Another Bad Week For Mittens

I said in an earlier post that I'm always intrigued when a conservative, or a Republican, criticizes one of their own. Now in the wake of Mitt Romney's "47%" statements, both Mark McKinnon, who was a political strategist/communications guru for President Bush's re-election campaign in 2004 and also an advisor to John McCain during the 2008 primaries, and Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan, are reluctantly falling out of love with Mittens. Says Mr. McKinnon, referring to Michelle Obama's comment in her convention speech that "a presidency reveals who you are," "Mark me down as one Republican who is not happy with what is being revealed about Mitt Romney." And Ms. Noonan: "This is not how big leaders talk, it's how shallow campaign operatives talk... It's time to admit that the Romney campaign is an incompetent one. It's not big. It's not brave. It's not thoughtfully talking about great issues." To use one of my favorite blog words, Yowza.

Friday morning update:  Peggy Noonan clarifies her thoughts. Double yowza.

"This week I called [the Romney campaign] incompetent, but only because I was being polite. I really meant "rolling calamity." A lot of people weighed in, in I suppose expected ways: "Glad you said this," "Mad you said this." But, some surprises. No one that I know of defended the campaign or argued "you're missing some of its quiet excellence," - Peggy Noonan.

Musings From The Leeward Side

Aloha from the beautiful island of Oahu! It's been over 10 years since I've been here and it's just delightful - I'm definitely not going to wait another 10 years to come back.

Yesterday we toured the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor and the USS Missouri Memorial, both of which were fascinating and very moving. I was surprised to learn that after 71 years since the attack in 1941, there are 13 Pearl Harbor survivors still living. When a survivor dies, if the family wishes, the Navy will conduct a memorial service out on the white Arizona memorial structure, then send a diver with the cremated remains down under the water. The specially packaged remains are then inserted into a crack in the Arizona, allowing the veteran to be interred with his fallen comrades for all eternity.

On the Missouri, I was most intrigued to see the actual site of the Japanese surrender, which brought World War II to an end. My favorite tidbit:  As they were setting up for the ceremony on the deck of the Missouri, apparently General Douglas MacArthur arranged for the tallest soldiers and sailors on the ship to be lined up along the pathway where the Japanese officials would walk - one last bit of in-your-face intimidation for the much-shorter representatives from Japan.

On a much lighter note, we purchased inflatable rafts at the local ABC store, and since I have pretty good lungs, I figured it would be no big deal to take a few deep breaths and blow mine up. Ha! I gave it a good shot but eventually caved and asked the nice young man at the activities shack for help. It took him about 7 seconds to inflate my raft using his cool compressed air machine, and he charged me $5.25, which was more than I paid for the actual raft. Quite the racket he's got going, but who cares. I was ready to hit the waves.

In other raft news, my b-i-l Kevin kindly let a stranger at the beach "borrow" my sister's raft, for what was supposed to be a few minutes. The next thing we knew the guy's floating in the direction of Tahiti and the raft was never seen again.

Hawaii, as always, is delightfully multi-cultural. On our guided tour to the Arizona/Missouri memorials, I was struck by the diverse make-up of our group. In addition to Americans from Oregon, Illinois and Pennsylvania, there were visitors from Australia, Canada and even Bulgaria. Hawaii must have become a big vacation destination down under because I'm hearing a lot of Australian accents, which I don't remember from the last time I was here.

Apparently the Hilton Hawaiian Village, where we're staying, is frequently used as a set for Hawaii Five-O. We haven't seen Alex O'Loughlin, shirt on or shirt off, yet, but we're keeping our eyes peeled.

Final thought for now: I really like spray-on sunscreen. It makes it so much easier to "grease up" then the messy cream in a tube.

Her First Guest Was Jessica Simpson???

I didn't see Katie Couric's new talk show today, but based on Howard Kurtz's review at the Daily Beast, it doesn't sound as if it was anything very exciting. ABC's been hyping this show for over a year, and on day one the big guest is Jessica Simpson?? Is that really the best Katie Couric could do? Sheryl Crow was on as well, but still. It certainly doesn't sound very earth-shattering/format-busting to me. Now I'm really interested to see if Katie can make this work.

