Mitt Picking

The main-stream media has bent over backwards to find things wrong with Mitt Romney. For instance:

1) Years ago he strapped his dog to the top of his SUV to travel to New Hampshire (IN A DOG CRATE)
2) His lawn care company uses illegal immigrants (EVEN AFTER HE TOLD THEM TO DESIST)
3) He has changed his position from “Choice” to “Life” on the abortion issue, therefore he “waffles”
4) None of his five sons have joined the armed forces (NOR HAVE HUCKABEE’S SONS)
5) His religion, Mormonism, believes that Satan is Jesus Christ’s brother (NOT TRUE)
6) He “saw” his father (George Romney) “march with” Martin Luther King (ONLY VIRTUALLY)
7) His record as Massachusetts governor is checkered (A MATTER OF OPINION)
8) He may wear Mormon’s “magic underwear” (HAS REFUSED TO COMMENT ON THIS)
9) Mormons didn’t allow blacks into the their church (UNTIL 1978 … NOW ALL RESTRICTIONS REMOVED)
10) Mormons endorsed polygamy … men could take multiple wives (UNTIL 1910)

Of these ten nits, four have to do with Romney’s religion … something I thought was traditionally off-limits in presidential politics. The other six nits, four are either so silly as to be ludicrous, or, the last two (#s 3 & 7), are little different from other candidates and/or are very debatable.

Why the main-stream media is so down on Mitt Romney is a little puzzling to me … perhaps it’s a little out of fear that he could defeat anything the Dems have to offer. After all it looks to me like the 2008 contest is shaping up to be one of heart (Obama) versus head (Romney)..

I AM NOT A CROOK

(From the Drudge Report) "Sen. John McCain said yesterday that he has 'never done any favors for anybody -- lobbyist or special interest group,' as his presidential campaign issued a statement denouncing allegations of legislative favoritism as 'gutter politics.'"

Excuse me … does anyone remember the savings and loan scandal in the late 1980's? And the Keating five? See: The Keating Five Senator McCain I guess hopes that we have all lapsed into dementia. He apparently has.

Sow’s Ear

Joe Kennedy has a new radio commercial touting his Citizens Energy “non-profit” company. He extols Venezuela’s Citgo for donating million of dollars worth of oil to the poor people of Massachusetts to help them heat their homes. I know I am beating a dead horse here, but first, let me point out again … Citizens Energy is not a non-profit company. It is an energy trading company (like Enron was) which has a small eleemosynary section. Joe Kennedy pulls down hundreds of thousand dollars a year in salary from this ersatz “charity.” Secondly, Joe says in this ad that this oil was donated by Citgo which is “owned by the Venezuelan people.” This is a genteel way of saying that Citgo was nationalized by Venezuela in the 1990’s (other U.S. oil companies been nationalized there more recently) … in other words, Citgo was stolen from us. How’s that for turning a sow’s ear into a silk purse? And this is a silk purse from which the Kennedy clan extracts more of its ill-gotten lucre. (I wonder why we Bostonians insist on keeping that huge Citgo sign behind the Green Monster in Fenway Park? Is it a monument to Hugo Chavez? Or, to this Kennedy charade?)

Spanglish

Last night there was a Republican-candidate TV debate held entirely in Spanish. I couldn't find this debate on my TV but have heard excerpts of it on talk radio. I have often thought that, just like we have the SAP option on many English TV shows, we should have an ENG option on any Spanish-only TV shows. I have watched Hispanic rallies on CSPAN and wished I knew what they were saying ... especially when I kept hearing the word "gringo" punctuating their speeches.

Three Billion Penny Oprah

Oprah Winfrey went to Iowa today to attend two huge campaign rallies for Barak Obama. There she gave her enthusiastic campaign endorsement for Obama to huge cheering crowds of “her people”. Now the issue that this raises in my mind is one of campaign donation limits. My understanding is that no single individual can give any one campaign more than $1,000 in hard money (and $5,000 in soft money to PACs). But Oprah is giving a donation-in-kind that is obviously worth many millions. Plus she is obviously spending much more than $1,000 in hard dollars just to be in Iowa with her posse (make-up artist, hair dresser, body guards, pilots, drivers, etc). Is this right? Does this lie within the spirit or even the letter (can't even be construed “soft money”) of the McCain/Feingold campaign finance reform bill? I think not. Will anyone object? I think not. (By the bye, I would not be unhappy if Obama were to knock off Hillary … who is obviously also getting huge donations-in-kind from her lothario husband.) But I raise this issue to show how will-o-the-wisp such attempts at “campaign finance reform” really are.

Mourning Imus

Imus is back on the air. I listened to much of his painful program yesterday morning with his wife, Deidre’s ceaselessly flacking her “green” cleaning products and mentioning the Hackensack Hospital (where she is a director) every five minutes. Imus also now has two black sidekicks, one male and one female, (assumedly as penance), so the show banter is now decidedly from the ‘hood. (Not that there is anything wrong with that.) I got up early this AM and turned on his program at 5:00. I was surprised to hear an hour-long repeat of yesterday’s 8:00 segment (in which Chris Dodd tries to rationalize his run for the presidency and to repeatedly buss Imus’s derriere.) Then, after having my morning coffee and reading the newspapers, I tuned in again to his 7:00 segment. Surprise, surprise, it was a re-repeat of this same segment! Wow!! What a rip-off. I am now listening to the 8:00 segment and it is finally original programming (with Mike Huckabee giving his born-again sermon about why to vote for him … and, in the process, dissing Mormon’s). I assume that this hour will make up the majority of tomorrow’s show.