It's Saturday, or as it is known in Jerusalem, Asshole Fuckface Roundup day. Each week I scan the news to find the scum of the week. It is not an easy job and I suffer greatly for my efforts. But in the end, I am simply serving you, the humble SG member. You must know the names of all the Asshole Fuckfaces who are roaming the Earth. So, put on your plastic bibs because this is not going to be pretty.

We can always count on the religious right to provide some fantastic Asshole Fuckface quotes.

This week Republican presidential candidate Mick Huckabee was asked if he would commit to helping the UN reach its goal of 50 billion for AIDS funding by 2015. He sidestepped the question with a classic politician dodge. Another reporter then asked Huckabee if his religious views would get in the way in regards to AIDS funding?

Huckabee gave an awesome answer that, of course, compared encouraging safe sex with telling domestic abusers not to “hit as hard.” Seriously.

Yep. We should tell people not to have sex. That is the same as telling an asshole not to hit his wife as hard. You are truly an Asshole Fuckface, Mike Huckabee.

Where there is one Asshole Fuckface Republican candidate, there is always another close behind.

Republicans despise the UN because they have been brain washed to do so. They have few actual facts and quite a bit of bullshit rhetoric. Sometimes their hatred overwhelms them so much that they double hate the UN, like Mitt Romney.

Fuck yeah, we should! Of course, we already did that. The US doesn’t have a seat on the Human Rights Council because we are already boycotting. But we can always Double Extra Boycott!

Mitt Romney also thinks we should have a brand new UN! He said he would support a new, different “coalition of free nations of the world.”

How awesome and inexpensive would that be to create? Of course, this new body of countries would try to stop the US from doing whatever the hell it wanted and the right wing would have to start hating it. It’s the cycle of life!

Now, you may be saying to yourself, "I don't think that was enough to make it into the Roundup." Well, then how about some bonus Mitt. I call this video, "What an Asshole Fuckface Pussy."



Nice work, Mitt. You showed humanity, integrity, courage and a huge spoonful of Asshole Fuckfacery.

You can always tell an Asshole Fuckface because they don’t know what is and what isn’t torture.

Bush’s nominee to fill the Attorney General vacancy spent last week in front of the Senate. On Thursday, Michael Mukasey was widely praised by Democrats for his answers during his confirmation hearing. On Thursday night he took a little trip to the White House and on Friday his answers became laughable.

You should be sorry. You are a highly respected lawyer who is suffering from a rare case of self-inflicted retardation. Oh, and you are one hell of an Asshole Fuckface.

It is mind-boggling that this is the state of our country. We are now in a time where the nominee for Attorney General of the United States actually does not know if waterboarding is torture.

Water boarding has been around for centuries. It was a common interrogation technique during the Italian Inquisition of the 1500s.
First you strap a person to an inclined board, with his feet raised and his head lowered. Then you gag him. Next, you repeatedly pour water onto the person's face. The waves of water make the persons’ mind believe he is drowning. The gag reflex kicks in as if he were choking. "9/11 mastermind" Khalid Sheik Mohammed lasted about two minutes before confessing to everything of which he was accused.

Bush’s policies have made it impossible to have an Attorney General who is honest and conscientious. A nominee cannot serve the president and the law at the same time, just like you can’t work for Saruman and Gandolf at the same time. You either follow the law or you do the bidding of Bush. If you take Bush, then you should not be the Attorney General. End of story.

Democrats should not confirm Asshole Fuckface Mukasey if he can’t figure out what is torture. But they will.

Fortunately for Mukasey, there is a group of Asshole Fuckfaces called the Senate Democrats. Congrats, guy who shouldn’t get the job!

It’s not often that a Nobel Prize winner gets labeled an Asshole Fuckface, which makes today a special day.

Dr. James Watson won the Nobel Prize in 1963 for discovering the structure of DNA. Obviously discovering the double helix has been a big deal for scientific breakthroughs ever since. Which makes it all that much more horrible that Dr. Watson decided to explain the inferiority of black people this week.

Uh...right. Uh. So...

Watson then backed it up with some fantastic scientific evidence.

