romney has told during his campaign is beyond comprehension to anyone other than criminologists and psychologists who deal with pathological liars for a living.   But, he seems to get away with it.  People allow themselves to be duped.  (More on his lies here and here.)  

Voters could and should learn much more from the unscripted moments, because they are always a better “tell” than something for which a candidate has rehearsed.  That is why the 47% video should be disqualifying on its face.  Statements like:

·        “I’m also unemployed” 

·        “I like being able to fire people” 

·        “Corporations are people, my friend” 

·        “you people, ” “these people”

·        the London Olympics insults  

·        on Russia: “without question, our #1 geopolitical foe”  

·        “We don’t have people…who die in their apartments because they don’t have insurance”  

(and many more) tell far more about the Real Romney than his rehearsed performance at the convention, campaign stops or the debate.  His smirk during the press conference exploiting the crisis in Libya even as it was taking place revealed him for the opportunist that he is.  His beyond-the-pale secrecy, unspecified plans and little laugh while saying “trust me” are all “tells.”

There’s the old adage, “Actions speak louder than words.”  So, why is it that people ignore Romney’s actions?  He SAYS he is would bring American jobs back home – but what he and his companies DID (and still do) was to pioneer “outsourcing.”    He SAYS deficits are bad, but his business model is all about loading companies with debt and then sucking the capital out of them.  He SAYS he paid all the taxes he owed, but he stashed millions in offshore accounts and used aggressive and questionable tax shelters and dodges that most people cannot even fathom, let alone use.  Forbes reports that his company, Bain Capital, is under investigation for tax evasion.  He profited from Medicare fraud, SAYS government bailouts are bad, but he has made millions off them and they have saved his proverbial butt.  He SAYS he will not raise taxes on the middle class – but what he DID in Massachusetts was to raise fees. 

And then there are the flip-flops. I mean, how can it be that John Kerry was ridiculed for flip-flopping on one issue, and it was instrumental in his defeat, and yet Romney changes direction on every imaginable topic, like a weathervane, and isn’t laughed off the stage?  Not only that, but the more he flip-flops, the more he seems to gain in the polls.  

How can you trust someone who changes his position almost daily on almost everything?  His words are meaningless.  It seems that many people are just buying a hokey “Father Knows Best” illusion, and Mitt is portraying himself as that guy.

But the truth about Mitt is a lot different.

There were so many lies during the debates, that you would think this in itself would be enough to bury his candidacy in historical infamy.   Think Progress documented the lies here.  Many publications, including the MSM, wrote on the same theme of Romney’s dishonest remarks, yet he was almost universally regaled as the decisive winner of the debate. Why?  Impressions and illusions.  (But here is FoxNews incredulous critique of one reviewer who gave Obama-Biden the win in all four debates.)  Here are TP’s posts on Romney’s lies in Debate 2 and Debate 3 ; at least the consensus was that he lost those debates.  So, maybe we are learning…?

This illustration reminds me that Secretary of Explaining Things Bill Clinton is really good at putting things in plain language that people can understand; here he speaks in favor of “arithmetic over illusion.”  

EJDionne wrote an opinion piece in the WaPo on “Mitt Romney, the product” which touches on similar ideas about marketing a candidate as a product.  

Here’s an interesting article from PoliticusUSA about how, if American’s paid attention, Republicans would never win elections.  I would argue that it’s not only that American’s don’t pay attention, but that they are so easily manipulated by lies, even to the point of voting against their own interests. 

In the end, Romney is like a smooth used car salesman who put a cheap paint job on an old car, and who won’t let you look under the hood or even kick the tires, but says “trust me.”  You wouldn’t trust a car salesman like that – how could you possibly trust a presidential candidate who will affect your future and that of your children and grandchildren? 

So, my fellow Americans, please: WAKE UP!  NOW!  Stop being so easily conned.  Our future depends on it.

UPDATE:  Our reader HonestyinGov pointed out a blog post that Joe McGinniss put up just yesterday about Mitt Romney (quoting heavily from Andrew Sullivan); here it is. 

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UPDATE 2 (by Patrick): I am sure that Blueberry T won't mind if I add another update, inspired by our wonderful reader Mrs. TTB, who confessed in the comments that she fell in love with Joe McGinniss when she first read "The Selling of the President." Well, Kathleen and I just recently became the proud owners of an original 1969 copy of this book (you actually can buy these old hardcover editions for very reasonable prices), and we were pleasantly surprised to find a great portrait of a very young Joe McGinniss on the back cover of the book. So for all our readers, but most especially Mrs. TBB, I present this photo of the young Joe McGinniss (click to enlarge):

Countdown to Election 2012: Week Eight in Review

By Sunnyjane

The left-wing media is taking Obama's side again!
What? It's not just the left-wing media?   Oh.

Mitt Romney should be thankful for the Affordable Healthcare Act because his pre-existing condition -- Stupidity -- will be covered.  No, there is no cure for that ailment as yet, but affected persons are advised an extended treatment of Sit Down and Shut Up.  Unfortunately, this advice is rarely taken by former governors and all other Republicans running for high national office.  As Albert Einstein said, The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.

