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Mitt Romney’s Gary Hart Moment
In 1987, with rumors circulating of affairs, Gary Hart challenged the media to follow him around. They did and soon found out that he was having an affair with Donna Rice. In an article published Sunday, Mitt Romney revealed that he had an anonymous Twitter account. The reporters looked for Romney relatives who had few followers and soon found out that the account was named “Pierre Delecto.” It’s now been made private, but people took screenshots. I assume that these have not been doctored.
Talk about an unforced error. If Mitt had not revealed the existence of the account, it’s very unlikely that its existence would ever have been discovered. It was established in 2011 and no one had commented about it. It only took reporters a few hours to figure out its name. He looks like a hypocrite, attacking Trump for acting unpresidential while using an anonymous account to defend himself.
Published in Politics
I noted following his guest appearance on the Three Martini Lunch podcast from last Friday that French was good on the first and third topics. But you could tell his heart and soul was really into Topic No. 2 involving Trump and his current situations, both foreign and domestic. The lack of the ability to step back and be at least dispassionate when it comes to Trump clouds his commentary, and it’s a problem that’s going to grow and grow between now and Election Day in 2020 (i.e. — if it’s Trump v. Warren next year, his glee at being able to attack Trump is going to have to be constrained by the reality of what we would get in place of Trump, unless David wants to argue that four years of Liz or some other Democratic candidate wouldn’t be all that bad, no matter what they’re saying to try and gin up turnout from their base).
I couldn’t care less what he thinks. He’s shown me that Orange Man Bad is his animating impulse. He offers no unique, interesting, or insightful perspectives.
Of course, this is true of 95% of all pundits. Wouldn’t the world be better off if they just stop issuing daily hot takes? Would anyone miss them?
Perhaps I’m giving myself too much credit, but I thought I understood politics better than most supposedly conservative pundits starting in 2016. Consequently, I’m paying less attention to most of them. For example, I thought the revelation of Trump’ Access Hollywood tape in October 2016 was good news because the Dims normally would have revealed it on the last Friday before the election (as with W’s DUI). There were so many HRC scandals that they had to employ it early. Its effect had worn off by Election Day. I can’t remember any of the pundits making my point.
Any RINO Republican— Locutus DeBorg
(if it hasn’t already been taken)
How insecure must a person be if they feel the need to create an imaginary friend to say nice things about them?
Somewhere Cory Booker is sitting around thinking, “T-Bone’s way cooler than Pierre Delecto.”
Felonius De Rigueur
French has done a lot as a lawyer fighting for universally accepted conservative causes like free speech. I know that’s not as important as being snarky on a nominally interesting website, but perhaps that still has some value in certain circles. You keep shrinking the tent and before you know it it’ll only be big enough to fit all the professional soccer fans in Kansas.
From a mindset standpoint, it does show French has taken a slightly different tact at the moment than other #NeverTrumpers in the Max Boot/Jen Rubin mold. The hard-liners decided they’re against whatever Trump’s for, so they’re all-in on progressive ideas now; French seems more to want to keep the ideas he held prior to 2016, but then says either Trump’s really not supporting them, or Trump doesn’t have any intellectual foundation for why he’s supporting them, as if he has to show all his work to get full credit.
Oh, how I would like my 2012 vote back.
I clicked on the tweet and followed it back to French’s tweet. Noticed that Mr. French’s picture is of him in a Romney hat. Has it been that way for a while or did he change it because of this recent news about Romney?
The candidates that the anti-Trump GOP are enthused about are largely ridiculous. Sanford, I think, is sort of a good choice, but he only had one guy show up at his last speech. Literally.
These people look like fools when they endorse Weld, Walsh, McMullen, etc. They don’t do any serious thinking.
Justin Amash isn’t much better in my opinion.
If that’s true French has no clue about who his allies and enemies are in the fight for the people’s sovereignty and it’s still not worth giving him the time of day.
Let him be a lawyer then. There’s no reason we need to hear his ridiculous hot takes about the President.
Ha! The Trump-haters have been trying to throw Trump-voters out of the tent since they voted “wrong” in 2016. People like David French aren’t going to vote for President Trump anyway. So yeah, out of the tent he goes.
You and me both. Previously, the only vote I was truly embarrassed about was my vote for Mondale in 1984. (Yeah, I was the one.) But I might actually be prouder of that one than either my 2008 or 2012 votes.
Their just jealous.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e35AQK014tI
This may come as a shock to you, but Trump won’t actually be president for the rest of time. At some point he will not be an important figure. At which point the loose collective of conservatives, Trumpists (whatever definition-defying thing that is), and moderate squishes will have to figure out how to forge a coalition that competes with the emerging Progressives. Having a smaller but more loyal constituency isn’t a winning strategy over multiple cycles. You need the David Frenchs and he needs you. You’re stuck with each other.
They’ve made it clear they do not accept us. David French has spent three years nagging Evangelicals about how they voted. And as the Tweet above shows, he’s still at it. (Contra those here who insist he doesn’t do it. Look up, folks. There he goes again.) He will only accept us on his terms — that being that we must repent of our votes.
NeverTrumpism is the smaller but disloyal constituency. And they aren’t interested in winning anyway.
This may come as a shock to you, but David French won’t actually be a pundit for the rest of time. At some point he will not be an important figure.
And the sooner the better.
If I’m looking at the 2016 electoral map, seems to me Trump expanded the tent. I guess it was just the “wrong” kind of people that he attracted into it.
I supported Cruz in the primary and was Trump-skeptical up through the convention. But looking back, I have to acknowledge that Cruz would probably not have carried the states Trump was able to, and would have lost.
I was ABR in the 2012 primary and ABT in the 2016 primary. Unlike French, I was right 50% of the time.
Twitter is a bigger swamp than the Swamp. A grown man, a well known politician that once ran for president, that I voted for, using a cockamamie alias to diss the president (or anyone)??? I heard that Comey also has an alias. This is beyond childish, stupid and absurd. Just when you think you’ve heard it all…………….
I believe the pasture has a different name. What was the new pasture that Jonah started called?
In 2008 and 2012, I voted for other candidates in the primary. I do not regret my votes in the general elections, since either man would have been better than the corrupt administration we got. They would not have been great, but they would have been slightly better. Now, we have Trump, who is much better.
Same here. McCain hurt worse than Romney, because Romney was slightly better at pretending to be a conservative than McCain was. Not much better; just a smidgen.
I’m not interested in his work as a pundit. You (we) need people like him who work in the courts trying to defend conservative values, in his case free speech. The people who make the real differences in this country are the ones whose names you and I don’t know. We need those people to believe that there is something worth fighting for.
John Barron would like to have a word with you.
Yeah, but Trump is a goof. Romney is supposed to have gravitas.
Frum went off the deep end a decade ago, when after Obama’s election he declared that in the new era of big government, the only way the GOP could survive was to listen to him and move the party sharply to the left. So well before Trump, Frum was in a snit because no one outside of D.C. Punditland would listen to him, and the Republicans went in the direction of the Tea Party — he was #NeverConservative well before he hitched his wagon to the #NeverTrump meme. (McMullin, on the other hand, has no reason for anyone to pay attention to him other than the fact he wasn’t Donald Trump three years ago — zero public presence or anything resembling a past history of being in an administrative role. People were just asked to vote for him because he was an ex-CIA guy and because the #NeverTrump people needed a warm body when Bill Kristol couldn’t convince David French to run as an independent).
Exactly what I said. Let him be a lawyer, but I don’t want to hear his hot takes about the President or his pronouncement of judgment on evangelicals.