BrunOpinions

     Mitt Romney is keeping the media at a distance. he won’t allow any questions after making speeches on the campaign stump.
    This is not necessarily a bad idea. The broadcast media can often be a burr in the ol’ saddle.
    Still, the long distance runner does stand at home plate on home turf as Fox News tosses softball questions at him. Romney once even said that the next president will be elected using the TV ratings juggernaut that is Fox News.
    Mitt Romney also said this the other day: “I don’t remember what I said, but I stand by it.”
    The liberal media had a few chuckles with that one. They keep wanting him to come up with specifics as to how he’ll turn around the shaky economy. You know, instead of running the general election out while hoping the economy stays in the dumper.
    But the media doesn’t really want to talk about the economy. They say that [media cliche alert!] ‘at the end of the day’ people vote their pocketbooks.
    No sir, the economy isn’t a sexy topic. Sexy in this case meaning provocative and/or controversial.
    Economy talk is boring. It’s like trying to get grown-ups to remember their school days and who Sir Isaac Newton was.
    So the media turns our attention to poll numbers.
    Heck, they even get so bored talking about polls this election year they start bringing up will Hillary Clinton run in 2016.
    OK, OK, so information is traveling the speed of light, but stay focused on the here and now, for David Brinkley’s sake.
    And stay focused on covering the sexy news stories.
    The War on Women. Great sexy wedge issue.
    Romney back in the day at prep school when ol’ Richie Rich formed a posse and picked on a weak kid whose hair was too long and forced a haircut on the outcast.
    Would that make that a wedgie issue?
    Anyway, the sexy news issue du jour is a GOP Super PAC funded by a gazilllionaire tying President Obama to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Again. The new twist this time in the campaign ad is calling Obama a “metrosexual black Abe Lincoln.”
    Whatever the hell that means.
    The Super PAC rats were calling it the ad John McCain refused to run in 2008, and if he would’ve, people would never have elected Obama.
    They thought this one would have the legs (meaning a couple of news cycles) of a Rockette.
    It had its news cycles alright. They wanted to release the racist ad the week of the Democratic National Convention, but the press (print that is) got downwind of this crapola and exposed it. And it was the topic of news shows a few days running.
    This of course forced Romney’s hand and he had no alternative but to give it a thumbs down.
    But almost within the same breath, he started to play the victim card, accusing Obama of character assassination by campaigning on his less than stellar career in the private sector as CEO of Bain Capital.
    This is of course Mitt’s calling card. Mr. Businessman. He can’t run on his time as governor of Massachusetts, because his major accomplishment was making health care law. His health care plan was the template for —gasp!— Obamacare.
    Character assassination. Really, Mitt?
    For that to stick, one needs to have character to begin with.
    But you have assassinated the pride Americans had in their work by killing their jobs and leaving them void of character.
    You can run, but you can’t hide forever.
    Even Fox News has to come up from the toxic waste it spews for fresh air.

   Now that America’s Sweetheart Betty White has announced that she is supporting President Obama for re-election, Fox News has to destroy her.
   It won’t do America’s Bully Rush Limbaugh any good calling Betty a sexist word, because she’d revel in it.
   So it’s up to Foxholes and Friends to take her down by making stuff up to its audience, the frightened ones, with junk like:
   1. “The only reason Betty White is for Obama is she’s an animal activist and she’s been brainwashed into believing Mitt Romney strapped that damn dog to the roof of his car!”
   2. “Before starting in television, Betty White ran numbers for the Mob.”
   3. “She fixed the 1960 presidential election so Kennedy could beat Nixon.”
   4. “She’s into porn.”
   5. “She killed a guy in the 1950s.”