Wow. You’re a Nobel Laureate? Really? Because it seems like you might be more of an Asshole Fuckfaceate.

Watson's upcoming lecture at London’s Science Museum was promptly cancelled. Hopefully when he returns to the lab, one of his black employees can explain to him why he is an Asshole Fuckface.

Congrats to all of this week's Asshole Fuckfaces! You each get a FearTheReaper hockey stick!

Mitt Romney just needs to walk away. His run for the White House is becoming a joke. People in his own party are beginning to make brutal ads about his past and they certainly don't want a Mormon in the White House.

Maybe Mitt hasn’t noticed, but the Republican Party has been taken over by Christian lunatics over the past 15 years. Guess whom Christian lunatics don’t like? Mormons! Might have something to do with the church’s polygamy history. Also, there is some controversy about the year 1827, when Joseph Smith dug up some golden plates in New York that had been protected by the angel Moroni and engraved by Mormon, a pre-Columbian prophet-warrior. Because the plates were written in “Reformed Egyptian,” Smith translated them by looking through “seer stones.” Turns out God wanted him to “restore” Christianity. You can see how the influential Christians, like James Dobson, might take a pass on Mitt.

A big pass. A recent Newsweek poll revealed that 28 percent of Americans would not vote for a Mormon. I wonder how many of them are Republicans? The poll found that a Mormon president came in below a Jewish president and a black president. That is pretty low on the Republican ladder.

Yesterday, the Log Cabin Republicans came out with an ad attacking Mitt for his “Massachusetts values.” Taking out Mitt is an amusing tactic for a gay Republican, considering his history of supporting gay rights, but we are talking about Republicans. Gay or not, they are fucking weird.



Shit, now I want to vote for him! But this ad will only be airing in Iowa and on Fox News, where conservatives will see it and probably turn against evil Mitt. The Log Cabin Republicans claim they only want people to know the truth about Mitt because no one really knows what he believes.

I wonder why they didn’t mention his history of supporting gay rights? That’s a weird thing to leave out.

Lastly, Mitt is not doing to well with the fundraising. Yesterday, the Mittman reported his campaign had brought in $18 million smackeroos. That is more than three times as much as the pathetic cult leader Ron Paul! Or is it?

Turns out of the $18 million Romney raised, $8.5 million came from a guy named Mitt Romeny. But that didn’t stop a campaign spokeswoman from talking about how great it was that he wrote himself a check, I mean, that tons of people support him.

Just go away, you have no chance. And it’s getting a bit sad. Like, John McCain sad.

Democrats, however, should pray that he wins the nomination.

The big news from this weekend’s Iowa straw poll was how little the voting public thinks of the current crop of Republican candidates. Ten thousand fewer Republicans cast votes for this group of candidates than they did for the 2000 candidates. “None of the above” is consistently winning in Republican polls. The reason is simple: Every Republican candidate has some horrible quality that makes them unelectable to the base.

Rudy Giuliani won’t win the nomination because he is pro-abortion and has an ugly marital history. He is twice divorced, once marrying a cousin and another time living through a nasty public separation while Mayor of New York.

There is no way Giuliani will win a Republican nomination with the current state of religious lunacy that has a hold over the party. Sorry, loser, you’re out.

Fred Thompson is the newest of the candidates who has absolutely no chance. Freddy also has a problem with his abortion loving past. He was a lobbyist for a pro-choice group, which may actually be worse than being ideologically against abortion.

Watch that number shoot up when he actually joins the race and Republicans get a look at his abortion record. Sorry, actor boy, you’re gone.

Mitt Romney is such a poor candidate for the Republican ticket that it is astounding. He has spent loads of money and is only polling in third place.

Why? He’s a Mormon. Game over.

John McCain is old and shockingly pathetic. He attached himself to Bush’s surge and took a walk through the streets of Iraq surrounded by helicopters and soldiers. That was the day his campaign ended.

He is also considered to be a "moderate" turncoat by many Republicans. Good night, grandpa.

An August 5th Rasmussen poll has Giuliani on top. (None of the above was not given as an option)

Giuliani 25%
Thompson 24%
Romney 14%
McCain 11%
Mike Huckabee 3%
Sam Brownback 2%
Ron Paul, Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo are just tiny blips of nothingness.

