#tcot @AceOfSpadesHQ So, You’re Still Kinda Butt-Hurt About Rick Perry, Huh?

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Look, I’ve just endured my own Disastrous Month of Pain, OK? But I seriously doubt that 78 days from now I’m gonna be grousing bitterly about Gloria Allred and Ginger White. So why — 78 days after the Tampa debate — is Ace still ax-grinding against Michele Bachmann?

What’s especially interesting is that Bachmann signs up so willingly for Sacrifice Attacks. Some attacks are kind of over the top and involve a lot of blowback; they hurt the person making them as much or more than the target of the attack.
Gardasil, for example. That more or less took Bachmann out of things.
And that wasn’t entirely unforeseeable. A lot of people — including Republicans — are not so jazzed about the anti-vax swamp that a lot of the animus there seemed to be coming from. And her cloyingly emotional appeal — “Little. Girls.” — came off as shameless.
Plus, her convenient My Daughter Came Out a Retard mystery witness.

Dude. That was Sept. 12. And I was there:

TAMPA, Fla. — Rick Perry came into last night’s debate here with a target on his back, leading in the polls only a month after his late entry into the Republican presidential campaign. His fellow GOP candidates fired at the Texas governor all night, but it wasn’t until Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann said the phrase “innocent little 12-year-old girls” that he suffered any serious wound. . . .

You can call that a “cloyingly emotional appeal” if you want, but it was absolutely devastating in terms of Perry’s support among conservative moms. Don’t take my word for it: Ali Akbar was in the audience in Tampa, sitting among a bunch of Tea Party women who came into the debate pro-Perry. Afterwards? Thumbs down.

Was the Gardasil issue overblown, misrepresented, misunderstood? Tell it to conservative mom Michelle Malkin. But why blame Bachmann? Because you think she’s stupid? Because she’s a woman? Because her attack on your guy Perry was effective?

And this endorsement of the C4P write-in campaign?

Rather than look for a Palin-like candidate, doesn’t it just make more sense to write in Palin?

“Hey, let’s undermine Bachmann in Iowa — just for spite!”

Ultimately, it wasn’t Michele Bachmann or any other Republican rival who destroyed Rick Perry. He surfed into the race on a tsunami wave of overconfidence, his campaign led by a bunch of cutthroat assholes who had just finished sabotaging Newt Gingrich.

They convinced a lot of people — Ace among them — to climb aboard The Smilin’ Texan Express for a one-way ride to glory.

“Phantom Menace.” Told ya so.

Perry auto-destructed and keeps bumbling onward toward greater humiliation. So why keep beating up on Bachmann? Why scapegoat her, instead of blaming the geniuses who sold you on Perry? (“Howdy. Thank you, Erick.”) Or why not own up to letting yourself get sold?

It’s been non-stop pain for me lately, Ace, so I’m not here to rub salt in your wounds, but . . . beating up on a girl? C’mon. Let it go, man.

And tell Tabitha Hale I said, “Hi.”

 

UPDATE: Linked by God’s Own Crunk — thanks!

Some in the comments are wanting to turn this into “Why Everybody Should Hate Ace,” which isn’t my intention at all. Ace loved him some Perry, which required him to do some hating on everybody else — especially anyone who attacked Perry (Bachmann and, to a lesser extent, Santorum) or appeared to prosper at Perry’s expense (Cain).

Honestly, I get it: Vengeance is fun, and hate is a habit, which is why I can’t stand me no Newt Gingrich. What Newt did to Doug Hoffman was so wrong and so stupid as to make Newt permanently unacceptable to me. When Hoffman forgave Newt, I was shocked beyond words. Dude, if I’d been screwed over that bad, I wouldn’t even have taken Newt’s call.

Ace is a good blogger, and one of the best at eviscerating liberals. His work on WeinerGate was heroic and — just in case you didn’t realize it — Ace ought to take a bow for Barney Frank’s retirement. No blogger did more than Ace to promote Sean Bielat, and it was Bielat’s 2010 challenge, combined with re-districting, that convinced Barney to hang it up.

Ace and I (and evidently many of y’all) are having a disagreement over a contested primary. It happens, and we can’t let ourselves go all Montagues and Capulets over this stuff. Because next August, if we find ourselves watching Mitt Romney give his acceptance speech in Tampa, we’re all going to have to find a way to convince our fellow Americans that this was The Greatest Acceptance Speech Ever.

Like we really mean it.

