From the Onion:

"Is this who you want running your country for the next four years?" asks the damaging spot. "Someone who can't even run a simple microwave without crying?"

In addition to verbal jabs, Romney's ad uses several visual aids to call his character into question. Moments before the ad's conclusion, an onscreen chart helps viewers tally the number of times the Republican candidate has lain awake at night reliving past humiliations, while a 3-D computer model illustrates just how low Romney has reportedly sunk as a "relentless failure" in the past month.

The article preceded Romney's dropping out, but it seems even more relevant now. Instead of rationalizing that his campaign would have imperiled a Republican win in November - and thus a Democratic "surrender" to "Terror"(TM) - a simple admission of failure would have been more honorable. And accurate.

But then that wouldn't have been Romney, now would it?

Click image for full cartoon.

Some of y'all may have heard that a group called Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain has begun spreading rumors that the Senator betrayed his fellow prisoners of war during his time at the "Hanoi Hilton." When I heard the story, I joked to my wife, "Sounds like he's being 'swift boated.'" Turns out my crack was more accurate than I knew.

Jerry Kiley filed papers last week to establish the nonpartisan group Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain. "When people truly get to know him, there's no possibility they'll consider him for president of the United States," says Kiley, who served in the Army and completed the Internal Revenue Service paperwork to establish the "527" group.

RAW STORY spoke last week with Kiley, as well as Ted Sampley, a North Carolina-based publisher who has been harshly criticizing McCain for more than 10 years. Sampley teamed up with Kiley in 2004 to found a similar group that targeted Senator John Kerry as he ran for president. They see McCain as an apologist for Vietnam's Communist government who sold out fellow POWs and servicemen missing in action from America's lengthy war in Southeast Asia.

If McCain somehow pulls off the Republican nomination, I will respectfully not vote for him. He's anti-choice, a hard core hawk, and his approach to the Middle East is not what this country needs. But I'd never impugn the man for his service nor denigrate the suffering he received at the hands of his torturers. Indeed, the awful experience has made him a consistent voice of criticism against the use of torture by the BushAdmin. There is a lot to criticize McCain for, but this ain't it.

I thought I had read somewhere that the same PR firm used by Karl Rove against McCain in South Carolina - in which they spread the false rumor that McCain had sired a black son out of wedlock (he had actually legally adopted a boy from Bangladesh) - is now working for Romney. Can anyone confirm that? With a credible link? I may have heard it on Tom Hartman's radio program, too.

After learning that Mitt Romney has managed to survive another primary round, I was heartened to see this on YouTube:

Democrats of Michigan, on January 15th you have a unique and wonderful opportunity to screw over the Republican Party.

For more on why voting for Romney in your primary--however counterintuitive it may be to vote for that flip-flopping, say-anything-to-get-elected, neocon-of-convenience hack--isn't such a crazy idea, check out:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/10/2713/87225

Lest there be any confusion, showing Romney's old stances as a less-than-diehard conservative in Massachusetts is intended to emphasize his ubercynical ability to shape-shift into desirable forms, not to suggest he's a somehow tolerable closet moderate who is simply pretending to be a detestable right wing nut. I don't mean to suggest he should be given the benefit of any doubt in that direction--that's by no means the reason Michigan Dems should cast their vote for him January 15th.

In the rough and real world of politics, Progressives can't afford for voting to be an emotional act of personal expression. It has to be pragmatic, strategic, and effective. So, just this weird once...go Romney. Though it burns my fingers when I type it.

I know Romney's victory owes more to depressed Republican turn-out, family ties to Michigan and being a pandering douchebag. But I will amuse myself to think he's merely the dope of a mass action rope-a-dope strategy. It seems to fit, really.

Click image to see the full cartoon

If I wanted to be really au courant, I would start picking on Huckabee. In fact, I am a bit surprised Murray Waas' Huffington Post piece has not gained more traction, despite a follow up by a former aide contradicting Huckabee's defense of his push for parole of a serial rapist-murderer. Oh, sorry - alleged serial rapist-murderer. Margaret Carlson anticipates Huckabee's candidacy is about to crash and burn, echoing every other left(ish) columnist (and the dubious company of Michelle Malkin) in calling it his "Willie Horton moment." Except that Michael Dukakis wasn't responsible for Horton's release and subsequent crimes, whereas Huckabee either used poor judgment in believing the story of redemption through Christ offered by the prisoner or cynically released a dangerous criminal because his victim had been distantly related to Bill Clinton. Either way, he shouldn't get a pass.