      Betty’s support for Obama wasn’t the only celebrity news for our celebrity president.
     The latest cover of Newsweek magazine is a photo of Obama with a rainbow-colored halo hovering over his head. The words on the cover say “The first gay president.”
     This was on the heels of the president coming out for gay marriage last week.
     On Monday, Obama gave the commencement address at the all-female Barnard College in New York. On Tuesday, some started calling Obama the first female president.
     On Monday night, the president attended a fundraiser sponsored by the LGBT community.
     Things that could have happened at that fundraiser, just for fun:
     As the president was introduced, the song being played was “I Gotta Be Me.”
     Then Obama went into a monologue:
     Obama: “It’s good  to be here tonight at this LGBT fundraiser. Or as Fox News refers to it, “Apocalypse Now.”
      I suppose you all saw the Newsweek cover. I liked it. But I won’t be satisfied until I’m on the cover of People magazine as “The Sexiest First Gay President Alive.”
      I’ve been labeled the first gay president and now the first female president. So which one is it? I’m getting harder to define than Mitt Romney.
      Speaking of Willard Mitt, he’s so insensitive to gay rights issues he fires men on his campaign staff who out-of-the-blue whistle or hum show tunes.
      So, speaking of show tunes, I’ve made a list of songs from Broadway and movie musicals that could be retitled to fit the Mitt:
       1. From “West Side Story”: “I Feel Mitty.”
       2. From “Funny Girl”: “People, corporations are people.” OK, I used that one last week at the Clooney fundraiser. But it polled well, so it bears repeating.
       3. The musical “Fiddler on the Roof” will now be called “Fido on the roof of my car.”
       4. Should Mitt be president we’ll all be singing the retitled song from “The Sound of Music” —- “Climb every mountain of debt.”
       5. Finally, and this song doesn’t have to be retitled, after Nov. 6 ol’ Willard Mitt will channel “South Pacific” when he sings “This Nearly Was Mine.”

    Mitt Romney delivered the commencement address at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University in the appropriately named Lynchburg, Virginia, on Saturday.
  Not surprisingly, he got the biggest round of applause from the graduating students when he said he believed that a marriage is defined as a union between a man and a woman.
  It would have been interesting if he added, “Or as my grandfather believed, a marriage is defined as a union between a man and a woman, and a woman and another woman.”
  Liberty University is a Christian college founded by the late Moral Majority hypocrite Jerry Falwell. It’s also the university where God apparently came out as a conservative Christian Republican.
  Of course Romney mentioned little about his Mormon faith. Falwell would definitely believe that Mormonism is a cult, but, hey, when it’s a choice between a Republican who belongs to a cult and a Muslim Democrat, it’s a no-brainer. You wouldn’t even need to ask “What would Jesus do?” on this one.
  No props for Mormonism. Thanks a lot, Mitt, that means the one concession stand on campus selling Magic Underwear left the premises with bupkis.
  Also not mentioned was Romney’s bullying of a prep school kid back in the day. Ol’ Edward Scissorhands headed a posse and pretty much attacked the damn hippie, pinned him to the floor and, shears in hand, cut the kid’s hair.
   Overheard in the sea of humanity at the Liberty University commencement:
  1. “I was a bit disappointed. Romney didn’t give us any tips on how to become a CEO of a major corporation and not have a conscience when firing hard-working Americans and shipping their jobs overseas.”
  2. “I’m so glad that he’s going to be president. Now it’s going to be easier for me to get a job and have two Cadillacs and a car elevator!”
  3. “Can’t wait til I get handed my degree so I can go party with the elders.”
  4. “I wanted to hear more about him tying the dog to the roof of his car.”
  5. “Boxers or briefs? Neither, magic underwear.”
  6. “Wonder if he knows Donny Osmond. He’s so dreamy.”
  7. “If he breaks out in song with ‘America the Beautiful’ I’m gonna puke.”
  8. “I got my girlfriend the perfect graduation gift, a bottle of that new fragrance ode de Gingrich.”
  9. “It woulda been hilarious if instead of throwing our caps in the air we would all have thrown etch-a-sketches.”
  10. “Get ready, America, it starts today: Mittmania!”

