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Sunday, April 29, 2012

Even in a party full of morons, Eric Fehrnstrom takes the cake
Posted by Jill | 5:58 AM
For the uninitiated, Eric Fehrnstrom is an adviser to the Romney campaign. If his name sounds familiar, it's because he's the guy who came up with this gem:



But this guy just can't seem to shut up. Mitt Romney wrote an op-ed on February 14 for the Detroit News (which the paper has conveniently scrubbed from its web site) in which he accused President Obama of
...engaging in “crony capitalism” as he “rewarded union bosses” when he orchestrated an $85 billion bailout for the auto industry in 2009. “A labor union that had contributed millions to Democrats and his election campaign was granted an ownership share of Chrysler and a major stake in GM, two flagships of the industry,” Romney writes. “The U.S. Department of Treasury – American taxpayers – was asked to become a majority stockholder of GM. And a politically connected and ethically challenged Obama-campaign contributor, the financier Steven Rattner, was asked to preside over all this as auto czar.

“This was crony capitalism on a grand scale,” Romney writes. “The president tells us that without his intervention things in Detroit would be worse. I believe that without his intervention things there would be better.”

Romney goes on to suggest that the administration should “act now to divest itself of its ownership position in GM.”

“The shares need to be sold in a responsible fashion and the proceeds turned over to the nation’s taxpayers,” Romney says.

Having long argued that letting the auto companies go through a “managed bankruptcy” would have resulted in a faster turnaround, Romney used today’s op-ed to defend his position, which was first born in a 2008 New York Times op-ed titled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.”

“Managed bankruptcy may sound like a death knell,” Romney writes today. “But in fact, it is a way for a troubled company to restructure itself rapidly, entering and leaving the courtroom sometimes in weeks or months instead of years, and then returning to profitable operation.

“In the case of Chrysler and GM, that was precisely what the companies needed. Both were saddled with an accumulation of labor, pension, and real estate costs that made them unsustainable,” Romney writes.
The Romney campaign has changed its tune, now that General Motors is once again the largest auto maker in the world. Now, instead of "crony capitalism for union bosses", the auto bailout has become, in Mitt Romney's Fantasyland, HIS OWN IDEA! Fehrnstrom again:
Fehrnstrom said Obama followed Romney's course to help the auto industry during an appearance at a Saturday roundtable discussion hosted by the The Washington Post.

“His position on the bailout was exactly what President Obama followed,” Fehrnstrom said. "He said, 'If you want to save the auto industry, just don't write them a check. That will seal their doom. What they need to do is go through a managed bankruptcy process.'"

"The only economic success that President Obama has had is because he followed Mitt Romney's advice," Fehrnstrom added.
After all, who are you going to believe, Eric Fehrnstrom or your lyin' eyes?

But wait, there's more. In the latest episode of the Romney Campaign's plan to Just Throw Shit Up Against The Wall And See What Sticks, Fehrnstrom now says that Obama shouldn't be President because he's "too cool" for America. And this is from Raw Story, NOT The Onion:
At a panel hosted on Saturday by the Washington Post, high ranking campaign aides Eric Fehrnstrom and Peter Flaherty said that the problem with President Obama is that he’s just “too cool” for America.

Fehrnstrom and Flaherty joined many conservatives in criticizing the president for his performance Monday night on Jimmy Fallon’s show “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” to “slow-jam the news,” delivering a Barry White-meets-John F. Kennedy disquisition on corporate greed and its effects on student loan debt. Fehrnstrom said that jamming with Fallon and his house band The Roots undercuts the dignity of the president’s office and the seriousness with which the student loan crisis should be discussed.

“I don’t think that’s something to slow jam about,” he said.

[snip]

Calling the average American voter “more clunky than cool,” the article says that the two powerful strategists are hoping to pitch their campaign’s message is such a way as to make Romney’s awkwardness “endearing, and even relatable.”
I shit you not. Sure, Americans love robots. C3PO and R2-D2 are beloved characters in American film. Everyone loved the robot that says "Danger, Will Robinson!" on Lost in Space. They love Wall-E and the Iron Giant and there are even people who can watch Short Circuit over and over and over again. But do Americans love robots enough to elect one who's so obviously a greedy bastard to the White House?
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