Republicans need a viable candidate to step in and take over this mess or the masses are going to vote for No One to face the Democratic opponent.

Yesterday, the powerful Ames Straw Poll was held in Iowa. There are many straw polls every year, but Ames is the big enchilada of straw polls. It was first held in 1979 and the winner has gone on to win the Republican nomination TWICE. The poll is not held during years in which a incumbent Republican president is running, which means it has only been held four times previously. So, two out of four winners have won the Republican nomination. That incredible ratio has led the media to take the Ames straw poll very seriously.

It is believed the poll shows the organizational skills of presidential campaigns. To vote in the poll, residents have to get to the town of Ames. Once there, they have to buy or somehow acquire a $35 dollar ticket and then hand it to a poll worker. So, campaigns buy a bunch of tickets and try to get people from all over the state to come to Ames. Campaigns pay recruiters to drum up support and then rent buses to transport them to Ames. If you take a moment to think about it, the entire scenario is pretty retarded, but not retarded enough to stop the Republicans.

This year Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and John McCain decided not to take part in the straw poll. That left Mitt Romney as the only leading Republican candidate in the poll. Mitt basically had to kick ass in the poll, or he would end up looking like a total loser.

Being a Mormon, Romney was able to call on his massive family to give him a hand. Ninety-six members of the Romney tribe came to Iowa to help out with the poll. (Somebody in that family needs to learn how to use a rubber) Romney also rented more than 100 buses and spent millions of dollars. The result was that he ended up winning with 4,516 votes. That is a whopping 31.5%.Totally worth millions of dollars.

Other candidates also spent some money, but nowhere near the amount Romney blew through. Sam Brownback rented 51 buses, bought 3,000 tickets to hand out and spent $600,000. He ended up with 2,192 votes, or 15.3%. Tom Tancredo rented 20 buses, bought 2,400 tickets and bought many radio ads. He got 1,961 votes, or 13.7%. They came in 3rd and 4th, respectively. The man who came in second yesterday is the real story.

Mike Fucking Huckabee. Unlike the other candidates, he barely spent any money, only bought 1,850 tickets, did not run any ads and rented no buses. The Huck got 2,587 tickets, or 18.1% of the vote. That is 737 more tickets than he bought. All the other candidates purchased far more tickets than were eventually cast for them. That means Huckabee supporters found their own way to Ames, then either bought their own tickets or conned them from other candidates. Either way, it means that as of today, The Huck is a legitimate candidate.

Many liberal bloggers fear Huckabee as a candidate. So far, he has not caught fire. But the Huck is a Christian Right dream candidate. He is a Baptist Minister, opposed to abortion, gay marriage, civil-unions and he does not believe in evolution. Being a Christian, he also supports the death penalty, the Iraq War, the surge and the Patriot Act. Fear him.

Overall, the Ames Straw Poll was very bad news for Republicans. Eight years ago, 24,000 Republicans took part in the poll. This year that number tumbled to 14,000. That is a 42% drop. Note to Republicans: Nobody likes you anymore – not even you.

Now I have to write a “Fuck Huckabee” article. Sigh.

Republican candidates are bailing out of the September 17th CNN/YouTube debate. They have come up with several reasons.

What presidential candidate would turn down a nationally televised debate in order to make a couple of bucks? Attending fundraisers is a ridiculous justification to pass on a major chance to differentiate themselves from the other candidates. These excuses are obviously a load of bullshit, as are the many other reasons Republicans are attempting to create. There is also the "snowman" excuse.

And the "CNN is liberal" excuse.

More excuses will surely follow, but the real reason leading Republicans will not take part in the debate is that they are scared. Little girl scared. The leading GOP candidates have baggage and they aren't used to direct questions. The mainstream media, like CNN, would never allow their anchors to ask harsh questions, but this format has given the network the ability to be very direct. Our current crop of news reporters shy away from asking tough questions because they are so frightened of being labeled “liberal” by the right. Some random guy in Utah isn’t. That is what frightens the Giuliani’s of the world.