    It’s not appropriate for President Obama to take credit and campaign on giving the order to take out bin Laden. But it’s perfectly fine for Mitt Romney to say he deserves credit for bailing out the auto industry.
  Give Romney credit for bailing out GM and Chrysler? That’s like giving the Titanic credit for not missing the iceberg. This is the same Mitt Romney (there are two Mitt Romneys) who in 2008 said if the government bails out GM and Chrysler you can “kiss the automotive industry goodbye.”
  In 2008, Romney penned an op-ed for the New York Times with the bold headline “Let Detroit go bankrupt.” Granted, Romney didn’t write the headline, but it perfectly captured the controversial point he was making.
  Fact is, candidate Etch-a-Sketch is on record, meaning TV taped conversations, opposing the decision President Obama made. Which turned out to be the right call, since the auto industry rebounded and a least one million jobs were saved. Not to mention that the auto industry is paying back the loan, with interest.
  Before you Republicans get your panties in a bunch, it should be noted that this is the one time President George W. Bush does get credit for an assist, since Obama acted on W.’s decision to initiate the bailout.
  Romney likes to call himself the car guy. His daddy was president of American Motors. Yada, yada, yada.
  We found out that Mrs. Mitt drives two Cadillacs, actually.
  But her husband is an Edsel.
  Fox News and Karl Rove, King of all Weasels, and his Super PAC will keep repeating this lie about Romney getting credit for the auto industry bailout until people start believing it’s true. Especially the frightened ones whose every word depends on the echo chamber of lies delivered nightly by the Murdoch manipulators of the truth.
  So why stop at this lie? The vulnerable ones can also be convinced that Mitt Romney:
  1. Painted the Sistine Chapel (two coats, actually)
  2. Toured with Elvis
  3. Invented Twitter
  4. Unearthed the tomb of King Tut
  5. Saved Private Ryan
  6. Parted the Red Sea
  7. Gave women the right to vote
  8. Purchased Louisiana
  9. Started the NFL
  10. Was the fifth Beatle

   Fox News is going to go berserko grande and America’s Bully, Rush Limbaugh, will burst another blood vessel on Thursday.
  That’s when President Obama will be in Hollywood at a fundraiser at George Clooney’s house —- where $12 million is expected to be raised for the president’s re-election.
  $12 million. To which Mitt Romney would snark, “Big deal. I got that on me.”
  The Hollywood fundraiser will certainly add to the “Celebrity President” narrative the GOP and The Weasel King, Karl Rove, and his Super PAC are retreading this presidential election year.
  Maybe this will be a good time for Willard Mitt to try out that wild and crazy guy image the Mrs. says is in him. He could tell a few jokes at a town hall meeting and act like it’s a night at the Improv.
  It might go something like this:
  “It’s appropriate that this president is at a Hollywood fundraiser hosted by George Clooney. Thanks to his presidency, the economy is in the ‘ER.’
  [rim shot]
  “Good thing he’s at Clooney’s house, it’s the only one in America that hasn’t been foreclosed on…
  [a few chuckles]
  “But I wanna tell ya, I did enjoy Obama’s performance as the Food Stamp president in “The Hunger Games.”
  [Mitt taps microphone]
  “I know you’re out there. I can hear you seething…
  [audience reacts more positively now]
  “This president belongs with the Hollywood elite. It’s a good audition for him, because next year when he’s out of a job he can host the Oscars.”
 
     Not to be outdone, President Obama will probably open the fundraiser with a few one-liners of his own. Maybe something like this:
    “It’s good to be back in Hollywood, or as the producers of “John Carter” call it, “Town Without Pity.”
    Barbra Streisand is in the house. Looking good as ever. The Republicans are considering using one of your hits as a campaign theme —- “The Way We Were.” The B-side will be [starts singing] “People, corporations are people…”
    This is the first time I’ve been to Clooney’s hizzy. It’s quite a house —- or as Mitt Romney would  call it, the servants’ quarters.
    Speaking of Mitt, I’m in Hollywood, but people think he’s a favorite with central casting to be cast as a president. Herbert Hoover.
    The Republicans are coming out with their own version of “The Avengers.” It’s going to be called “The Avengers take the Country Back.” Mitt Romney will be cast as Captain Corporate America. Newt Gingrich will play The Incredible Sulk. And Rick Santorum will take on the role as “Iron Man-on-Dog.
    And don’t think for an instant that DreamWorks isn’t going to get into the act. It hasn’t gone unnoticed by them that Mitt Romney doesn’t man up to those nasty remarks made by Rush Limbaugh and Ted Nugent.
    The studio will release an animated short film about Romney picking Cowboy Texas Gov. Rick Perry as his running mate. It’s going to be called “Wuss and Boots.”
    Anway, I’m glad I could find the time to attend this fundraiser. Usually at this time every Thursday I spend a few hours evolving on issues….”

