Breathtaking

The Romney campaign, now the Romney/Ryan campaign, has become so awfully bad, so unbelievably bad, so excruciatingly bad, so embarrassingly bad, indescribably, pathetically, stupidly, ridiculously, dishonestly, even outrageously and breathtakingly bad as to defy imagination. Now when I see either Romney or Ryan speaking on television I feel the air has been sucked out of my lungs and I find myself gasping and speechless. I turn it off, refuse to listen to anymore. It has become obvious this comic duo has come to realize they have no chance of winning on their merits so they have turned to obfuscating nonsense to try to reduce Obama to their dismal level of utter balderdash.

All the “roviating” strategies are in play, project your own shortcomings onto your opponent (Obama is running a hateful campaign) , try to turn his strengths into weaknesses (Obama didn’t kill bin Laden and shouldn’t boast that he did), Obama is not an American, may not have been born here, is an “other” of some kind, he’s a socialist, communist, Muslim, antichrist, he’s going to take away your guns, he’s going to destroy Medicare (instead of them), the stimulus didn’t work, Obama has failed to create jobs (as the Republicans have tried to do), and quite probably, the drought, too, is all Obama’s fault. The best you can be said for this is that it is genuinely pathetic.

The Republicans started off by allowing their standard bearer to be someone that virtually none of them wanted. He turned out to be another know-nothing empty suit who offends virtually everyone he comes into contact with, he is completely out of touch with ordinary people, a 1% dandy who refuses to release his taxes, because if he did people would find fault with them (a tacit admission there is most probably something with which to find fault), he won’t tell anyone what he might cut as President because they then wouldn’t vote for him (a tacit admission that what he would cut would be something people like and depend on), he (and Ryan) now refuse to spell out or acknowledge some of their positions until after they are elected (another tacit admission of something people don’t want), and so on.

The much lauded Ryan budget, that virtually all Republicans supported, and that Romney has embraced repeatedly, is proving to be so unpopular they are now scrambling to distance themselves from it. They were already in trouble with the women’s vote so they picked Ryan, the most extreme anti-choice, anti-woman person in Congress, who is opposed to abortion even in cases of incest and rape, promoted the personhood at conception nonsense, and has vowed never to vote otherwise.

So now they have a Presidential candidate with the courage of no convictions whatever, and a Vice-Presidential candidate with nothing but convictions, all of which are so extreme as to be on the ultra, ultra right wing of the party. What can they do except lie and try to destroy Obama by painting him as worse than themselves. Project your own shortcomings onto your opponent, try to slime and destroy him by any means possible, swift boat him, roviate, attack, prevaricate, use innuendo, rumor, whatever lies come to mind, throw crap on the wall and see if any of it will stick. This is indeed perhaps the most negative campaign we have seen in modern times, and it’s all Obama’s fault, he, and he alone, is running a deceitful, hateful, dishonest campaign while the Republican efforts are as “pure as the driven snow.”

These deceitful, lying bastards should be hooted off the stage, banished from what used to pass as politics but has become increasingly criminal in their hands, starting with their brown shirt attack on the vote counting in Florida in 2000 and becoming worse by the year. No lie is too outrageous (the media doesn’t call them out), no distortion too egregious, no rumor too fantastic, no disrespect too un-American, no means too low, no cheap shot left out, no money too sleazy, and, alas, no Republican with an independent mind. Reagan started it, Bush/Cheney nursed it, and now Romney/Ryan have managed to bring it to full fruition, a universe of discourse so devoid of reality as to have us all now floating in an ethereal vapor of bullshit, horseshit, and pig pucky, demonizing a Presidential image that does not exist, and describing a future that may also not exist. “Come in, see our show, you’ll go out happy, happy, happy.” To vote Republican now would be like buying a third class ticket to Hades.

“Abandon all hope ye who enter here.”

Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy