Prolife Mitt Romney Watch

The Archdiocesan Wizards

This week's Pilate has a story about a typical priest in the Archdiocese of Boston.  The priest, Fr. Michael Bernier, pictured below in his lumberjack shirt, described himself as a "Pottermaniac" in a talk he gave about - of all things - the Blessed Virgin and our Triune God.

Father Pottermaniac told the kiddos harmless magic is not sorcery but a quest on a journey towards god:

"On the surface level it does sound suspect and does raise red flags," he said. However, he said the magic in Harry Potter is not sorcery. And he noted that the original title of the first book was "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone." The title was changed to "Sorcerer's Stone" for the book's release in the United States.

"I happen to be one of the people who believes that there's a great deal of Christian imagery and symbolism in the books. And I think it answers, at least in parts, a longing that we have for Christ," he said.

Father Pottermaniac also told the kiddos that Pope Benedict has never raised an objection to Harry Potter.

However, the Pope had the following to say:

"It is good that you explain the facts of Harry Potter, because this is a subtle seduction, which has deeply unnoticed and direct effects in undermining the soul of Christianity before it can really grow properly."

The Pilate ran the photo and story without the actual quote from the Pope - just in case you're ding-dong enough to see the picture of the Plaid-shirted Priest Pottermania standing in front of his trinket collection pooh-poohing magic as harmful and a cuckoo subtle seduction bell doesn't go off in your head loud enough to do your own research.

The Chancery Committees put in charge of wondering why sane people are no longer sitting in the pews are organizing a youth ministry field trip to Borders.

Father Bernier said that Harry Potter is "a symbol of all of us as sons and daughters of God -- humanity pursuing its spiritual perfection in Christ."

All Aboard!

A wealthy Mormon who jetted 150 to raise money for Romney violated FEC Rules

Instead of handing Romney cash for his campaign that would exceed allowable contributions, Mitt Romney is having people pay out-of-pocket expenses directly.

"Federal Election Commission rules allow a donor to travel to a fundraiser at his or her own cost, but since the people in this case were actually flying to an event and then volunteering to raise money for a campaign, a payment of their travel by a private person may violate the election rules, experts say."

"It's hard to see how it would not be an illegal contribution," says Anthony Corrado, a professor of government at Colby College in Maine who specializes in campaign finances.

    Gardner, however, says he doesn't believe there is a problem with him paying for the flight. "They don't care how you get there," he said this week.

They don't?

Why not have Barbara Comstock pull the Seamus windshield out of Romney's garage, strap them to the roof of the Mittmobile and chalk another one up to emotion-free crisis management?

I'm sure these folks like fresh air.

 

Inside Romney's fundraiser at the Boston Garden

They blasted "Baba O'Reilly"?

After everyone was seated and ready to go we first heard from Meg Whitman, CEO of Ebay (I didn’t get a good picture of her). Then they dimmed the lights a little and we watched a short video that was much like a campaign advertisement, and then someone announced Governor Romney and his wife over the loudspeaker. They played loudly over the speakers part of the intro to The Who’s Baba O’Riley.  I’m a big Who fan so that got me even more stoked than I already was.

Baba O'Reilly??

Be sure to scroll down to see the buffoon from My Man Mitt.

Here's a good question from the comments section:

When do we find out how much money they got that day???

I thought it was interesting too, considering last time, there was an awful lot of hoopla in the newspapers the next day over how much money he made. 

Out here in the fields
I fight for my meals
I get my back into my living
I don't need to fight
To prove I'm right
I don't need to be forgiven

Don't cry
Don't raise your eye
It's only teenage wasteland

Teenage wasteland
It's only teenage wasteland
Teenage wasteland
Oh, oh
Teenage wasteland
They're all wasted!

 

Romney is not the sharpest tool in the shed

Romney story about tying the dog to the roof of the car, whereupon the dog defecated a brown liquidy substance from the roof onto the windows was all over the internet today.

Here, here and here.

Do you think it really happened or is he getting watching National Lampoon mixed up with reality?

Weird Willard's Wallet Woes

Romney's second quarter fundraising numbers is clear evidence that Catholic and Evangelical prolifers are not on the Mittmobile.

In January, Mr. Romney said financing his own campaign would be “akin to a nightmare.” But his campaign said yesterday that he had put in more money to maintain the gains he had made, especially in the early voting states Iowa and New Hampshire.

At the news conference, The Boston Globe reported, Mr. Romney, asked why he was putting more money in, said: “Because I have to, all right? My message is important and critical to get out into this country.”

By gum, if grassroots voters won't buy into my infomercials, I'll buy more of them myself.

Third claim against Gumshoe Garrity

Marcia Vickers of Fortune Magazine today said she also had a creepy encounter with Garrity:

Vickers said that after conducting a 45-minute interview with Romney in the car from Concord to Alton, she retrieved her own car in Alton and began following behind Romney's SUV en route to the next campaign stop in Wolfeboro. On the way, she said, Garrity steered the SUV into a dirt pull-off and instructed her and another car to do the same. Garrity then got out, approached her car, and asked who she was, Vickers said.

She said she told him she was with Fortune and had coordinated her reporting trip with the campaign. Garrity, she said, told her no one was allowed to follow Romney's car and ordered her to go ahead to the next campaign stop, at the Wolfeboro Inn.

How weird is that.  Some of these times, Romney was in the same car when Garrity pulled the possey over and got out of the car.

The Romney people are beginning to make like they were clueless he was driving people into ditches in roadside police-like inquistions:

Romney spokesman Kevin Madden said Vickers's account comes as "a total surprise" and that he hadn't heard any complaint from her.

"We made every effort to accommodate the reporter, even going so far as to have staff transport her rental car so that she could easily get from event to event that day while interviewing the governor for her story," he said. "It was a day packed with travel events and by all accounts the travel, campaign stops and interview went successfully."

According to Romney, they give Garrity "the benefit of the doubt" and he "hope other people do, too."

Are we supposed to have confidence that Romney would recognize jihadists?

Romney Secret Police: Depends on what the meaning of the word is is

Today's piece in the NYT is a perfect example of the of how the Romney camp uses carefully chosen words to fool the ill informed.

The law enforcement official said the answering service’s caller identification system captured a phone number that was linked to Mr. Garrity, who has not been charged.

A lawyer for Mr. Garrity, Stephen L. Jones, said Mr. Garrity had nothing to do with the phone call and had offered to take a voice analysis test to prove it.

“He didn’t make the call,” Mr. Jones said. “The number that the call was made from, apparently he has no connection to. It’s not his number. It wasn’t his phone or any phone that he was aware of.”

He has no connection to the number the call was made from because he had the phone disconnected after the incident.  It's not his number, because he has a new number.  The call wasn't made from his new phone or any phone he's aware of on the day this story is being published.

An other exchange comes to mind...

“He didn’t make the call,” Mr. Jones said.  I never had sexual relations with that woman.

“The number that the call was made from, apparently he has no connection to. It’s not his number. "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If the--if he--if 'is' means is and never has been, that is not--that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement...

It wasn’t his phone or any phone that he was aware of.”  If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement....Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true."

Weird Willard Watch: Mini-Mitt = Mitt Cult

There's just no keeping up with Romney's weirdness.

Bostonist has the latest news worthy of it's own post on the Weird Willard Watch.

Usually, we run the MittWatch on Sunday to highlight the weekly highs and lows of former Massachusetts governor and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. But the latest news is just too wacky to ignore.

Mitt Romney has allowed the use of a Mini-Mitt on his website. Mini-Mitt appears when you visit the home page of Romney's presidential campaign site. A video of Romney starts to roll in the bottom right corner of the screen, and he basically hits you up for some campaign cash.

Frankly, if you're just going to Romney's home page expecting to perform the usual navigation, the Mini-Mitt will freak you the hell out. Our first response was, "Mitt's jumping out to talk to us! Thank God we're sober!"

Romney himself refers to this website feature as "Mini-Mitt,"

 

The Mini-Mitt, the Mittmobile, the Mittheads, My Mann Mitt,  etc.

Yep, it's a cult.

The Glove Doesn't Fit

The Romney people are testing the waters of stupidity by denying that Jay Garrity's entire existence is an impersonation of a law official.  In today's Globe, the Romney camp insists the reporter, the state police and Wayne's Drain people are lying.

Law enforcement sources said Garrity became the focus of the investigation after the cellphone used to make the call was traced to him. The number has since been disconnected....

A lawyer for Garrity adamantly denied that his client placed the call.

"He didn't make the phone call," said attorney Stephen Jones. "He has no connection whatsoever to the number that the call was made from....

New Hampshire attorney general's office opened an investigation into a complaint that a Romney campaign aide, identified as Garrity, pulled over a

New York Times

reporter who was driving behind a campaign vehicle and then professed to have run the reporter's license plate. The probe was spurred by a citizen complaint, according to Jane E. Young, chief of the criminal justice bureau.

Jones acknowledges that Garrity spoke with the reporter who was trailing two campaign vehicles but only after the reporter had pulled over behind the campaign caravan, which had stopped to check directions.

"No plate was ever run," Jones said. "He didn't threaten to run his plate. He didn't have to. He knew who he was when he saw him."...

Yeah?  Then why was there any conversation at all between them?  Reporters follow candidates.  Candidates want reporters to follow them.   

Asking people who use sound judgment to believe that the reporter made the story up, the police are lying and the drain people have the wrong police impersonator who called from his cell phone, bears the imprimatur of Gary Marx and Barbara Comstock political strategy.

Romney  put Garrity on paid leave of absence, indicating he has full intention of bringing a man who obviously has some kind of mental problem and exercises it to feign police powers on innocent people, back on board the campaign.

Ike and Mamie Romney?

This just isn't Mitt's week.  Soren Dayton at eyeon08 posted a link to a spooky story where Romney claims his grandchildren call him "Ike" and "Mamie" instead of the traditional names for grandparents:

"And then there's a story behind this," Romney said, pulling out a plate with a picture of Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower painted on it. "Not only was Eisenhower one of my favorite presidents; when we became grandparents, you get to choose what the kids will call you. Some call you Papa. I chose Ike. I'm Ike, and Ann is Mamie."

I'm trying to wrap my head around it.  Ike and Mamie?

I suppose this opens up a whole new frontier on having our grandchildren call us by our favorite cultural warriors.

Bill and Hillary.
John and Jacqueline.

How about Rob and Laura Petrie?
Lucy and Ricky.
Fred and Ginger.
Bogie and Bacall.


Anyhoo, when the reporter tried to get verification from Ike and Mamie Romney's sons, Tagg told him that all of Romney's grandchildren actually call him "PaPa":

(Actually, this is partly wishful thinking: Romney's son Tagg later told me that although his daughter, the oldest grandchild, did in fact call her grandfather "Ike" at his request, she was the only one of the eight grandchildren who ever did. When later grandchildren started to call him Papa, she went along.)

Read the rest of the story here.

Not only is everything about Romney fabricated, most of his shtick is just really... bizarre.