Am I looking forward to that? No, but if that’s the way the cookie crumbles, it’s what I’ll be doing, and I’ll keep pushing Romney as long as there is any real hope he can beat Obama.

Then I’ll go to the voting booth on Nov. 6, 2012, and probably vote Libertarian again, just to defy the GOP Establishment sons of bitches who keep ramming these doomstruck losers down our throats.

Anyway . . .

Don’t hate Ace. He’s a good man ewok to have on our side.

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98 comments

  1. Perry was always a paper tiger, supported by the blogodudes for the sole reason that he was not Palin.  Now they’ve got nothing, and the Palinites still have their money to spend.

  6.  Ace has always had a really queer, unhealthy relationship with the Perry campaign, right from his awe-struck announcement article.  I hesitate to use the words “unpaid shill,” only because maybe he IS being paid?  You can basically track any GOP candidate who has scored an effective hit against Perry by seeing who Ace is groin-kicking.  Bachmann hurt him in September:  She’s DEAD!!  Cain didn’t send him flowers after the n!gger-rock story broke?  DEAD!!  A little poke at  RP, and he goes all hydrogen bomb.  And ALL of the Perrybots have unbelievably thin-skins, for people who just luuuurrrrrrv that tall, tough-talkin’ Texan with the macho swagger. 

    BTW, Stacey, I’ve been a Cainiac since May, but the Milwaukee interview and FL gaffes were just too much for me.  He needed to set himself down and do A LITTLE homework over the past few months, but it seems he’s as rough in November as he was in May.  This IS a dangerous flaw, because any successful candidate–make that REPUB candidate–has to have a certain basic level of knowledge.  Cain had his shot at building himself up, getting some great people to tutor him to improve his knowledge base, but he obviously felt he didn’t need it.  He did. 

    I’ll go with whomever is strongest in the FL polls vs Romney when we have our primary.

  7. Why do people care what a Level 5 D-Bag like Ace of Spades thinks, anyway?

    He’s the King of the Bridge-Burning Ass-Hats. One slight disagreement and he starts acting like an angry, flag-burning, rock-chucking, bearded Muslim fanatic coming to cut your head off. Please go the way of LGF, dude.

  8. Ace is a textbook buddy fucker. 

    It is only today he begins to note that Cain first issued a very straightforward denial of the accused affair.

    Funny how he so conveniently missed that key point yesterday.

    Kind of like Climategate – where all of the simple, honest, no ill-intentions, no nefarious motives mistakes never -the-less fall in exactly the same direction every single time.

  9. The defensiveness of the Perrybots is easily explained: His campaign went out of its way to create the “inevitability” argument: The Rickster was THE ONLY GUY WHO COULD STOP ROMNEY, so criticism or doubt was unacceptable. I’ve seen this kind of bandwagon technique used before, and it doesn’t usually precede success.

  11. I was angry for a while, but now? Everyone knows Ace is sensitive, and his posts about GOP candidates have just gotten… odd. Both in tone and message.  I feel kinda bad: it’s getting a little Dr. Jekyll/Mr Hyde. Here’s hoping he only needs 80 days even to come off his bender.

  12. OK, I’m confused.

    Ace has a rather jaundiced sense of humor – and the “tardasil” jokes kind of wrote themselves. If he can still get a laugh out of long-time Morons and ‘ettes with, “The guys get shirts” and “I slice like a f****** hammer”, why should “tardasil” go away? Lots of juice in that one, still.

    Perry said some magic words in his announcement. It’s a pity he hasn’t done anything further.

    I am so bloody confused, I can’t tell if this post is exasperated humor, or what?

    Help?

  15. Let’s not ignore the importance of magic words, though. Perry said what I wanted to hear in his announcement speech – “I will work to make DC as inconsequential in your life as possible.”

    That was what I wanted to hear, and he’s never gotten close to it since, except by repeating it in an interview.

    Ace (whose blog was the very first I ever ventured a comment upon, back in 2002 or so) may or may not favor Perry – honestly, I’ve been too busy to track who’s supporting whom besides you being in favor of Cain, as am I – is always a cynic with a dark and sardonic sense of humor. He liked Perry’s acceptance speech. I’m not sure this makes him a “Perrybot”.

