Holding My Nose, Looking Away

by Denis G. Campbell

Thank God, it’s over! The GOP karma tour of hurricane alley has ended.

The build-up for last night’s Mitt closing speech was huge. “The speech of his life.” “He needs to humanise himself.” “A true Etch-a-Sketch moment.” for the first 2/3 of the speech it was a solid single up the middle that might be stretched into a double. Then he tripped on first base ran a few awkward steps towards second, fell on his face and was tagged out. Had he stopped afte the first 2/3 he might have exited but scorpions gotta sting and he went after President Obama with a pack of fresh lies repackaged for the night.

He started to humanise himself and then like a bad late-night infomercial, resorted to a greatest hits album of GOP Cold War talking points. He threatened Russia, Iran and following in the footsteps of John McCain said America needed to lead from the front so get ready for six wars! We’re going back with troops to Iraq, staying in Afghanistan, supporting our ‘friends’ in Syria and threatening Russia and China and a $5 trillion dollar defence buildup will scupper education and social programmes for the next three decades, when people need them the most.

The heavyweights were out in force. Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush yelled at President Obama telling him to stop blaming brother George W. in a “nobody picks on my brother, except ME!” speech. Parades of people Mitt helped filled the stage. Marco Rubio appealed to Latino voters to come back to Mitt (he’s 60 points down in that block) and like Chris Christie and Paul (Ayn Rand) Ryan before before him eerily prepared themselves for their own 2016 runs as the new heart and soul of the Republican Party.

And then Clint Eastwood vamped with a chair for 12 minutes and it was game over. So the polls today will show a small bump for Romney. He did not hit it out of the park, but the general reaction was on of meh?

And Mitt played almost as fast and loose with the truth and facts as Paul Ryan. Today Maddow blog writer Steve Benen will release the 32nd edition of his column “Chronicling Mitt’s Mendacity. In the previous 31 editions he had compiled 570 instances of blatant lies told by Mitt Romney out on the trail. Today the campaign will certainly burst through the 600 lie barrier since the second week of January.

Last night’s greatest hits:

• Mitt dropped a birther reference, “we need an American to solve these problems.” Showing his joke was neither accidental or unplanned. Barack Obama s the other who needs to be dehumanised and made to look foreign.
• He stated “the President immediately embarked on an apology tour, he will embark on a jobs tour.” Again patently false.

• He mocked President Obama’s pledge to tackle climate change and global warming: “President Obama promised to slow the rise of the oceans — [pauses for audience laughter(!)] — and to heal the planet. MY promise is to help you and your family.”

• He pledged not to raise taxes on The Middle Class but his economic plan requires it.

• Romney pledged 12 million jobs by 2013? Most economists already say we will be there if nothing is done but follow the Obama course.

• He also pledged energy independence by 2020 yet Obama policies are already on track to do just that and jobs in that sector have grown by 40% in the last two years.

So now we prepare for the Democratic convention in Charlotte. Here is where Joe and Barack will smother these lying new kids  in their cribs with their own lies.

69 days and 1,584 hours of cable news to go…

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Denis G Campbell is the author of 6 books including 'Billionaire Boys Election Freak Show,' 'The Vagina Wars' & 'Egypt Unsh@ckled.' He is the editor of UK Progressive Magazine and provides commentary to the BBC, itv Al Jazeera English, CNN, MSNBC and others. His weekly 'World View with Denis Campbell' segment can be heard every Thursday on the globally syndicated The David Pakman Show. You can follow him on Twitter via @UKProgressive and on Facebook.
Email this author | All posts by Denis G Campbell