matedog wrote:Rat Patrol wrote:
I have to think that trainwreck of a press conference about the Libyan embassy attacks is the moment that finally sends his campaign into a fatal flaming death plunge and probably costs him the electoral votes in the second-to-last battleground state he is still narrowly leading in above and beyond McCain's '08 pasting. He couldn't even demonstrate the basic-most self-control to look somber about a tragedy hours old--the kind of basic political competency required to get elected Pre-school Class President--while lobbing a crass political attack. On 9/11 (obviously on events unrelated). After promising--pinky-swear!--not to play politics on 9/11. That's the smirk that's going to be replayed 24/7 in every attack ad for the next 2 months.
I mean...my God...the photo/video evidence being replayed this morning is so bad. People who were holding their noses 24 hours ago or making excuses out of some misguided obligation to balance now hate his every being with a violent passion because of that smirk he simply would not wipe off his face. I mean...wow. It's been pretty firmly established that this is the most incompetently-run campaign of the last 40 years. Are we now reaching back a full century? An all-timer?
Just wow.
I didn't see the press conference (read it though), but I don't think a flub based on timeline nuance and "who said what," especially in regards to matters related to Islamic terror, is going to sink him much. We'll see though.
It's not that. It's the smirking. He literally could not control his own shit-eating grin while enunciating a rather explosive criticism that pretty much required (and wouldn't have been hard for most life forms with human-like emotions to pull off) a straight face. It's a mesmerizing 8 minutes of gory trainwreck to watch, and there's like 6 AP photos of him smirking making saturation-coverage rounds. In the news and on Meme Generator.
Coupled with the fact that it took 11 hours AFTER that for him to issue...you know...his
formal condolences for the loss of life. I mean...he couldn't have done more damage to himself if he literally lit himself on fire in lieu of a statement. The ones who've swallowed that Kool-Aid will keep on keeping on, but a whole lot of people who tried to be even-handed woke up this morning decided "Fuck it...this guy is a callous douche! No more, no less. For fucks sake, the blood isn't even dried at the Embassy!" And the MSM is not giving him a free pass this time. Because the GOP insiders--party apparatchik, not the foamers--are singing to their press sources behind the scenes that he fucked this one up hard (and probably leaking their displeasure as a release valve to keep the fallout from poisoning downticket). The only major words of support he's gotten today are from the dimwit RNC chair, Sarah Palin (who worked in a penis joke about Obama in the same tweet), Newt Gingerich, and Batshit Allen West. He got damned by omission from John McCain and Condi Rice. Paul Ryan punted entirely on any questions. And a few others got braver and zinged him a little.
And keep in mind...the photo/video evidence. There hasn't been an attack ad launched yet with this smirk footage. They'll be flying by week's end. And running for 2 months straight.
This is bad. Worse than his Euro Tour disaster in July. At minimum he unloaded a full clip in his foot and closed the window for a post-convention Obama bounce bounce-
back. At worst he blew half his face off and it's potentially the straw that broke his back. If the anger starts to boil over on this fast-developing story, or if his self-served ammo results in a particularly devastating attack ad that sticks for news cycle after news cycle...and the cumulative drag means the party has to start outwardly distancing itself or hitting him back to save the drag on downballot races...then it's effectively over already and the GOP spends the next 2 months in nuclear containment mode.
It was a major fuck-up. Whether it was an
epic fuck-up is yet to be determined. But nobody's doubting it was major.
