Mainstream Anchors & Pundits Dump on Mitt

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The DNC didn’t have to work very hard to find scathing criticism of Mitt Romney’s 47 per cent remarks, but what’s remarkable in this 2-minute mash-up of the best, er, worst commentary about the incident is who’s speaking and who’s cited. This is not an MSNBC roll call: Anderson Cooper, Brian Williams, David Brooks, John King, Anne Kornblut, are all included in the video below, and David Gergen, who on a CNN panel with Ari Fleischer and Fareed Zakaria, says, “It’s almost oafish for someone who has a bank account in the Cayman Islands to reduce taxes to criticize someone who’s in need. . . . It’s not just this comment. It’s a pattern, a series of statements over time. Americans tend to create a circle in their mind of people inside that circle, of people who would make a credible, comfortable president, someone they could see in that office. I think this pattern of statements is increasingly placing Mitt Romney outside that circle.”

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Talking w/Voters about What Mitt Romney Thinks of Them

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The Obama campaign went out on the streets of a major city today and asked voters how they feel about Mitt Romney’s candid and disparaging remarks indicating what he really thinks of Obama voters. The video the Obama campaign has made is titled “47 per cent”.

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Mother Jones Obliges Mitt/Part II

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This is the final 31 minutes or so of the Boca Raton, FL, fundraiser, surreptitiously recorded on May 17, 2012, released September 17 an 18. Thanks to Mother Jones and David Corn for their steadfast work on this story. Part I is here.

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Mother Jones Obliges Mitt

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Last night, in Mitt’s hastily arranged press conference–where for the first time ever, I noticed his hair looking quite mussed–he tried to leave people w/the impression that his already-notorious words disparaging Obama voters may have been taken out context. He weirdly, to me, sounded as if he were begging David Corn for mercy. It put him very much in the position of the supplicant. And that’s where he started today, with Corn and Mother Jones going with revelation of his two-faced attitude about Israelis and Palestinians.

Now, however, Corn has just posted this:

He claimed his comments where merely a “snippet” and not the “full response.” That was not true; his comments were shown in full. He added, “I hope the person who has the video would put out the full material.” Romney is not the only one who has called for the release of the full 49-minute video. And we’re more than happy to oblige. The complete video demonstrates that Romney was not snippetized and that he was captured raw and uncut. Here it is, in two parts:

I’ll also get their video up soon on this site. For now, please use the link above Here’s Part I:

For Part II of the video, please visit this separate post of mine.

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Mitt Romney, Wishing he Were Hispanic

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As if Mitt’s 47% remarks weren’t already totally revealing of his disdain for people less well-off than himself, another part of the same leaked tape includes this doozy, where he claims he wishes he’d been born a Latino.

What does Mitt mean–that had he been born Latino, he could somehow have taken advantage of affirmative action? There are some other lines that slay me , referring to his father, whose own father had chosen to leave the United States so he could continue practicing polygamous Mormonism,

“Had he been born of Mexican parents, I’d have a better shot at winning this. But he was unfortunately born to Americans living in Mexico. But he was unfortunately born to Americans living in Mexico.. . . .it would be helpful to be Latino.”

I scarcely know how to write about such idiotic words.

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What Mitt Romney Thinks of Obama Voters

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Late Monday Update: This link is to the entire Mother Jones piece by David Corn that unearthed the video of Mitt Romney disparaging Obama voters. Corn’s piece is excellent reporting, and goes well beyond the video that has so quickly become notorious, and emblematic of Romney’s disdain for close to half the country.
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This afternoon Taegan Goddard’s PoliticalWire.com has posted shocking audio and video of Mitt Romney, at a fundraiser, characterizing Obama voters in a most denigrating way. The whole clip runs about 2 minutes. Here’s an excerpt quote from PoliticalWire.com:

Said Romney: “There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.”

He adds: “My job is is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
Here’s the clip:

This feels like a kind of bombshell.

Sometime after it appeared on politicalwire.com, the Obama Campaign sent out these remarks:

STATEMENT ON ROMNEY’S BEHIND CLOSED DOORS REMARKS

CHICAGO – “It’s shocking that a candidate for President of the United States would go behind closed doors and declare to a group of wealthy donors that half the American people view themselves as ‘victims,’ entitled to handouts, and are unwilling to take ‘personal responsibility’ for their lives. It’s hard to serve as president for all Americans when you’ve disdainfully written off half the nation.” – Jim Messina, Obama for America Campaign Manager

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Reading along with Richard Ford

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Fascinating Q&A with novelist Richard Ford in the “Books” section of the Boston Globe over the weekend. I was mesmerized by his latest novel Canada, which I blogged about several times (1, 2, and 3) while caught up in the reading of it last May and June. These are two of the most interesting bits from Ford’s discussion with Amy Sutherland:

BOOKS: Are you a slow or fast reader?

FORD: Slow. I’m dyslexic. If you can reconcile yourself to not being able to burn through books, which you shouldn’t any way, you can slow the whole process down. Then, because of my disability, there is more for me in imaginative literature than there is for other people. . .

BOOKS: What was your reading like before this?

FORD: Dutiful. Remember when you were kid in school and the teacher was always telling you there’s more here than you see. There’s a line of Henry Moore’s, “Never think of the surface except as an extension of a volume.” I was thinking there was a volume but where the hell was it?

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#FridayReads, Sept. 14–“Rust Belt Chic” & “The Scarlet Ruse”

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My belated #FridayReads is for the new book, Rust Belt Chic: A Cleveland Anthology, edited by Richey Piiparinen and Anne Trubek, to which I’ve contributed “Remembering Mr. Stress, Live at the Euclid Tavern,” an essay on the bluesman I followed devotedly for the many years I lived in Cleveland. I just got my own copy of the book yesterday and have begun reading my way through the more than 50 other entries in it, with pieces on legendary rock n’ roll scribe Jane Scott, poet hart Crane, graphic novelist Harvey Pekar, urban decay and renewal, and many other topics. It’s a thrill to be in this book with so many other terrific writers.

Before Rust Belt Chic‘s arrival in the mail yesterday I was reading one of John D. MacDoanld’s gripping Travis McGee novel’s The Scarlet Ruse, which I’m continuing to enjoy this weekend. If you too enjoy MacDonald’s work, please note I’ve blogged about his novels a number of times, and I learned this week there’s a Facebook group page in his honor, which I invite you to check out and consider joining. It’s always fun to have such great nonfiction and fiction on the boil.

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