I have a few questions (rhetorical and otherwise):
• OK, 'fess up: Who thought it was a good idea to run Gabby Saucedo Mercer against Raúl Grijalva? Somebody high up in the Republican Party had to have had a "fight fire with fire" moment, and then others had to have agreed.
She's H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E!
• A lot was made of the numbers thrown around during the first presidential debate, most of which were false. For example, Mitt Romney claimed that 50 percent of all "green energy" companies that received government funding went bust when, in fact, the percentage is in the single-digits. (For some wacky reason, Barack Obama decided not to challenge that.)
But the number that struck me most was when Mitt Romney said, "I've been in business for 25 years."
Dude, you're 65 years old. What happened to the other 40 years? We'll give you 25 years to account for all the schoolin' and begattin' in the early days. Then you were governor for four years, and you spent a couple of years with the Salt Lake City Olympics (which is generous, since records show you were still handling your bidness and reaping the benefits). That still leaves almost a decade missing.
Some on your side might argue that you've been running for president for a while, but you made $14 million last year. That had to have come from business. Certainly, you're not in the hands-on, fun end where you get to fire people and ship jobs overseas, but you're still in business. Besides, your running mate, Paul Ryan, constantly refers to you as a businessman.
If you can't get the small numbers right, how do you expect us to believe that you'll be able to handle the large numbers?
Oh, another thing: I've heard both Romney and his wife crow about the fact that he didn't accept the money he inherited from his millionaire father.
However, his father paid for Mitt's exclusive boarding-school education, Mitt's college education and Mitt's law-school education, and he bought the newlyweds a house! Other than that, Romney didn't accept money from his father.
Actually, that seems rather petty. I mean, who among us did not have our first house bought for us by our parents?
• I recently saw these headlines: "Texting, Smoking Woman Falls Off 60-Foot Cliff." "Ohio Woman Killed by Falling Llama." "Man Wins Roach-Eating Contest, Dies."
Who can read those and not ascribe to Darwin's natural selection?
• Will somebody please correct University of Arizona football coach Rich Rodriguez's grammar in that TV commercial for the bank?
I'm a big fan of what Rodriguez has done with the Wildcats program, even after watching Arizona blow that late-game, 14-point lead against nationally ranked Stanford. But that commercial drives me nuts! He's walking down the street and saying something to the effect of, "When you move to a new city, you need someone you can count on." Then he says (and I quote) "For my family and I, that's ... (some bank)." I can't really tell you the name of the bank, because after he says, "For my family and I ... ," I just hear screaming in my head.
Please tell him that the rule of thumb is that you take out the words "my family" and then go from there. He wouldn't say "for I"; he would say "for me." This is important. He's a leader of young men, and then there is that omnipresent stereotype of some football players not speeching good.
• Exactly how low can someone go? Dinesh D'Souza, who recently became a very rich man by making a "fear the Negro" documentary called 2016: Obama's America, now has a book out in which he scrapes the bottom by slut-ifying President Obama's long-dead mother. D'Souza writes, "Ann's sexual adventuring may seem a little surprising in view of the fact that she was a large woman who kept getting larger."
Really?! What a jackass!
• I have another question for Mitt Romney, one that really needs to be asked by someone before the election: How can somebody who is separated by one generation from polygamy dare to come out against same-sex marriage?
It seems rather hypocritical to me; they're both outside of what many consider to be the mainstream, and I'm sure there are a whole lot of people who would find polygamy way more offensive than same-sex marriage.
I'm a lifelong Catholic, just like Joe Biden and that department-store mannequin he debated last week. But my marriage to my wife isn't threatened by what other adults do. On this matter, I swerve way over into extreme libertarianism. If consenting adults want to enter freely into nontraditional arrangements, including plural- and same-sex marriages, I really don't care.
(Let's be clear here: What is going on in places like Colorado City does not involve consenting adults and is, therefore, institutionalized child abuse.)
Mitt Romney has received a pass from the media concerning his religion, which is the way it should be. But his stance on same-sex marriage represents the height of hypocrisy and deserves to be addressed.