What kind of questions are the candidates afraid of? How about these: Mitt Romney, why did you change your stance on so many subjects, like abortion, right before you ran for president? Rudy Giuliani, you didn’t buy new radios for the NYFD for ten years, even though a report on the 1993 WTC attacks said it was the first thing that should be done. It led to the death of over 300 firefighters. Why didn’t you buy the radios? (Imagine that one from a firefighter) Ron Paul, why did you allow a racist newsletter to be published in your name for ten years? John McCain, why were you not sure that condoms helped to prevent AIDS when question about it just three months ago?

These are just simple questions off the top of my head; imagine what could be done with a little research? The Republicans candidates are carrying a shitload of baggage and the common man is jumping at the chance to expose it. Here are some of the questions to date.













If you watch the questions people have posted on YouTube, you will become sad because of the high percentage of idiots. They are sometimes scary, sometimes ridiculous, but most often just pathetic. It is the few who present a well-crafted, thoughtful and direct question that scare the shit out of the GOP.

CNN is now attempting to reschedule the debate to work around the Giuliani and Romney fundraising conflicts and Republican bloggers are trying to pressure the two camps to attend. But the new Bush Republican Party is based on denial, suppression of evidence and bullying the media, which means that unpredictable questions could cause a lot of damage. Add to that the fact that the Republican right wing is far scarier than the Democratic left wing due to religious fundamentalism and I wouldn’t expect any of the leading candidates to show up for the YouTube debate. Did I mention that they are chickenshits?

Yesterday you lucky bastards received a full and satisfying dose of the Asshole Fuckface Roundup. But this week there were so many Asshole Fuckfaces that I needed an extra day to list them and describe their heinous acts. It is day two of the Double Deluxe Asshole Fuckface weekend! A Saturday AND Sunday Fuckface bonanza! Hang on to your genitals and take a look at this week's winners.

I’m going to start with three of the most disturbing Asshole Fuckfaces of all time.

Last year Dustin Radke and twin brothers, Nicholas and Alexander Grunke, were checking out the obituaries in their local Wisconsin paper when they came across the picture of a really hot, dead chick. All three were 21 and therefore, horny as hell. Naturally, they decided to dig the body up and fuck the shit out of it. Who wouldn't?

The hot, dead chick had died in a motorcycle accident only a week before, so she was probably in pretty good shape for a three-man gang bang. They grabbed their shovels, headed to the cemetery and started to dig, presumably with giant boners. Sadly, they never reached their new girlfriend because a car pulled into the cemetery and spooked them off. The driver called police and all three were arrested.

On Friday a judge dismissed the charges against the three because Wisconsin has no law against throwing a hump on a corpse. Anger over the case will probably lead to laws against necrophilia, which meansWisconsin stands to lose millions of dollars from the 'nail a corpse' tourism trade. The state will also have to change their current slogan, “Visit Wisconsin, Tons of Bodies and Not Enough Cocks”

If I’m going to do a double deluxe edition of the Asshole Fuckface Roundup, I cannot avoid the Bush Administration.

In an awesome cover-up of degrading conditions in Iraq, the Bush administration has stopped including how many hours of electricity residents of Baghdad receive each day in weekly status reports.

The State Department, which prepares a weekly "status report" for Congress on conditions in Iraq, stopped estimating in May how many hours of electricity Baghdad residents typically receive each day.

It would be great if this administration could show one ounce of manliness, but being cowardly Asshole Fuckfaces seems to be in their blood. Earlier this year Baghdad residents were getting five to six hours of power per day, but that has now slipped to one to two hours. Perfect timing for summer!

Uh huh. That’s why you switched to a new report that gives the national electricity supply, because you are being “transparent.” The broad national percentage just happens to not sound as bad as “one to two hours a day.” I can't believe it was just last year that Asshole Fuckface Bush was bragging about the increase in electricity.

Nice work, idiot. The next Asshole Fuckface is a not only an idiot, but he's also a chickenshit.

Earlier this week, Mitt Romney talked shit about the upcoming Republican YouTube/CNN debate. He apparently doesn’t think much of the format, where common Americans ask the candidates questions via the website.

Romney was speaking of this incredible piece of art.



