With friends like these

It’s steadily piling up with big name Republicans slamming Romney these days – behaving just like insubordinate Democrats!

Will: He’s hiding something.

On the tax returns:

George Will: “If something’s going to come out, get it out in a hurry. I do not know why, given that Mitt Romney knew the day that McCain lost in 2008 that he was going to run for president again that he didn’t get all of this out and tidy up some of his offshore accounts and all the rest. The cost of not releasing the returns are clear. Therefore, he must have calculated that there are higher costs in releasing them.”

GOP strategist Matthew Dowd: “There’s obviously something there, because if there was nothing there, he would say, ‘Have at it.’ So there’s obviously something there that compromises what he said in the past about something.”

William Kristol: “He should release the tax returns tomorrow. It’s crazy. You gotta release six, eight, 10 years of back tax returns. Take the hit for a day or two.”

Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley (R): “If you have things to hide, then maybe you’re doing things wrong. I think you ought to be willing to release everything to the American people.”

GOP strategist John Weaver: “There is no whining in politics. Stop demanding an apology, release your tax returns.”

..

Meanwhile, the Democrats are disciplined, in line, on message and consistent on the Bain Pain pile-driver. Welcome to Bizarro World.

Conservatives against the GOP.

Speaking out.

Not sure how many listen to George Will anymore, but, he’s starting to sound like a man without a country.

On the slut meme:

“Mr. Boehner comes out and says, Rush’s language was inappropriate. Using a salad fork for your entree, that’s inappropriate. Not this stuff. I mean, and Rick Santorum says well, what he says was absurd, but an entertainer is allowed to be absurd. No. It is the responsibility of conservatives to police the right in its excesses, just as the liberals unfailingly fail to police the excesses in their own side. And it was depressing, because what it indicates is that the Republican leaders are afraid of Rush Limbaugh. They want to bomb Iran, but they’re afraid of Rush Limbaugh.”

There you go.

Full story.

George Will gets to his senses.

Waking up.

After some years of drifting away from facts and moderate thinking – George Will seems to be back, at least for an op-ed, and hitting Republicans on the issue of, hold it.., security and defense spending.

And underlying theme might be that he’s starting to realize that the GOP of today by no means represents normal conservative thinking or values – but has become a strict obedient tool for a few donors. The young George Will might have seen this years ago.

Anyways – here’s the meat:

Hours — not months, not weeks, hours — after the last U.S. troops left Iraq, vicious political factionalism and sectarian violence intensified. Many Republicans say Barack Obama’s withdrawal — accompanied by his administration’s foolish praise of Iraq’s “stability” — has jeopardized what has been achieved there. But if it cannot survive a sunrise without fraying, how much of an achievement was it?

[..] The U.S. defense budget is about 43 percent of the world’s total military spending — more than the combined defense spending of the next 17 nations, many of which are U.S. allies. Are Republicans really going to warn voters that America will be imperiled if the defense budget is cut 8 percent from projections over the next decade? In 2017, defense spending would still be more than that of the next 10 countries combined.

[..] Osama bin Laden and many other “high-value targets” are dead, the drone war is being waged more vigorously than ever, and Guantanamo is still open, so Republicans can hardly say that Obama has implemented dramatic and dangerous discontinuities regarding counterterrorism. Obama says that, even with his proposed cuts, the defense budget would increase at about the rate of inflation through the next decade. Republicans who think America is being endangered by “appeasement” and military parsimony have worked that pedal on their organ quite enough.

Full op-ed.

From dreams to violence in one year.

Lots of columns and op-eds these days – on shift in foreign policy, rhetorics and change of tone and focus. NYDailyNews, George Will or Haaretz are just some of the latest.

It’s hard to say something new on the subject, but it’s still baffling the whole thing.
Stumbled upon the “Audacity of Hope” in a bookstore yesterday, and some faint quotes came up… “eternal optimist”, “vision of change”, “beyond political games”…

And now; “violence is just and necessary”.
What a difference a year makes..