Joan Walsh on Mitt Romney's speech on religion and politics:

As she noted, Romney's speech laid out a vision of America with no place for atheists, doubters or nonbelievers, and it chilled me.

And:

But I wasn't reassured, I was alarmed. Romney blasted "the new religion of secularism," referring to those who continue to argue for strict separation of church and state, which apparently, like certain of the Geneva Conventions under the Bush administration, is becoming "quaint." I sometimes find the anti-God stridency of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens grating. Listening to Romney's speech I realized what a necessary corrective it is to corrosive political pandering. Calling secularism "religion" is a cheap shot worthy of Bill O'Reilly, not a major presidential candidate. I can't help hoping Romney's speech fails to soothe religious conservatives, because the sooner the Republican Party faces up to the destructive cost of its electoral dependence on religious extremists, the better off our country will be.

I can only say, "Ditto."

Today I go back to picking on Giuliani. When it comes to loathsome, craven jackasses, the Republican field is truly an embarrassment of riches, but Rudy and Mitt "Double Guantanamo" Romney lead the pack.

Admittedly, like other easily-duped leftoids, I have a soft spot for John McCain. He has a sense of humor. He's on the record against torture - in fact, without the equivocations of a current Democratic frontrunner. He trusts the scientific validity of evolution*. He has co-sponsored cap-and-trade legislation to reduce pollution, a plan popular among the three top Democratic contenders for President. He lent his name to well-intentioned, if practically ignored campaign finance reform. He supports stem-cell research. He fights to reduce wasteful military spending... er, except for that trillion dollar sinkhole in the Middle East.

Which brings me to the reason I could never support the dude. Baghdad market square gaffes aside, the Senator gets mad eye loony on the subject of Iran. He drank some neocon kool aid and still hasn't come down. Plus he'd slash and burn social spending, appoint more activist conservative judges and padlock abortion clinics.

Okay, three more reasons. Still, politically he's only slightly to the right of Senator Clinton. Which says more about her than about him, I reckon.

*Yes, it's pathetic to even list that as a brownie point.

Paul Weyrich has lent his christian conservative cred to the Romneybot. So has the dean of Bob Jones University.

Being a godless commie I have no dog in whatever fight this involves, but I can't help but wonder why they wouldn't pick someone a bit more bone fide, like Mike Huckabee? He's more willing than Romney to question evolution, deny a woman control over her body, hand out guns to inner city youth and keep The Gays in second class citizenship. And he didn't just discover those (cough) "principles" in a Powerpoint presentation on "How to Look More Conservative." He got 'em the old fashioned way: by being an tool.

Supposedly there is a "schism" between old guard Christian conservatives and Next Gen evangelicals over global warming, poverty and the war in Iraq. This endorsement comes from the Old School, to the best of my knowledge. Should we expect younger evangelicals to exhibit greater skepticism regarding Romney's conveniently newfound conversions? It depends on how significantly the old stand-by issues of abortion and homophobia influence the younger crowd. David Sessions reports:

A 2006 Pew survey shows that college-educated conservatives are more likely to be less conservative on issues like gay marriage, stem-cell research, and contraception than those who've completed only some college or high school. And according to a study by Barna group, a Christian research organization, young born-again Christians are 15 percent more likely than their elders to find homosexual behavior morally acceptable. Even many of my college-age evangelical friends at the conservative Christian school Patrick Henry College see popular films, attend rock concerts, and have no objection to drinking or dancing.

Yet Sessions does not conclude that this represents a significant break from traditional Christian conservatism, but a gradual maturation toward recognizing political realities and making necessary compromises. Romney's weather vein political conscience may not offend The Base, at least the younger contingent, as much as has been reported. In light of the recent endorsements by the Old School, the older crowd seems ready to make compromises, too.

All the same, if Romney does grab the nomination, he's a loser nation-wide, even if his Democratic opponent is Ms. Inevitable herself. Democrats won't vote for him, and I doubt most so-called "independents" or "swing voters" will take to his eminence front.