Say what you want about the format, but I still think it’s better than Chris Mathews asking a question. I would actually like to see a debate in which the candidates only took questions from snowmen. And sock puppets. And a block of cheese.

Romney’s snowman comment is just an excuse. In truth, the real reason Mitt doesn’t want everyday Americans asking him questions is because they will be coming from the Republican base - the very people who have a problem with his sudden position changes on abortion and gay rights. Romney is full of shit and he would not get the same free ride he gets from the press.

Yesterday Romney pulled out of the debate because he has a “heavy fund-raising schedule.” That should win some votes. Why tell the people about your positions when you can make a buck? It would probably help if grandpa Romney actually knew what the fuck YouTube is.

Thanks, old timer. You might do some great work helping the kids when you figure out the difference between YouTube and MySpace.

And now I’d like to introduce you to the worst Asshole Fuckface of all time.

Jack McClellan is a self-described pedophile. I’m not sure if he’s gone as far as to put the title on business cards, but it’s what he calls himself. He claims to never have touched a child in a sexual way and has never been convicted of molesting a child, but he admits that he has

Hell, why else would you go to a Latin American country? It's the place to go to touch kids in non-sexual ways. I always head south of the border to do legal things.

Jack can be most proud of taking creepy to a whole new level by creating websites on which he describes where and how he trolls for kids. Police can’t do anything about his actions because he has never been convicted and the websites do not break any laws.

McClellan was driven out of Seattle two months ago because attention from the media made him worry about the safety of his parents, who he occasionally lives with - but does not molest.

Right now Jack the Asshole Fuckface lives in his car in Los Angeles. He likes the area because of the climate and the “many world class children’s attractions.” He visits kiddy hot spots at least three days a week and then describes them online. Recently his web host shut down his page, but he’s going to start it up again using a Dutch host.

Parents are coming together with plans to lobby the California Assembly to create a law against McClellan’s actions. But legally, they will face problems because he is careful to avoid any illegal activity.

I promise that if someone kills him they will not be labeled an Asshole Fuckface.

Congrats to all of today’s Asshole Fuckfaces, except Jack McClellan. All others will receive their very own FearTheReaper sponge.

This week there were some glorious assholes. Many of them were just members on our message boards, but they are not worthy of attention. So, I give you my Asshole Fuckfaces of the week.

First, up, the entire Catholic Church.

Okay, that may be a bit broad. How about just the crazy men who run the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church is against a bunch of fun stuff, like gay sex, preists having intercourse, birth control and premarital sex. And this week they came out in favor of “Chimeras.” What the fuck are chimeras? Good question. Human-animal hybrid embryos. And the Church is all for them.

Ah, ain’t that sweet? It is totally okay for a woman to raise a child that was fathered by a different species of animal, like a mouse. Did I mention that the Catholic Church is against using frozen embryos for stem cell research?

I do love interspecies lovin’. The Chinese kicked this nonsense off when they combined rabbit and human cells, which survived for a few days. The Mayo Clinic picked up the ball and last year made a piglet that had human blood. Next year Stanford hopes to make mice with human brains. Some people think there is an ethical dilemma.

Except the Catholic Church, who just want more babies to follow Jesus! Creepy fucks.

Next up, Mitt Romney, dog torturer.

This week, Romney got himself a little puff piece in the Boston Globe. It was meant to show how cool and collected he can be under pressure, but instead showed him to be a creepy weirdo. According to the article, Mitt used to strap the family dog to the top of a station wagon for family trips. Because, you know, you wouldn’t want the family dog to actually be riding with the family in the car. It would feel loved. That would be disgusting.

Wow. Way to coolly and calmly handle a “doggy so stressed out that it had diarrhea” situation. You should totally be president, Clark Griswald. That “emotion-free crisis management” kind of makes you seem like a psychopath. Oh, and you broke the law, fuckface.

Next on our list, The Democrats!

Not the entire party, just the ones in the Senate who rolled over like pussies two years ago and allowed Samuel Alito to become a Supreme Court Justice. They can cry all they want from here on out about the direction of the country but they laid down like a bunch of spineless fucks in what will go down as one of the most important times in our country. Alito is everything he was sold as and anyone with a brain knew weeks like this were coming.

