Salt Lake Tribune: "Romney seems to have become afflicted with Karl Rove-itis."

[Heidi]

Rolly: Mitt Romney appears to have taken a page from Karl Rove's playbook

Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney are arguably the most articulate candidates so far in the 2008 presidential race. But Romney seems to have become afflicted with Karl Rove-itis - a political disease that seduces candidates into relying on meaningless name-calling for the sake of a sound bite.

The reason the disease is so contagious is that, unfortunately, it has proven effective. Now Romney has embraced this mud-slinging malady, a campaign ploy that Rove, President Bush's senior campaign adviser, has turned into an art form (albeit dark) during his 35 years as a political consultant.

While Obama was in Park City last week offering up ideas for solving the country's problems to several hundred Utahns at a roadside rally, Romney was engaged in a debate with other GOP contenders. Romney turned his sights on Obama's recent assertion that he was willing to speak with anti-American dictators, and his suggestion that he would take strong military action, even in western Pakistan, to root out al-Qaida terrorists. Romney, who decided those two ideas were in conflict, morphed into Utah's nasty partisan-without-peer, Rep. Chris Cannon.

"He's gone from Jane Fonda to Dr. Strangelove in one week," Romney said of Obama.

Romney's comparison is free of logic, of course, but it seemed to endear him a bit to his Republican audience. After all, the so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth helped defeat Democrat John Kerry in 2004, as did the GOP's "flip-flop" mantra that exploited any Kerry change of mind.

Read the rest: http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_6602066

(Paul Rolly is a columnist and reporter with the Salt Lake Tribune. Here's his blog: http://blogs.sltrib.com/politics/ )

[Octafish]

1. Jebthro came out for Romney way back.

I'm sure Romney'll remember when it comes time to picking his VP.

And, thank Diebold, once they're inaugurated another family friend will create the conditions for another Bush elevation.

Paybacks are a rhymes-with-witch.

[book_worm]

7. Good. Add the name Bush to his ticket should cost it millions of votes

[glitch]

12. Doesn't matter, they'll just pretend all the Republicans staying home "voted absentee"

All that anti-Bush rhetoric must've just been a liberal media fabrication, the subjects do love their bushie leaders after all!

They don't need their lies to be believed, they just need enough plausible deniability to keep their subjects from striking.

[StatGirl]

14. Romney has already said that JEB would be a good VP

My feeling is that the fix is in. The Republican power base is going to unite around Mitt/Jeb.

With a * as VP, Mitt's life expectancy would be very short indeed. He'd be very, very stupid to pick Jeb.

[mwb970]

2. Romney appears to be a grinning jackass in a fancy suit.

If that's what the wingnuts like, go ahead, nominate him.

Romney just finished purchasing a first-place finish in the meaningless Iowa Straw Poll - maybe he can just buy the Oval Office as well!

[tblue37]

8. A *barely* first-place finish that cost over $2 million. (eom)

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Not that hard. All you have to do is employ a variety of logical fallacies and

you're pure Rove.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/

[radfringe]

4. here's a sound bite to throw at romney-ites

If you don't like what Romeny says....wait a minute

[Heidi]

6. He's like the weather!

:rofl: :spray:

[glitch]

13. Shouldn't that be spelled Rameny?

Which is what all our diets will be if there's another puke presidency. (no offense to Ramen)

[gratuitous]

5. You are correct, Mr. Rolly, but . . .

But let's not lose sight of a very salient fact: The mudslinging of Karl Rove and the Swift Boat Veteran for Truth would never have gotten an ounce of traction without the willing, active connivance of a media that enthusiastically eggs on fact-free character assassination, and repeats comfortable lies over and over again just because they don't like a candidate (Al Gore) or because finding out the truth is too confusing (John Kerry, Paul Wellstone, Howard Dean and others too numerous to mention).

[BlooInBloo]

9. (shrug) Who cares? They'll still endorse & vote for him.

[TwilightGardener]

10. The Salt Lake Tribune (or at least this reporter) has Mitten's number. Good on them.

[bridgit]

11. ouch!

[Disturbed]

15. "He'd be very, very stupid to pick Jeb."

Mitt-twit is not the brightest bulb on the Rethug tree. You know damn well that he didn't come up with that slam against Oboma. His staff feeds him the lines. Rumor has it that the Bush Crime Family is backing Mitt-twit & is pushing Jeb as VP. Mitt-twit is like putty in their hands.

[StatGirl]

16. Did you see that David Brooks piece . . .

. . . talking about how smart Romney is, but he thinks he has to talk dumb to appeal to the base?

I don't buy it, because Brooks is a tool (in the non-anatomical sense) rather than a real analyst, but that's what makes me think that the Moneyed Republicans have latched onto Mitt.

[Zynx]

17. They want to sell a Mormon Bishop to their Southern base, more power to them.

[StatGirl]

18. For years, they've gotten away with hobnobbing with Moon

And why haven't the fundamentalists noticed this?

To the power elite, religion really is the opiate of the masses. Remember John Lennon's words:

"Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV,
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still f***ing peasants as far as I can see."

I think the people behind Romney are making a mistake here, although I can't imagine that they'd be that dumb, so I must be missing something. Their fundamentalist base doesn't agree with this principle that "as long as you have faith, the exact faith doesn't matter". Heck, fundamentalists don't even think that *Catholics* are Christians! I can't believe that they're going to be persuaded to accept a Mormon.

Of course, if the alternative is Hillary, maybe they will. Love her or hate her, the smear machine is all geared up and ready to go as soon as she wins the nomination. And by her mere existence, she sends the "gays, guns and God" people into total frothing incoherence.