A no-morning-after-bounce convention where the American electorate and the media only remember Chris Christie announcing his 2016 presidential run and a has-been actor debating an empty chair, combined with President Obama's twelve-point lead in the polls on foreign policy, have made the Republicans  desperate to counteract the President's remark that Romney might not be ready for diplomacy with Beijing if you can’t visit the Olympics without insulting our closest ally.   An international crisis would have been just the thing to demonstrate Mitt's global statesmanship, severely solidify his  geopolitical expertise, and ridicule President Obama's leadership capabilities. It is significant to note that less than twenty-four hours before the situation in Libya exploded, a Romney campaign spokesman had mocked the Democratic campaign, calling foreign policy issues a distraction: It doesn't surprise me that they're raising foreign policy because it's another distraction from the Administration's terrible economic record.  They're going from one shiny object to the next.   

The Smirk Jerk: An Inept Political Opportunist

Mitt Romney, with nothing but a clumsy propensity to shoot from the lip, an imaginary grasp of the intricacies of foreign relations issues, and a fanatical desire to grab our turn in the White House, simply flubbed his rub on the magic genie bottle. Such is the fate of rank amateurs and out-of-touch businessmen with all the political savvy of a  crab cake. 

A brief review of Mitt Romney's geopolitical astuteness consists of three other recent campaign bumblings:  

1.  In March, he called Russia our Number One geopolitical foe and doubled down on that theme during the Republican National Convention. Guess he's never heard of al-Qaeda, eh?

2.  In June, he warned that Syria is Iran's route to the sea.  Wellll...no.  Mitt obviously doesn't understand that Iran and Syria are not only separated by Iraq, but that Iran has two routes to the sea, the Caspian to the north and that big ole Persian Gulf thingy to the south.  Get a map and read some history, Mitt.  Or better yet, get out of U.S. politics altogether.  

3.  In July, Mitt took a little trip to Europe and the Middle East, which his campaign felt was   very successful.   If being called devoid of charm, warmth, humour or sincerity  is what Romney's people refer to as very successful, it would be absolutely frightening to know what they would call a complete disaster.

Perhaps Romney was a bit chafed when Laura Ingraham blasted him for the ineptitude of his   campaign consultants and advisers: Election after election, we hire people who have lost previous campaigns; who've run campaigns that have failed...You have one shot, man. This is going to be the first line of your obituary: you won or you lost. It's all on the line for the country, and it's all on the line for you.

Whatever the reasoning for redeeming his Carpe diem coupon by responding too quickly to the volatile situation in Libya about which he knew absolutely nothing, Romney and his staff chose the wrong time, the wrong circumstance, and the wrong president to mess about with.

Mitt Romney can be easily summed up by comparing him to a computer without software:  a dumb box taking up valuable space. 

Paul Ryan Goes Rogue

I'm pullin' a Palin on ya, Mitt.  Good luck 
with that Libya shit you just stepped in.

Throughout recent history, Republican presidential candidates have  had a propensity for choosing the dumbest nominees for the Number Two spot on their ticket.  Remember Spiro Agnew?  Dan Quayle? John McCain started a new trend in 2008 when he selected not only the dumbest and most unqualified person in the GOP as a running mate, but the most disloyal.  And so did Mitt Romney.

Where was Paul Ryan when the media, the Democrats, and most of the Republican party were bashing Mitt upside the head last week?  Such was the well deserved clamor surrounding the top of the ticket that the deafening sound of silence from Number Two hardly registered a ping on the media's radar screen.  So it's up to Politicalgates to ask: Where was the passionate defense of Mitt Romney?  Where was the campaign's well coordinated message with which Ryan could crisscross the country to counter these attacks at well staged GOP rallies?  Where were the strongly worded talking points to refute the criticism that was being heaped upon Romney?

With the campaign in tatters and fewer than fifty-six days left to get their right-wing message out to the American electorate, Paul Ryan was hunkered down in Wisconsin's 1st District, trying to save his ass congressional seat by using two million dollars of his campaign funds to buy ads that will only be shown in Wisconsin.  It appears that he has glommed on to the fact that he probably will not be able to demonstrate his questionable running skills by taking a victory lap around Washington on November 7.

Speaking to his constituents in coffee shops and other small venues, Ryan merely repeats the tired old Tea Party rhetoric. But when asked by one town hall attendant how the Romney/Ryan administration would have handled the Libyan situation, he gave a response that was so full of lies, hypocrisy, and ambiguities that it was utterly stupefying:

First of all, he began, peace through strength works.  It’s important that people around the world know who we are, what we believe, and the values we  stand up for.  We believe in women’s rights…we believe in plurality...we believe in tolerance and religious freedom...  He then went on to blame the situation on President Obama's proposed defense budget cuts.  Mitt Romney was never mentioned.

[Do not attempt to adjust your computer speakers, dear readers.  That sound you hear is this writer banging her head on the desk, which by the end of this campaign will have more dents in it than Sarah Palin’s refrigerator.]

Of course, Ryan did take time out to spew his filth with Michelle Bachmann at the Value Voters Summit, that despicable right-wing group that takes great joy in mocking diplomacy with Middle East countries.  As Right Wing Watch reported,  the video that sparked the unrest in Egypt and Libya was created and promoted by anti-Muslim activists who have worked with backers of Bachmann’s effort to purge the U.S. government of Muslim Americans and key players in the effort to block the so-called Ground Zero mosque.

I'm sick of these anti-American fools.

End Note

The Transfer of Remains:  Honoring the Four Who Fell in Service to Their Country

"The President has courage in his soul, compassion in his heart, and a spine of steel."

Vice President Joe Biden, Democratic National Convention, September 6, 2012

UPDATE

More media response to Romney's Libya fiasco. 

Courtesy of The Obama Diary

UPDATE 2

H/T Sleuth1