The latent ethos of self-reliance in the American experience has, in my opinion, enabled the Republican party to meld the disparate factions of the wealthy and modest income whites into a successful coalition for the past thirty years. But Romney's broad definition of "victim" includes many in the Republican party who consider themselves to be self-reliant. Like oil and water, self-reliance and victim-hood are not miscible.  

According to Romney a "victim" is a person who receives government benefits---which then must include many modest income whites upon whom the wealthy Republicans have depended to maintain power.  Romney has put the Republican base in a predicament. As victims they are not the strong and self-reliant persons who in such beliefs steel themselves against the reality of their declining incomes and job opportunities. If they are not victims, are they self reliant enough to vote against their own benefits?   

From the annals of Brooklyn justice an illuminating tale, casting in bold relief the true venality of prosecutors trolling for easy pleas.

As the charging documents would have it, defendant Shaborn Emmanuel was a particularly dangerous fellow. In a common commercial conundrum, he had accepted drugs on consignment and now found himself, through circumstances not made immediately clear, in possession of neither the inventory nor the money owed therefore.

His supplier, evidently unconvinced by the bald assertion that a thief had unfortunately made off with the goods, gave Emmanuel a choice. "Present me", he said "with my money or the head of the thief".

I think you can see where this story is going.

Mitt Romney, our Christian President, Barack Obama, is as we speak being burned in effigy by angry Muslims across the world. In a flag draped coffin, no less. Don't you want to jump in with both feet and claim once again that Obama is coddling them? Pretty effective isn't it? Where is your outrage that our country has been demeaned and insulted by the angry Muslims? Perhaps you might want to have your five sons enlist in the military and go over to Pakistan and elsewhere to protect some American real estate---you might actually own some of it. What about you, perhaps you should personally visit the area, tell them again why they shouldn't be coddled. And by the way, you might mention that we won't tolerate any such actions as burning our President in effigy. Cat got your tongue? It's tough being out there in the ring, isn't it? Any of those white towels left over from the plan level at the Ritz Carleton?

In my opinion it's way too early to conclude that Romney's fund raising video is a "game changer". While Romney's comments are reprehensible, the media coverage so far does not parse the victims to include the 50% of Republicans in red states who are low income and don't pay taxes---but distributes 100% of these folks to the Obama camp. Thus, on the media surface, Romney was correct. A lot of people pay no federal income taxes and they all vote for Obama. What else is new?

I am not impressed by the way Democrats are addressing the video. Democrats have not properly responded to the "47% pay no taxes" charge in the past and I can't see that their response to this video so far has improved their messaging. So to turn this video into a game changer, Democrats need to improve their attacks. "Romney wrote off the 47%" doesn't, imo, move the needle.  

As the two the presidential candidates prepare for the first debate, Romney finds himself between a rock and a hard place.  Obama is dealing with the same rock, but unlike Romney he lacks a similar hard place. 

The rock is the apparently small number of actual undecided voters, maybe as little as 2%.  This means to make significant gains in the poll, one has to go after the swing voters.  Romney is not going to pass Obama in places like Florida and Ohio just by grabbing all of the undecideds (many who could very well not vote at all).  He  has to convince those who have tentatively leaned toward Obama at the moment to change their mind and swing over to him.

George Will kills me sometimes. Which is why I refuse to allow guns at my residence.

Sometimes he shows his fascistic nuts.

Sometimes he sounds reasonable enough.

And sometimes he is just plain nuts.

Now ole George is a sports nut and he, at one time, loved to write about baseball and appears in the Ken Burns documentary about baseball.

Well, today he comes up with a blog about some relationship between 'progressives' and football.

I have always enjoyed linking two unconnected subjects and I would never wish to interfere with someone else doing the same.

But this one post of his at the Washington Post has me scratching my head.

On an explosive day in the Middle East, John McCain has just appeared on Fox News telling the folks in Arkansas as well as those in the Islamic world that radical Muslims have properly perceived America's weaknesses.  According to McCain the U.S. is, in fact, weak and it is a known fact that we are withdrawing from the region. Taken at face value McCain's comments could be seen as encouragement to radical Islamist groups to keep testing our embassies around the world. Perhaps our enemies could scale additional compound walls, and sensing the opportunity for a kill, recruit even more radicals and increase the mob violence to a point where it is no longer controllable.