  16. Let’s not forget how very NASTY Ace and the rest of the Perryists are to anyone who CORRECTLY dared honestly address Rick Perry’s islamocoddling.  Rick Perry is like a thin Chris Christie when it comes to genocidal islamic supremacist conquest.
    Rick Perry says, “islam is a religion of peace”, that alone should make people uneasy, but there is much MUCH more, and anyone who tries to bring those things to light gets viciously attacked and vilified by the deranged Perryists who are as bad as obamazombies and twice as mean. They are worse than Ron Paululans even.

  17. You suck it up, make your best judgement, and remember the consequences of a second Obama term.  If you think he’s overreached and acted like a dictator with EOs, regulations, and rule by decree ignoring the law of the land in his first term, just wait until he doesn’t have a campaign ahead and no longer has to worry about fooling anyone.

    And the judges, the judges – Oh!  The humanity!

  18. Is the Milwaukee interview the one where Cain…after a 10.5 second pause, correctly replied about Libya?

    Are the FL gaffes in reference to Cain correctly mentioning, as an aside, that there are different interpretations of Spanish in different countries?

    You act like the guy supports and continues to promote an  Individual Mandate or something like that (see:   Newt Gingrich, Mittens Romney).

  19. I dont get all the Ace-bashing. He was much more critical of Perry and his fumbling performances than Stacy was with Cain and his embarrassing mistakes. Just take a look at the live-blog scripts of the debates. And Perry deserves it, just like the rest of the field (yes, including Mrs.-tea-partier-than-thou-but-protecting-Social-Security-Bachmann) and we should face it, we’re dealing with quite a rotten field this time.  You dont need to be “butt-hurt” about Perry to notice that.

  22. Kind of laughable that Ace is supporting the Palin write-in campaign even if it is only to get back at Bachmann.  He (along with Red State and Hot Air) did his level best to help the dems destroy Palin.  He totally bought into the media’s manipulated poll numbers that said Palin had no chance, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that he also bought into the hype over Perry.  He talks a good game but, when it comes down to the nitty gritty, Ace is pretty gullible.

  23. IMHO, they hyped him to a stature the man couldn’t possibly match.  If he had not had all the fanfare and bullchip build-up, he could have entered and worked his way up and had a much better chance.  Even the debate screw-ups wouldn’t have seemed so awful from a guy in the low double digits in support, which is where he probably would have begun without the huge intro.

  24. Ace was looking for a “not-Romney” with good practical experience and electoral skills – pretty much exactly what Perry was built up to be.

    Perry would be a better President than he is a candidate – but he is much better at sit-down interviews than he is on a debate panel.  But his gaffes were magnified by his own PR department.

  26. Thanks for stepping up for Ace.

    I don’t get this – honestly, did I drop a stitch somewhere? When did Ace get tarred as a “Perrybot”, and why?!

    The most raucous, irreverent, discordant, contentious, foul-mouthed (on occasion) and never – not once – in agreement comment section that I’m aware of (with a bunch of never-in-agreement cob-loggers), under the somewhat confused and never terribly didactic hand of Ace cannot be regarded as anything but a walking advertisement for a sort of right-wing, relatively benign (because heavily armed) anarchy.

    Did something change while I was busy running my office?

  27. Ah, it wasn’t Perry who busted Cain, it was the machine.

    And now,  gaze deeply into the navel, do you really want techno Newt?
    Santorum, who backed Specter?

    simple process of elimination

    It’s Perry at the end of the day.

  29. Meh, all I know is my wife got banned from his place after she pointed out some of the reasons the Dems would love to run against Perry and the angles of attack they’d probably take during the general and even after if he might possibly be elected (this was weeks before the “oops” — and this may be bragging, but the missus correctly predicted that he’d have at least one of these).
    Granted, the picture she painted wasn’t a pretty one, but certainly not nasty (and for that place, positively kind and softly worded).  Plus, so far she’s been right on target with what she said would happen too — within a 5 meter zone in fact.  Guess that wasn’t the thing a lot of people wanted to hear.

  30. Dianna is exactly right about Perry’s introductory line, that is exactly what I still want to hear from a candidate and not wanting to make DC inconsequential is basically a deal breaker.
    Perry made the same mistake Cain did in not preparing for what should have been foreseeable. Perhaps he thought the not Romney spot was his for the taking. At any rate he was ill prepared to defend that position from his rivals within the primary race, a mistake Romney is making to some degree. If Romney is elected government will get bigger not smaller.

  32. Ace dove head first in the deep end of the tank for Perry from jump. He was positively vicious to any who questioned any of aspect of Perry’s record as did many of his minions. I believe he’s in the acceptance stage now.

