Does the Republican Party Bother Vetting Anyone Anymore?

What is the deal with the GOP? Have they stopped hiding who they truly are and just don't care to put their true face front and center?

Richard Grenell, a former Bush administration official who joined the Romney campaign Thursday as national security and foreign policy spokesman, appears to have deleted more than 800 of his past tweets following scrutiny over numerous swipes aimed at the media, prominent Democratic women and the Gingriches. Grenell also apparently took down his personal site, which featured writing on politics, foreign affairs and the media.

Among Grenell's deleted tweets were such insults as inferring that Rachel Maddow looked like a man, Calista Gingrinch's "snap on" hair, other sexist remarks regarding women's appearances, and calling the contraception argument "Obama's population control strategy."

 So how does the Romney campaign, which has already seen its share of gaffes and asinine comments, not just from the candidate but from its campaign staff, not know that these types of things should be vetted and it only reflects poorly on Mitt Romney? The answer is probably that they do know, but they just don't give a shit. It's an Etch-a-Sketch world in their minds, and no one will be talking about this in three months when the general population starts paying attention.

I suppose if Sarah Palin can vie for the Vice Presidency (and I will forever curse the name of John McCain for bringing her to national prominence) then what's the big deal if you have a misogynist on your campaign staff?  After all, for the GOP, it's not about what you're for. With their choices for presidential candidate, it's about vilifying the other guy.

Douchebag of the Week: Thomas Mitchell

The Editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Thomas "Look at my awesome cowboy hat and my sweet Wyatt Earp moustache" Mitchell wrote a swell column about voting bias. Not, white voters overwhelmingly voting for white candidates or blacks voters voting for black candidates, or even Tea Party voters voting for nutball candidates. No, Mitchell thinks that women are "fickle and biased" towards Democratic candidates and therefore it's time to repeal the 19th Amendment. You know, the one that gave women the right to vote.

How does he come to this stellar conclusion?

Just look at the poll results in today’s newspaper.

Men favored the attractive former beauty queen Sue Lowden over the graying Harry Reid by 22 points, while women shunned their gender mate, choosing Reid by a 2-point margin. Which proves women favor Democrats.

Not convinced? Well let’s back it up a week and look at the poll results published this past Sunday.

In a head-to-head match among Reid, Lowden and Tea Party pretender Scott Ashjian, the men favored Lowden by 19 points over Reid and women picked Reid by a 3-point margin. Ashjian was in single digits.

But change the Republican option from Lowden to former basketball star Danny Tarkanian and it is a different tale. Men still favored the Republican by 16 points and doubled their support by Ashjian to 15 points. Women, on the other hand, chose Reid by 16 points, proving they’d rather vote for a woman than a male Republican.

Hoo-hoo! Get it? Reid's a woman!

Now let me add that if this is supposed to be satirical, as some of the commenters in his editorial have suggested, I didn't get it. At. All.

No, I just happen to think that Thomas Mitchell is a typical misogynist, Republican prick who doesn't understand why illogical, fickle, emotional women are trusted with the right to vote because they obviously aren't voting for Party of No douchebags. Therefore they must not have any clue about the issues.

Thomas Mitchell: Douchebag of the Week!

Another Blog Post I Wish I'd Written

posted by Armadillo Joe

...but I didn't and even if I had it wouldn't have turned out this good. Written by Anne Laurie, the newest bomb-thrower over at John Cole's place, she rides the wave of righteous personal fury at the assassination of George Tiller and uses that momentum to carry her into a berserking rage that mercilessly pierces the heart of the haters and let's the puss and bile ooze out.

The opening salvo goes something like this:

If President Obama were my personal “change agent”, he’d have announced that the National Guard would now recruit gynecologists to serve as abortion providers in those parts of America—which would be most parts of America—where domestic terrorism and religious extremists keep American women from accessing medical services which are not only legal but supported by the majority of Americans. And he’d add that the National Guard would also be protecting the facilities where those gynecologists worked, with the intention of prosecuting all lawbreakers to the full extent of the anti-terrorism statutes.

She goes on to advocate for forced-ectopic pregnancies for all anti-abortion men and describes the whole membership of the movement to which they belong as The Womb Bigots, a field-guide to which she is helpfully compiling even as you read this post (first entry: Bingo Ladies Gone Bad).

Go read the whole thing.

Douche Quote of the Day, Part 4

posted by Armadillo Joe

"I think she'd say that her word choice in 2001 was poor"
- Robert Gibbs, White House Press Secretary

(sigh)

Why concede any ground at all when the wingnuts were well and truly about to implode into a fine red mist of degenerate racism and reprobate misogyny?

Why?

Washington D.C. is hard-wired for Republican Rule. As Atrios pointed out today, no matter how bad things may be for Republicans at any given moment (and they look pretty bad right now), the GOP will always enjoy a home field advantage in Washington. That's why we bloggers invented the term "Villagers" to describe all those Kewl Kidz who golf-clap their approval whenever some politician displays strength by punching a dirty fucking hippie in the face. Their incomes and class and economic upbringing and social status all make them part of a non-partisan ruling elite who nevertheless distrust an "Other" which usually resides in the Democratic Party. This reflexive distrust of the less monied, the less plugged-in, the less connected, the less powerful, the less glamorous -- frankly, hatred for the riff-raff -- gives them a natural affinity for the policies, procedures, arguments and methods of the Rethugli-goons, whose raison d'tre is to advocate for The Villagers -- not as "Villagers" per se, but simply as the rich, entitled, powerful people who expect special treatment that they are.

I mean, hell, Cheney's speech last week was presented by our MSM opposite Obama's like anything a potentially-indicted private citizen has to say about anything even remotely merits 1/10th the attention as an important speech by the sitting president. And Cheney reinforced that whole misguided notion by growling his way through a pro-torture "answer" to Obama national security speech, strutting and preening like the titular head of a government in exile, which to much of The Village he is.

So, now, the official stance of the White House is that some of the things Sotomayor said casually in a public forum almost ten years ago are out-of-bounds and, like that poorly-trained friend's dog we all know who will take the slightest breath of a hint of attention from a house-guest to jump and slobber and bark, a perpetually-in-search-of-conflict media pounces on the hairline fracture to split it wide-open. Shuster and Fineman nattered away on Hardball today like two old biddies in a sewing circle about the young hussy who just moved in down the street.

As digby said about it today:

Republicans were acting like crazed freaks, alienating Hispanics by the thousands and making women hate them even more, and the whole country was aghast. Why they gave them validation on this, I don't really understand.

[...]

this controversy will make it necessary for Sotomayor to bow and scrape before Jeff Sessions and Orrin Hatch. The wingnuts have been hoping for a chance for some payback for Thomas and maybe they'll get a pound of female flesh this time.

Two steps forward, three steps back.