Here Comes Honey Boo Boo And Other TV Updates

I had intended for this blog to be a Boo Boo-free zone.  I figured pretty much everything there is to say had been said elsewhere:  it's a new low, it's exploitative, it's the end of civilization as we know it; countered by no, the family gets the joke, they're laughing all the way to the bank, etc. Then I saw this item in the current issue of TVGuide:  "On August 29, Honey Boo Boo was the top-rated show at 10 p.m. with adults 18-49." Wow. I'm trying to think of something profound, or even profoundly snarky to say about all this and so far, inspiration isn't striking, so I'm stuck with Wow.

In other Reality TV news, I've been having some fun with Snooki, her new baby and the cover of People magazine, but I admit I don't take Snooki very seriously. Then I read that she makes $150,000 per episode of Jersey Shore. Can that be true? I've been known to say that when I was in school, back in the day, we didn't know that in the future Food Network Chef was going to be a career option. Obviously "falling down drunk jersey girl" is a pretty good career option, too.

Who will be the next Bachelor? ABC should be making the big announcement any day now, perhaps even tonight during the finale of Bachelor Pad. Over the week-end producers announced that after an audition, they've decided not to give Ryan Lochte the rose, which was probably predictable. Reality Steve said a few months ago that it will be Roberto, who's now single after he and Ali broke up, and Arie and Sean from Emily's season are apparently also in contention, although Arie's been quoted as saying it's not him. For the record, I'm rooting for Roberto. Stay tuned, Bachelor fans, we'll know soon.

Finally, today is the premiere of Katie Couric's new talk show and I'm interested to see how it goes. Does the world really need another television talk-fest? To put it another way, can Katie really bring anything new to the table? Many, many talk shows have been launched with great fanfare then ignominiously cancelled a  few months or a season later. Will Katie be different? She was beloved and hugely successful on the Today show, (which, by the way, is probably fervently wishing they could have her back,) and maybe she does have just the right combination of luck, timing and interesting things to say and her show will be a big hit.  Her promo on Good Morning, America this morning struck me as "same old, same old," but maybe I'm wrong.  In Chicagoland "Katie" comes on at 3.00 p.m., and Ellen, Rikki Lake and Dr. Phil are all doing their talk show thing in the same time slot. Is there an audience for Katie?  We'll see.  

Snooki, Yes, One Week Later

It turns out I wasn't wrong, just a week early. Snooki and her baby are indeed the cover story on the current issue of  People magazine. I've never watched Jersey Shore and I'm proud to declare that I don't really know that much about Snooki, but obviously she's important enough in pop culture terms that People put her on the cover, which is really depressing to me.  

Over-Egging The Pudding

I really hadn't intended to say anything else about Paul Ryan's marathon time, but then I couldn't resist linking to this article on the BBC News website. It's always interesting to me to see how American politics is playing in other countries, but what really got to me this time was the oh-so-British expression in the 4th paragraph from the end. I'd never heard of "over-egging the pudding," meaning to exaggerate, but it's definitely in my head now. I can't wait to have a chance to use it in a sentence.

Doesn't He Know This Stuff Can Be Fact-Checked, Part 2

In a previous post, I wrote admiringly about the fitness level of all four of the current Pres/VP candidates, including a "wow" for ultra-fit Paul Ryan. Now we learn he even runs marathons, with a personal best of under three hours. Except, oops, once again Ryan's been caught saying something that's easily verifiable as not true. In an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt, Ryan said his best marathon time was under three hours, specifically "two hour and fifty-something." It didn't take much effort for Runner's World magazine and others to determine that in fact his time was just over four hours. Details here and here.

Political narratives frequently take on a life of their own, and my favorite political scientist/blogger, Jonathan Bernstein, says Ryan's in real danger of ruining his reputation as "a wonk and a truth teller." In particular, he notes that once political reporters get an idea in their heads, such as "Paul Ryan sometimes tells lies", they start checking and digging and investigating and once that starts, who knows what they might find. As James Fallows notes in the article I linked to above, we've all exaggerated about something or other to make ourselves look better. In and of itself, Paul Ryan's marathon time isn't that big of a deal. If it's what creates the tipping point of the "Ryan is untruthful" narrative, it will turn out to be a very big deal indeed.

Saturday afternoon update: Although Congressman Ryan used the word "marathons" in his conversation with Hewitt, Runner's World has confirmed that he has only run one.