     The Obama re-election campaign slogan “Forward” leaves a lot to be desired.
   It’s too easily open to punny criticism like, “Is this what we have to look forward to?”
   The Romney camp already jumped on it with Mitt snarking, “Forward. What, off a cliff?”
   Ahh, that Romney humor. Mrs. Mitt must be right when she said there’s a “wild and crazy guy” inside Mitt waiting to break out.
   Sure, the Obama slogan fits on a bumper sticker. But it’s no “Where’s the real birth certificate?”
   Here are presidential slogans that worked or failed, but would have had a different result had they been altered:
   1. In 1968, Richard Nixon had the slogan “The New Nixon.” It worked because he got elected. Luckily it was shortened to those three words from the original slogan: “The New Nixon, because you don’t know Dick.”
   2. In 1984, Ronald Reagan easily won re-election and his slogan “It’s Morning in America” certainly helped. It may not have had the same effect if the original slogan got the green light: “It’s morning in America, why is Caspar Weinberger wearing my jammies?”
   3. Lyndon B. Johnson won in a landslide in 1964 with his catchy slogan “All the way with LBJ.” It wouldn’t have got him elected if the original slogan was unleashed on the public: “All the way with LBJ to Saigon.”
   4. President Obama’s winning slogan in 2008 was “Change you can believe in.” It wouldn’t have clicked if one could see in the future and the honest slogan was used: “Change you can believe in, because in four years that’s all you’re going to have left in your pockets.”
   5. John McCain’s “Country First” didn’t propel him to victory in 2008. It might have worked had they changed the slogan midway through the campaign and started using “Country First, but I wish I had a second chance to pick a running mate.”

   Spunky Michele Bachmann, the Minnesota Congresswoman and failed Republican presidential candidate, formally endorsed Mitt Romney on Thursday.
Dorothy and the Tin Man, together again.
She helped him get a heart, but it was from the GOP Wizard of Odd, Rush Limbaugh, America’s Bully. And a lot of good that heart did Mittens (“I like firing people.” “I’m not concerned about the very poor.”)
 So Dorothy will try again, but this time to help the Tin Man get a spine.
 Tin Mitt wussed out when the Bully called Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke a “slut.”
 Romney tried to avoid the press when they wanted him to comment on the Bully’s slanderous remark, but he could only say “that’s not the word I would have used.” Maybe he would’ve used Romneyese and called Fluke something like a “poopy-head.”
 This week Mittens wussed out again. A foreign policy advisor to the GOP presumptive nominee stepped down, forced really to quit, really, by the religious right, because he’s openly gay.
 Mitt was MIA commenting on that one, too.
 Here, kitty, kitty, kitty…
 The openly gay foreign policy adviser situation could have been easily, uh, handled. All Gordon Gekko had to do was get Bachmann’s hubby Marcus to get him to pray away the gay.
 The Tin Mitt is finding out on a daily basis that he’s not at Bain Capital anymore.
 He was in charge then. Not so nowadays, presumptive nominee or not. The GOP’s brain, Grover Norquest, said the party only needs a president for show, and signing things. Grover said the next GOP president only needs to make sure his digits work —- so he could sign Paul Ryan’s stick-it-to-the-poor budget.
 It doesn’t take a wizard to figure out how Mitt Romney would govern.
 Follow the Citizens United gold-plated brick road on the way to buying the presidency, big guy. And do it with a song:
    “I guess I’m quite robotic
     no charisma, not hypnotic.
     But Ann says it’s our time.
     I’m better at firing than hiring,
     I could stop right-wing conspirin’
     if I only had a spine.

    “I take both sides on every issue
    someone give Speaker Boehner a tissue
    he’s sobbing like a girl age nine.
    The Tea Party’s got him by the cajones
    I’d expose them all as phonies
    if I only had a spine….”

