The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Some Things Never Change

Posted on | January 19, 2012 | 19 Comments

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C.
During tonight’s debate, Mitt Romney started talking about his father, George Romney, the former governor of Michigan who ran unsuccessfully for president in 1968 and subsequently served in Nixon’s cabinet. When I heard that, I reached into my computer bag and retrieved a book I carry with me everywhere on the campaign trail.

“I went to Nixon’s inauguration [in January 1969]. Washington was a sea of mud and freezing rain. As the Inaugural Parade neared the corner of 16th and Pennsylvania Avenue, some freak threw a half-gallon wine jug at the convertible carrying the commandant of the Marine Corps . . . and as one-time Presidential candidate George Romney passed by in his new role as Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, the mob on the sidewalk began chanting, ‘Romney eats shit! Romney eats shit!’”
— Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72

Category: Debates, Fear and Loathing in South Carolina, Fear. Loathing., Mitt Romney, South Carolina

Comments

19 Responses to “Some Things Never Change”

  1. Donald Douglas
    January 19th, 2012 @ 10:32 pm

    Here’s the video of Newt response to his wife’s allegations: ‘Does Angry Bellowing Help Newt Gingrich in South Carolina’s Primary?’ 

  2. newrouter
    January 19th, 2012 @ 10:35 pm

    mr. rick did good tonight

  3. Anonymous
    January 19th, 2012 @ 10:53 pm

    I pray that the dull, career politician, business novice version of Herman Cain…i.e. Rick Santorum…can pull this thing out….lest we end up with a RINO or another 4 years of Obama.

  4. Adjoran
    January 19th, 2012 @ 10:55 pm

    George Romney released his tax returns not because of the media inquiry or problems it might have caused – in those days, it was an unheard-of invasion of privacy even for a Presidential candidate – but for purely political reasons.  His opponents for the nomination the next year would be Nelson Rockefeller who inherited a share of the great Rockefeller oil fortune and Richard Nixon, who had spent the last few years as the marquee partner for a prestigious NYC law firm without actually doing any legal work.

    Somehow this grew into a requirement of nominees, and apparently now of candidates for the nomination.  Why it is imperative to release all this before the SC primary is a new rule this year, proposed by the Not Romneys (except Paul) and unanimously adopted by the media.

    The people chanting obscenities along the route to Nixon’s inauguration were filthy leftist scum, most of who are either elected Democrats, tenured academics, or media talking heads today.

  5. Duke Chesnut
    January 19th, 2012 @ 11:43 pm

    yeah, another classy statement from Hunter S. Thompson. Expect no less from a man that would fall off the bar stool in Woody Creek Tavern almost any night, unless the Pitkin Sheriffs Deputys drove him home or to jail. RIP

  6. Denverwindowwashing
    January 20th, 2012 @ 3:01 am

    Shotgun suicide, grandchildren near, is a ruthless, to use your term, phrase to describe HST.

    So what I mean to say is What did Koestler mean by “ruthless” and why did he legendanize it?

    https://cumulus.hillsdale.edu/Buckley/

  7. Anonymous
    January 20th, 2012 @ 7:21 am

    Donald, maybe I’ve just been conditioned by such lovely examples of feminist “justice” as the Duke rape case, but I always give the guy the benefit of the doubt when it’s merely “he said, she said”. Physical evidence (photos, tapes, bruises) or it didn’t happen.

    The ex Mrs Gingrich can claim that Newt was into three-way cream cheese llama bondage if she wants to, but unless there’s a Philly Cream Cheese Company receipt in the company’s files showing a semi-trailer load was delivered the same day as an order from Exotic Pets and Tony Llama Saddle Company, no sale.

  8. Adjoran
    January 20th, 2012 @ 7:37 am

    Graham didn’t endorse and is apparently a spineless weasel for it.  DeMint didn’t endorse and . . . hmmm, but why would we expect consistency?

  9. ThePaganTemple
    January 20th, 2012 @ 7:55 am

    DeMint just doesn’t want to step on anybody’s toes. Neither does Graham. There’s your consistency. DeMint is probably reasonably sure Romney is going to be the nominee. At least he hasn’t, at least so far, sold his endorsement like one certain female so-called “conservative” and make-believe Tea Party governor whose name I won’t mention. 

  10. Sven
    January 20th, 2012 @ 8:06 am

    Thompson was a failure as a journalist. Crippled by addiction, he routinely failed to get the story he was sent to cover–and so ended up writing repeatedly about himself instead. Descriptions of getting wasted, oversleeping, and runing late…what dreck! Even the best writers bore when they write about themselves — see Didion and Solzhenitzen for examples. In flaunting his dissolution and his misanthropic hatred, Thompson mined the false progressive conceits that subversion defines art, and that the bottle is a wellspring of creativity. Lefties loved him for it. In an age that embraced Warholian schlock and counterculture freakiness,  Thompson’s personal and professional shortcomings made him a celebrity, and being famous for being famous made him wealthy. But as that shotgun blast proved with finality, none of it ever made him happy.

  11. Anonymous
    January 20th, 2012 @ 8:36 am

    It’s the little things we remember that mean so much.

  12. Bob Belvedere
    January 20th, 2012 @ 9:20 am

    three-way cream cheese llama bondage

    I’m interested in knowing more.

  13. richard mcenroe
    January 20th, 2012 @ 10:39 am

    I can’t believe I’m writing this, but…. thank you, ABC… 
     http://tinyurl.com/6wduqkl

  14. Anonymous
    January 20th, 2012 @ 1:02 pm

    It’s a reference from “Island in the Sea of Time” by S.M. Stirling. One of the main characters is a Coast Guard officer who happens to be gay. The head of state is mulling over whether he’ll have the votes at the Town Meeting for allowing “gay marraige”, and decides to spread the word among her crew that the officer is in favor of it.

    “She had more scruples than to mention it, but her crew would vote for three way cream cheese llama bondage being legal if they knew she supported it.”

  15. Anonymous
    January 20th, 2012 @ 1:39 pm

    llama!  It’s what’s for dinner!  
    A tale of two debate responses and a question why the GOP does not do its own debates…

  16. Anonymous
    January 20th, 2012 @ 1:42 pm

    I liked S.M. Stirling when he could do a concept in three books (the Nantuckett series).  The alternative Emberverse series is at something like fifty or so volumes (I lost count).  Let me know when Stirling figures out who the Alien Space Bats are who did all he describes.    

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