This week the Crazy Conservative Court severely curbed local efforts to promote racial diversity in schools, curbed students' free speech rights, crippled Congress' ability to keep corporate money out of political advertising, made it almost impossible for women to prevail on claims of long term sex discrimination and overturned a 96 year old precedent to allow manufacturers to collude with retailers to set the minimum prices of products.

Yay, for religion and big business!

How can we have an Asshole Fuckface Roundup with George?

Our wonderful president and his legal counsel make this week’s list for desperately trying to cover up their own crimes. This week the White House claimed executive privilege and rejected subpoenas from Congress, who are seeking information about the US Attorney’s purge.

Yes, the White House made an amazingly “reasonable attempt at compromise.” Their idea of a compromise is to have Miers and Taylor come over for a closed-door chat with the Committee. Oh, and the Senators can’t write anything down.

Transcripts are so very convenient. They are meant to make sure people don’t lie and commit, what did he call it…”perjury.” I think if you are worried about a “perjury trap” then you are planning to “lie.” Fortunately for the White House, they can pull this kind of crap because nobody likes them. Nobody.

Next up on the Asshole Fuckface list: iphone and Steve Jobs.

I would really like to get an iphone, but I would rather have my arm cut off than sign a contract with AT&T. (I don’t know why those are the options either) Besides having the world’s worst customer service, AT&T has been allowing the Bush administration to illegally wiretap phones.

Yes, get your iphone and allow the NSA to illegally record all of your phone calls and keep records of all your Internet activity, emails and IM chats.

There are no options other that AT&T, the people who have been working with our own government spooks to set up massive, data-mining machines in AT&T offices all over the country. So, enjoy your iphones while your support the company undermining you freedom! But you got a fun gadget!

OK. Ultimately this is sort of inconsequential, but I’m kind of into it anyway. Some Fox News reporter asked former Massachusetts Governor and presidential hopeful Mitt Romney what his favorite novel is. He said Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard, the awkwardly written space epic that pits "man animals" against "psychlos" and was made into possibly the worst movie of all time.

Weird choice, right? There’s something a little amiss about a prospective leader of the free world announcing his love for a poorly reputed, space opera, science fiction novel. One written by the founder of Scientology, no less. He was quick to distance himself from the controversial religion.

Romney is a Mormon, so if he wanted to choose a classic science fiction potboiler whose religious roots he wouldn’t have to apologize for, he could have said Ender’s Game, written by fellow Church of the Latter Day Saints member Orson Scott Card. And unlike Battlefield Earth, Ender’s Game is actually a decent book.

The novel choice, as an enterprising Boston Herald reporter pointed out, represents a minor gaffe for Romney – his MySpace profile, lists the High School required reading list staple Huckleberry Finn as his favorite book, and makes no mention of anything written by Hubbard.

The story made me pine for big bad Bill Clinton, though. Say what you will about Clinton, no one can deny he is literate. Clinton once said his favorite novel was 1,000 Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. When Márquez accused Clinton of claiming to like the book to sway Latin voters. Clinton insisted he was sincere, and, according to Márquez, later recited passages from Don Quixote and Sound and the Fury from memory.

Of course, great taste in literature doesn’t necessarily equal great statesmanship – JFK was allegedly a fan of Ian Fleming’s James Bond series. But after eight years of a president for whom it was a minor news event when he was spotted with a Camus novel, it would be a nice change of pace to get somebody in the White House that read books that aren't sold at airports.

Volume 5 of the FTR series in which he puts the word "fuck" in front of a presidential candidate’s name.

Mitt Romney defines the term “political opportunist.” He’ll switch positions in a minute if it will win him votes. I think the best way to show the real Romney, is to start with this quote from his campaign for the Senate in 1994. Keep it in mind throughout this article:

Before I delve into all the bullshit that has been flying out of Mitt’s mouth, I’d like to cover something he said just two days ago. Romney was attending a meeting of the Club for Growth and was asked a question by a National Review reporter:

Uh, okay. This was not really a tough question, asshole. The reporter was basically describing a dictatorship but Romney is one of those slimy politicians who can’t answer a question until he’s consulted with his consultants. Strike one, douchebag.