     Republicans are getting on the president’s case, saying he’s politicizing the anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden.
   To quote House Speaker John Boehner, “Blah, blah, blah.”
   Hello, top news story of last year. The ultimate revenge on the S.O.B. who was the mastermind behind the killing of thousands of Americans on 9-11.
   Politicize all you want, Mr. President. It was the ultimate act of a true patriot in a generation.
   Still the Republicans whine. The same GOP-brains who wouldn’t give President Obama credit after it happened last year at this time.
   Had the raid on bin Laden failed and the Navy SEALs been killed, the GOP would be running political ads ad nauseum this week. Obama is weak on fighting terrorism would’ve been the chant.
   When Mitt Romney was asked if he would’ve made the call to take out OBL, he snarked “Even Jimmy Carter would’ve made that call.”
   President George WMD Bush and Deadeye Dick Cheney? Ahh, not so much. In fact, they let the S.O.B. escape in Tora Bora and WMD pretty much didn’t care if OBL was dead or alive. But that’s because the Bushies needed to have the bad guy still out there to feed the frightened ones more fear.
   And let’s talk about politicizing events after 9-11 by the Bushies for a moment. During the 2004 re-election campaign of the worst president in modern history, Cheney told crowds that if Democrat John Kerry was elected, the U.S. would surely be attacked again. Forgetting, of course, that the worst attack on U.S. soil happened under his and Georgie’s watch.
   Accuse Obama of taking victory laps on the anniversary if you will, but nothing could ever top the grand-standing of W. costumed as Tom Cruise in “Top Gun” aboard that aircraft carrier with the “Mission Accomplished” sign behind him —- several years too early and two years after he left office.
   In 2008, Obama promised that if elected and he had the chance to kill bin Laden, he would. Well, he did. And he did. He kept his campaign promise. It was one hell of an accomplishment. He has every right to campaign on it.
   Unless Mitt Romney tries to convince the electorate that it was he who ordered the hit.
   Romney could probably get the frightened ones who make Fox News a ratings winner to believe he also ordered the hits on Hitler, Stalin and Jabba the Hut.
   Romney is counting way too much on the short attention span of the American people.
   Now he’s claiming that he was the one who saved GM from going bankrupt, when all you have to do is Google the New York Times op-ed piece the Mittster wrote in November 2008 with the headline that reads “Let Detroit go bankrupt.”
   Since the GOP is trying to eliminate Planned Parenthood, voting rights for minorities, and telling women what to do with their bodies, they should try to outlaw the Internet. Because it doesn’t take much to fact check and see how absurd Mitt Romney is. Ol’ Rick Santorum was right, Romney has “no core.”
   On Tuesday, Mittens was telling a crowd that Obama doesn’t care about the poor.
   Wait a minute, that’s Obama’s campaign strategy to paint Romney as someone who doesn’t “care about the very poor.”
   Is Mitt Romney trying to morph into Barack Obama?
   That’s the only way he would get bin Laden.
   Romney once said he wouldn’t move heaven and earth to get the world’s most wanted terrorist.
   But he could always flip-flop on that by saying he really meant the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
       It’s been a year since Osama bin Laden has been rotting in hell. Here are just a few of the complaints he has about the place where he will rot for eternity:
       1. “Fish. Fish. Everyday fish. I keep telling these infidels 72 virgins, not 72 sturgeons.”
       2. “The cable reception here is terrible. Hello, I’m missing my soaps!”
       3. “This is a long line, it’s going to be an eternity before I get to see “The Hunger Games.”
       4. “What’s with the elevators here? They only go down. And enough already with the piped-in Barry Manilow music.”
       5. “I had a choice of being taken out by the Navy SEALs or go hunting with Cheney. What can I say, I picked the lesser of the two evils.”
      

         Oy! Say it ain’t so, Joe.
    Granted, Vice President Joe Biden is a human gaffe machine. But his speech late last week praising his boss for saving the world contained not only the worst quote of the week, but maybe so far this year.
    And it tuns out it wasn’t a gaffe, it was part of the speech. And it cleared speechwriters or at best Biden himself.
    He said it and seemed completely clueless that he said something that was a real gut-buster.
    Biden, touting President Obama’s quiet courage, channeled Teddy Roosevelt, who famously said “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”
    Without missing a beat, Biden added, “I promise you, the president has a big stick.”
    Paging Dr. Freud.
    You can almost hear one of the several bubble-headed bleached blondes on Fox News blasting Biden and the Democrats with, “OK, now you’re bragging. That’s a cheap way to try to get the woman vote.”
    The Biden line was priceless for late night comics.
    It probably contributed in some perverse manner to the latest GOP critique of Obama as a celebrity who just happens to be president.
    Mitt Romney, who famously in 2008, barked “Who let the dogs out” during a campaign speech, this time might want to chant to his supporters, “Can’t touch it.”
    What wasn’t reported, because it’s not true, but it’s part of this bit anyway, is that Biden secretly offered tips to Romney on how to come across less square and more hip if he wants to get some of that youth vote.
    Biden’s suggestions on how Mitt can be hip:
    1. Change name to Mitt Rom.com
    2. Have his sons form a boy band and call themselves The Rich Kids on the Block.
    3. Centerfold in Fortune 500 magazine.
    4. As part of hosting “Saturday Night Live,” Mitt gets to play Mr. Roboto with musical guests Styxx.
    5. In the 1950s, President Eisenhower campaigned on stumps with Abbott and Costello. Every so often on campaign trail this time, Mitt can be straight man in comic routines with Larry the Cable Guy.
    6. Write forward to new tome “The Book of Mormon Bromances.”
    7. Spring break 2013 at California mansion (car elevator off limits)
    8. New Cabinet post: Secretary of Tweeting
    9. Announce contest Go on a (platonic) double date with Donny and Marie Osmond
    10. Pimp one of Ann’s two Cadillac rides.

