Stepping In Mitt

For a campaign that appears to run on endless amounts of hot and cold running derp, Money Boo Boo continues to find new and better ways to fail:

Romney's response to the incidents of the last 24 hours -- the storming of the American embassy in Cairo and the killing of the American ambassador and three others in Libya -- is widely being regarded as hasty and ham-handed. From his initial statement late Tuesday, which accused the Obama Administration of "sympathiz[ing] with those who waged the attacks," to his Wednesday morning press conference reinforcing that criticism, Romney, critics say, appeared overly eager to turn the tragedy into a political wedge, and insufficiently respectful of the gravity of the situation.

Even for a team famously refusing to be constrained by the rigors of mere fact-checkers, this is a pretty bad whiff. As awful as the events yesterday in Benghazi are, and as tempting as it might be to "there they go again" at the crowds protesting what appears to be a seriously half-assed production of internets provocateurs trying to stir up violent responses, the fact is (to use the always handy Rumsfeldism) we don't know what we don't know. It is entirely possible (even likely, considering the apparent sophistication of the deadly event) that a small cell of actual terrorist types hung in for cover with the protesters. No one knows much of anything yet, certainly not the guy who fired his foreign policy advisor for being a lustful cockmonster.

Plus there's that whole "water's edge" thingduring events such as this. It would have been an easy and even graceful move to just hit the "thoughts and prayers are with the families" note and move back to the economy, which is really (ironically enough) the one card Rmoney has to play in his hand. And he couldn't even do that one right.

Of course, we are talking about the same guy that poked the Russian bear just for shits and giggles:

MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin said today that Mitt Romney's characterization of Moscow as the United States' "number one geopolitical foe" has actually helped Russia.

The Russian leader said Romney's comments strengthened his resolve to oppose NATO's plan for a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe, a system Russia believes will degrade its nuclear deterrent. The U.S. insists the system is aimed at Iran, not Russia.

"I'm grateful to him (Romney) for formulating his stance so clearly because he has once again proven the correctness of our approach to missile defense problems," Putin told reporters, according to the Russian news agency RIA Novosti.

"The most important thing for us is that even if he doesn't win now, he or a person with similar views may come to power in four years. We must take that into consideration while dealing with security issues for a long perspective," he said, speaking after a meeting with Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic, according to Interfax news agency.

Mittford apparently thinks Boris and Natasha are still out to get Moose and Squirrel. Regardless, his recent comments on foreign policy, for a perpetually tumultuous part of the world, underscore the distinct impression one gets that he would just go ahead and appoint John Bolton and Elliot Abrams as Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, or vice versa. Maybe run everything past Netanyahu beforehand, that sort of thing.

More and more -- though the media, in their interest to keep things close, will undoubtedly weight it just like they did for GeeDub -- it looks like Rmoney will get his clock unceremoniously cleaned by Obama in the debates. Whatever misgivings one may have about Obama, and they're there, and for good reasons, one strength the guy has is that he really does seem to be unflappable. Nothing ruffles his feathers. And yet he manages to convey humanity, even while tamping down emotion. Mitt, on the other hand, makes the simple act of, say, drinking a glass of water looked forced and robotic. You can almost see the smoke coming out of his ears as he attempts to figure out the algorithm to Barry O's rope-a-dope stylings.

As dismal as this chapter of the perpetual campaign industry has been, and as anti-climactic as an Obama win will be with the possibility of both houses of Congress being GOP, it will at least be appreciated to watch these jagoffs lose. Romney and Ryan present the most tedious, regressive, been-there-done-that-tried-it-what-else-ya-got ideas. Doesn't matter whether it's foreign or domestic policy, the economy, labor relations, health care, the environment, women's right to control their own reproductive decisions, they're Rip Van Winkle, two guys who fell asleep while Herbert Hoover was in office, and can't figure out why the rest of the world moved on.

No wonder the only people falling for this schtick are angry old white farts. The world stopped for them too, about the time Pat Boone was schlepping Little Richard tunes for the preppy uptight white kids.