My wife is a fan of Mitt but I think he is a creepy son of a bitch. When I watch him speak I get a shiver down my spine. He’s a little too slick and rehearsed. But when he goes off script, he really goes off script. His fuck ups are phenomenal when they happen. In just his first week after declaring his candidacy, he let this little gem fly in Iowa while talking about The Big Dig.

Oops. Tar Baby is probably not the best phrase to use when running for president. It’s sort of offensive to a bunch of people in our country. But he totally took responsibility and apologized like a man. Or, at least his spokesman apologized like a man.

Well done. Who wouldn’t know “tar baby” is offensive? Growing up here in America, you just don’t get an understanding of what other ethnicities find objectionable. Speaking of objectionable, on a recent trip to Florida, Mitt gave us a sample of the sort of leadership he would display when he was traveling the world representing the US.

During a speech, Romney let us know what a remarkable tool he can be.

Actually, not at all. It belongs to Fidel Castro. The phrase means “Fatherland or death, we shall overcome,” and it was how Fidel ended his speeches for decades. Not a good idea to repeat a communist catch phrase to Cubans in Florida. Was he done? Hell, no, it's Mitt! At the end of an immigration speech, Romney said,

Unfortunately for Romney, the phrase was made famous by Al Pacino in “Scarface.” Many Cubans hate “Scarface” because they believe it is a negative Cuban stereotype. Nice going, Mitt. Oh, he also called the Cuban speaker of the house Mario. His name is Marco.

Fine, you say, he’s not the best speaker. He occasionally will offend entire cultures but he’s got some solid ideas. Well, you are right, he does have great ideas. I think the best one is his plan to verbally assault France as a way to win the White House.

The media got their dirty little mitts on Mitt’s PowerPoint presentation that outlined his plan for winning the presidency. The presentation explains how Mitt will run against “bogeymen” like Hollywood, liberalism, Massachusetts and France.

First, not France. How can you not back this guy? His ideas are revolutionary. Oh, by the way, he lived for two years in France. But, fuck the croissant!

Romney is not only tough on France but he’s also tough on Iran. Last September, former Iranian president Mohammed Khatami was invited by Harvard to speak. Romney was furious, mostly because he knew it was a win-win politically. He declared that he would not allow any state resources to be used for security during the former president’s visit. Now that is strong leadership! Unless you consider the horrifying consequences of a former Iranian president being killed on American soil. Hopefully Mitt will be elected president and we can look forward to more brilliant decisions.

Mitt has gotten tough on a lot of things in the past couple of years. Really tough. Some would say he totally changed his position completely on immigration, gay rights and abortion. In 2004 he became “pro-life,” which was really convenient because that was just two years before he started to run for president. But he sort of had a different opinion when he was running for office in liberal Massachusetts before that.



Turns out he was wrong! Just two months ago he set the record straight in a creepy, weird and incredibly cheesy “phone call” to a radio show.



That was actually more uncomfortable than an actual abortion. Romney has also made an about-face on immigration. Way back in the long ago year of 2005 Mitt said that McCain’s bill for amnesty was a “reasonable proposal” and that it was

Why, how thoughtful, Governor 2005. I’d like to introduce you to Governor 2007.

Romney has also decided to completely change his mind on gay rights. Back in 1994, when people had to support gay people because it was the thing to do, Romney wrote a letter to the Log Cabin Republicans.

But that was a whole bunch of years ago and since then gay people blew up the World Trade Center and stuff. Romney has come around. He no longer favors a non-discrimination law and no longer wants to open up the military to gay men and lesbians.

Romney began his little plan to make the switch from moderate to conservative two years ago. We know this because that was when he began spreading money around to right wing groups, hoping to buy their love.

He donated $10,000 to the National Review institute and got himself a very nice write up. He sent the Federalist Society $35,000 and was a speaker at it’s 2005 convention. But the best was when he gave $10,000 to the Family Institute, an affiliate of James Dobson’s Focus on the Family. The director of the Family Institute started passing around a petition that supported Romney’s “pro-life” agenda. But Mitt had only given cash to one affiliate and there were a lot more to pay off. He didn’t have that kind of money and the love affair never blossomed. So sad.