    The Republican party and its chief weasel Karl Rove are at it again, resurrecting the past.
   Appropriate, since they’re hell bent on bringing America back to the good old days. Whenever they were.
  One of the oldies Rove and his Super PAC rats have resurrected was the Obama is a celebrity political ad.
  And it backfired with at least one of Rove’s own ilk: The Buffoon Tycoon Donald Trump said the ad was ridiculous. He even thought when he first saw the ad that it was from the Democratic National Committee.
  And we all know it’s not easy to fool a fool.
  The GOP and its PAC of rabid hyenas jumped on the celebrity revival theme after President Obama appeared last week with Jimmy Fallon slow jammin’ the news.
  Outrage, flatulated America’s Bully, Rush Limbaugh, and his lap dogs at Fox News.
  Obama commits Fallon-y. We decide, you believe the report.
  The Obama as celebrity stigma didn’t work in 2008. In fact, the GOP VP nominee Princess Photo-Op Palin ended up being a bigger celebrity than then-Sen. Obama.
  Trick here is to make Obama look like he’s too cool to be president. But as one pundit put it on the cable TV news machine, cool means you connect with people. And not just young people. Us older folk liked the slow jammin’ segment of the show, too.
   It ain’t easy being cool, but the prez makes it look natural. The only way one can get Mitt Romney and the word cool in the same sentence is if you said something like, “Hey, Ann, we just made another cool million outsourcing that company in Indiana to Guam.”
  Rover and his other hounds from hell want voters to believe Obama goofs off, you know, like minorities do once they’re given important jobs.
  So, Obama doesn’t take his job seriously defending the U.S. of A (he ordered the hit on bin Laden and took the SOB out, toot sweet!) or if hard-working Americans are out of work (he saved GM and hundreds of thousands of jobs.)
  But expect the president to have a few major setbacks before this election is all said and done. The Supreme Court started early hoping to influence the outcome of this election for the GOP. Thanks to the high on something other than life court, Citizens United makes it okey-dokey to contribute an unlimited amount of moola to a candidate, and he or his party don’t have to disclose where it’s came from.
   Like Saudi Arabia, for instance.
  There was no way the five justices on the take from Big Pharma and major corporations (that are people, too) and even Rupert Murdoch were going to want to have to go through another recount in Florida.
  And get ready for some more high court high-jinx when later this summer the justices rule Obamacare unconstitutional and uphold the racial profiling of Arizona’s immigration law.
  Ahh, but you may be asking yourself, people still have to vote, regardless of all this money being spent to buy the presidency.
  It should be easy. Voting is a right, right?
  You are wrong voter-suppression breath. States with GOP controlled governerships and Legislatures are making damn well sure that voting groups that historically support the Democratic Party are going to find it extremely difficult even to exercise a God-given, God-fearing country right.
  The scary part is this isn’t all being done behind closed doors. No reason to be covert about Operation: Take Back White America. It’s all being done in plain sight. In fact, in our faces. And it’s perfectly legal. Imagine what is in store should these patriots get control of the White House, the House and Senate.
  This is all being done courtesy of real wolves in sheep’s clothing who call themselves Defenders of the Constitution.
  More like Offenders of the Constitution.
  Stay tuned in, America.