  34. I generally read Ace’s main posts (not the comments) every day, and didn’t have that impression. That may have more to do with how insanely busy I’ve been than anything else, but I honestly missed that entirely.

  35. I can understand that all politicians including Bachmann are cautious with actual SS reforms, but she could at least start the debate with facts and be honest about our situation. Nope, she was right there with Romney attacking Perry when he stated – factually correct – that SS basicly works like a ponzi scheme. If she doesnt believe that citizens can handle the truth (and the following polls among seniors showed that she was wrong about that), how can she seriously think that they are capable to govern themselves?

  36. You may well be right.

    BTW, Perry DID have a very nice week/10 days early on, he was just in the zone swatting the issues at Obama, and the WH looked gawdawful lame trying to respond…So I have some hope he can get it back in gear.

    And, pace Stacey, I’ll always have a warm spot in my heart for the man who the Left guffawed at for 16 years right up until the day he buried them in the garbage heap of history by “doing the impossible,” and becoming the 1st Repub Speaker of the House in modern history.  Oh, and that was AFTER he buried Jim Wright and humiliated Tip O’Neill.
    Newt is without a doubt the man most hated by the left EVER, to include Ronald Reagan.

    No other living Repub has hurt the left as much as Newt has.  A track record DOES mean something to me.

  38. Well if you had commented there about the time Perry announced and oh….say expressed concern about Perry’s position on Islam you could have been characterized as Pam Geller’s night shift.

  39. “And tell Tabitha Hale I said, ‘Hi.'”

    OK, that’s the second funniest thing I’ve read in a week.

    I like a comedian who works in layers.

  40. No, no, no!… they reach up through the dirt from the graveyard.

    Even with a parachute, a zombie landing would be very messy.

  41. I think the Ace bashing is overstated, but his moody ranting brings it on.  He actually claimed the Palin family facing financial ruin due to the burden of nuisance lawsuits was nothing to justify her stepping down.  Like financial ruin is something everybody goes through all the time.  No big whoop.

    I think he must have grown up without the benefit of any elders who survived the depression.  My grandmother bought a huge roll of Christmas gift-wrapping paper at a going-out-of-business sale from the gift wrap department of a store back in about 1961.  She used that same roll of paper for ten years, and had 28 grandkids to wrap presents for. She was thrifty as you could possibly be.  She would never countenance being blase about financial ruin. Never in a million years.

    When each grandkid graduated high school, she gave them a passbook to a savings account she established for them years earlier.  She’d put fifty cents in it for you once in a while.  You might get thirty dollars or more out of the deal, and a lesson in savings you can not possibly forget.

    The “She quitted!!” folks never understood the simple economics of a household run by strongly self-dependent people.

  42. “I generally read Ace’s main posts (not the comments) every day…”

    Andrew Breitbart says you’re doing it wrong.

  43. Newt’s failings lead to Clinton winning re-election and a downward spiral for the GOP that culminated in a DEM takeover during the GWB era.

  44. K_Bob: “He actually claimed the Palin family facing financial ruin due to the burden of nuisance lawsuits was nothing to justify her stepping down…”

    I was on his ass (and a coblogger who shall remain nameless) about that over at least a couple posts. He was discounting if not actually ignoring facts early on WRT the “quitting” argument. It got heated but Ace was ultimately reasonably fair but not perfectly. It still sticks in my craw a bit as he was wont to disremember the facts in subsequent posts.

  45. Box of Rocks? Obama? I’ll take the Box of Rocks. No, I will enthusiastically VOTE for that Box of Rocks. The fate of the free world, no, the entire world, depends on it.

    C’mon, it’s not a damn popularity contest – it’s who can actually DO the job effectively, and like Newt or not, he commands the room, he commands during the debates, he knows his stuff, the legislature isn’t going to be able to pull the wool over his eyes… And you gotta admit, watching him eviscerate Obama, with or without the teleprompter, will be comedy gold.

    There will be no more voting on bills that haven’t been considered, or even read. There will be no “deem and pass.” For all his faults, Newt is a statesman.

    If he is the one who emerges as the skeletal Terminator, steel hardened by the torches of the gauntlet of fire, he will deserve your vote. NO matter what.

  47. Newt’s successes and a booming economy led to Clinton’s re-election. And I don’t think one can blame Newt for the GOP’s Caligula phase during the aughts.

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