Stupid, Full of Shit and Fucking Nuts

There's an old George Carlin routine about realizing, mid-conversation, that you're speaking with some clueless asshole that's not worth your time.

"You'll be talking with someone and suddenly you'll go, 'This guy...is fucking stupid!' Other times, they're not stupid. You're thinking, 'Well, he makes some interesting points, perhaps...OH, he's full of shit!' Then, occasionally, you're listening to someone, they're not stupid, they're not full of shit...they're fucking nuts!. Dan Quayle is all three, stupid, full of shit AND fucking nuts."

That's kind of how I feel after watching this Mitt Romney ad. He's been campaigning for a while now, and at first, I was just thinking "this guy is fucking stupid." I think this about pretty much all Republican politicians who aren't blatantly, openly evil - they must simply be stupid.

Then, it became clear Romney was the worst, most flagrant sort of political opportunist, latching himself on to any position based on his current reading of its acceptability, beholden only to polls and financiers. Also, he's quite obviously a liar, and not in the general way of most politicians. All politicians will tell you one thing and then vote another way. That's how the game is played. But Romney buys into all of the leading, most significant lies of our time. The ones about how we need to torture people and suspend habeas corpus and read everyone's e-mail and stare at their naked bodies under x-ray in exchange for the privilege of boarding a domestic flight in order to keep America safe.

Now, he debuts this TV ad, and I'm realizing that he's stupid, he's full of shit and he's fucking nuts.



Scary. This fringe whackjob wants to be president and he's ranting on national television about the impending Caliphate.

Seriously. He's afraid of radical Muslims declaring dominion over the entire world. Did I sleep through some sort of interruption of the space-time continuum? Are we holding this election in the Middle Ages? Because, last I checked, the Moors had left Spain and The Crusades were fodder for Ridley Scott action movies and the Ottoman Empire had collapsed.

I mean, this would be funny if this guy weren't dominating the news by running for the highest office in the land. His stature as a leading candidate, even though he has no chance of winning, allows him to interject these noxious, sub-moronic ideas into the debate. It's just horrifying that anyone might actually take Romney seriously about any of these issues. He's making absolutely no sense in this commercial whatsoever; it's so disconnected from reality, he may as well be discussing a trade dispute between Gondor, Hyrule and Narnia.

Here's how it starts. Mitt ambling towards the camera:

"It's this century's nightmare..."

Snakes on a plane?

"Jihadism!"

For some reason, I picture that word streaking across the screen in a 1980's movie poster, in one of those "bloody" fonts.



"Only Mitt Romney can save you from the spine-tingling terror of 'Jihadism!,' a film so horrifying it gave Dick Cheney a four-hour erection. A nurse and a member of the Heritage Foundation are on-call in the lobby in case anyone can't deal with the surreal, mind-bending horror of 'Jihadism.' Three bearded men, their minds twisted by a delusional and baseless hatred of goodness and decency, concoct a plan so vile, so far beyond the boundaries of civilized society, it could only be called 'Jihadism'! No mercy for the unbelievers. Now playing at the Marina Fourplex."

Back to Romney:

"Violent Radical Islamic Fundamentalism."

Oh, yes, VRIF. Gotcha.

"Their goal is to unite the world under a single jihadist caliphate. To do that, they must collapse freedom-loving nations. Like us."

Hang on...hang on...hang on...Who is "they"? All citizens of the Middle East? Arabs around the world? Al Qaeda? The Iraqi al Qaeda that has nothing to do with the Osama bin Laden group? Iran?

Cause, I mean, maybe that's al Qaeda's goal (a big maybe...), but if so, it's not gonna happen any time soon. This seems to be a major stumbling block for the Republican Party. You don't fight your enemy based on what he or she wants to do. You determine what they can do and then base your strategy on that.

When we fought WWII, we didn't start planning for an assault by flying atomic robot Nazi supermen. We figured out the Axis' strengths and weaknesses and then tried to exploit that information. Romney seems to suggest here that we begin with determining the group's highest, loftiest, most distant ambitions and then begin fighting those, ignoring what's actually happening now, at this moment. It's...insane.

And don't ever refer to me as "us," Mitt Romney. I don't want to be in any group that includes you.

Then he says he's going to increase our military by 100,000 without explaining how he's going to do this. America is not a game of "Civilization," motherfucker. You don't push a button and auto-conscript 100,000 citizens. Are we talking a draft here? Taxes to pay for more soldiers? I mean, shouldn't he have to give us something?

"...and monitor the calls al Qaeda makes into America."

Just...that the Republicans have made spying on Americans a central part of their platform...that makes me really depressed. It means their market research indicates a lot of Americans not only don't have a problem with the government tapping their phones. They think it's a good idea. They're that afraid of brown people. That just sucks.

Then, again, he says that we will stop Iran from getting nukes. Again, he doesn't say how we will do this. But we will. Trust me. Dude...seriously...we will. Even if we have to quadruple Guantanamo.