Mitt Romney is one creepy son of a bitch. I don’t think there is anything worse than a politician who changes his position on abortion just to get votes. His every move is calculated and often not all that smart. But worst of all, Ann Coulter has decided to support him. How creepy do you have to be to get her to back you up?

One of the real problems for all three of the big-name Republicans 2008 presidential hopefuls is that they've needed to be very different things to different people. John McCain wanted to maintain his "maverick" image as the senator who didn't care what the establishment thought, but has since been "repositioning" himself to become more conservative in the hopes of winning the GOP primary where right-wing voters have more pull. Rudy Giuliani needed to woo voters of the liberal stronghold of New York City to get elected as mayor but is now reconsidering his positions on key issues like abortion in the hopes of convincing Republican primary voters that he may from New York City but isn't of New York City. And Mitt Romney, governor of Massachusetts, one of the most traditionally liberal states in the country, had to convince voters there of his commitment to progressive values to gain the governorship, but is now rethinking his positions on two key issues for conservatives, abortion and gun control.

What the hell does that mean? Well, in reduced politico-speak, it means "I'm willing to change my position depending on the office that I'm running for, because I don't actually have any deeply held principles on that issue. Or maybe anything."

Abortion is the bellwether topic for many conservatives and progressives alike, and keeping his position on the matter ambiguous, to say the least, could at least temporarily work in Romney's favor as the press tries to make heads or tails of his incredibly obfuscated statements. But eventually the hypocrisy will be inescapable as people start doing their homework and researching the way his positions changed as his ambitions grew.

So what about gun control? That seems like a fairly straightforward issue. Or is it?

Watching centrist politicians like Romney try to bone up on their conservative credentials is about as cringe-inducing as when Michael Dukakis rolled up his sleeves (because he knows a hard day's work!) and rode in a tank. Or the elder George Bush's pathetic attempt to bridge the gaping social chasm between himself (the Yale-educated, effete Northeastern WASP) and regular people by professing his love for pork rinds and his disdain for broccoli.

People can smell a phony from a mile away, and their natural dislike for politicians only puts them more on guard and aware when people like Romney have such transparent "changes of heart" inspiring them to do things like join the NRA months before announcing a presidential campaign. It's true that people's opinions on political issues can and do change, and that's not such a bad thing. But normal, rational people do not generally have rapid, complete reversals on key issues that just happen to give them a slight edge in polling numbers. This may sound like a radical suggestion given today's poiltical environment, and may not even be the best idea considering the way primary elections work, but sticking with actual values and positions on issues would be a welcome change for voters trying to honestly evaluate their candidate in a primary and open election rather than trying to be everything to everyone, all the time.

Mitt Romney, the unfortunately named Republican governor of Massachusetts is one of several names that typically comes up in a discussion about possible candidates for the 2008 presidential election. A few years ago sending a Republican from "Taxachusetts," the oft-belittled "most liberal state" in the country to the White House when the country seemed to be in the throes of a neocon/evangelical revolution was laughable, however now that moderation is ruling the day perhaps a less overtly conservative candidate is just what the GOP is looking for. However, in order to become the GOP candidate one must still be approved by the Republicans in the primaries, and in order to do that you have to throw the fundies a bone or two.

Enter gay marriage, the meaningless cause du jour of the Republican party that had, until this past election, successfully riled up base voters and let them overlook failures in Iraq and elsewhere. Romney doesn't seem satisfied with the decision of the state courts endorsing gay marriage, and so he's pushing the issue to the voters in the hopes of getting it overturned and securing his conservative credentials.

In all fairness the legislature has been a little more dismissive of Romney's efforts to enshrine discrimination in the state law than they really needed to be; rather than voting on the issue presented by Romney the state legislature instead chose to recess, essentially ignoring him. Which would have been fine, except that polls show that state residents actually support the court's decision, so the legislature would have been enacting the will of the people by voting down the ban.

Regardless, it's their right to defer the decision, particularly after rejecting an earlier proposal to amend the constitution to define marriage as purely a heterosexual endeavor, it's not as if they're being deliberately evasive on the issue.