The Greatest Hits of Mitt Romney

For almost two years, he was a part of our lives.
Now he's gone...

Don't forget him the way he's forgotten you! 

Especially if you're one of the 47%.

Now, for the first time 
from 

BOOKS
comes

The Nouveau Old, Formerly Cute

Greatest Hits of Mitt Romney

  You get these great Mitt classics:

Whatever It Is, I'm Against It 
With Groucho Marx' classic song playing throughout, Mitt explains
how he manages to be against everything and for nothing ... with hilarious results!

You're No Ronald Reagan 
Co-starring Newt Gingrich, two feisty GOP candidates scramble all over each other to prove who's more like Ronald Reagan until the Great Communicator himself has to intervene from the Great Beyond to settle the score!

Super Mitt, Olympics Savior!
Mitt dons his red cape to save the Olympics and bend steel in his bare hands --- a hapless steel company Bain Investments buys and dismantles, that is!

Plus the Crowd-Pleasing Favorite

The Openly Gray/Bi-Positional Candidate
Mitt comes out of the closet as openly gray and bi-positional, always taking both sides of every issue. But even though he's openly gray, he's hardly the first ever bi-positional candidate!

And there's even more!
You get absolutely free these 
GOP Based Classics: 

The Impossible Dream 
Dick Cheney has long harbored an Impossible Dream; 
 now at long last he's going to become the true Dick he's always longed to be!

Fat Chance
He may be the rising star of the Republican Party but it's his rising moon that's the problem.  Here's the skinny on Governor Christie! 

An Open Letter to the Non-Millionaires of America
The GOP begins its outreach to a class of voters it's never reached out to before.
 No argyle sweater?  We'll wait while you buy one!


You couldn't find these posts individually
 without subjecting yourself for minutes at a time 
to Perry's lame website, but now 
Time-Life Books has compiled them all for you! 

The Nouveau Old, Formerly Cute

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But wait!
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And there's even more!
Act in the next ten minutes and you also get this
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That President!
Though conservative pundits may call him "this President," the rest of the world loves the cute, spunky, totally adorable head of state known as "That President!" 

This offer is not available in any store.
And if it were, it would be in a bin in the back
 for about a quarter or something.

 New 
from

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Call 1 800 BYE MITT.  Operators are standing by.  Visa and MasterCard accepted. Void where prohibited by law which ought to be everywhere.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Eye of the Be-Voter

You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of the imagination. There's the signpost up ahead --- Emergency Pull-Off, which has always struck me as kind of funny unless you're 16 years old and you're feeling ... 

No, no, wait!   I mean, there's the signpost up ahead, your next stop:

The Twilight Zone

Submitted for your approval, one candidate for the highly elusive office known as President of the United States.  A man who has everything the job seems to require --- a nimble mind, a grasp of the affairs of humankind, and a record of political contribution in one of the great states of the Union.  But this man also has a flaw, a dark forbidding flaw that casts doubt over all he's hoped and striven for.  This man has all the charisma of a room temperature bowl of Cream of Wheat!

One man, one tragic flaw, about to enter The Twilight Zone.

"What a tragedy, doctor!  All that ability, political service in the state of Massachusetts, burning desire for the job and yet ... all the personality of a casaba melon!"

"Even less, I'm afraid, nurse. Our cardiac surgeons have been asking him to give campaign speeches to their pre-operative patients in lieu of an anesthetic.  Seems to be working fine, with way fewer side effects than anything else!"

"Has our treatment worked, doctor?"

"It's too soon to tell.  Charisma transplants have been tried before but none have succeeded.  The last one I attempted was on a stultifyingly boring preppy woman named Martha something or other.  It failed dismally, but I heard she was able to find work on daytime television."

"Nurse!  Nurse, I need you!"

"Yes, sir, I'm here." 

"Nurse, I'm feeling a little stronger now.  I'd like to work on my inauguration speech.  I must know if the charisma transplant has worked!"

"Please, sir, don't try it yet!"

"Nurse, you just don't know what my life has been like! My earliest memory is of people yawning whenever I came near.  In school whenever I was speaking in class, teachers used to put a mirror up to my nose to see if I was breathing!" 

"Even now when I'm making love to my wife, she doodles on my back!  It's been a nightmare, do you understand, nurse?!   A nightmare!!  Nurse?!  Nurse?!!

"Zzzzzzz."

Commercial Message. 

"Now, sir, it's come time to remove the bandages and find out whether the procedure has succeeded. When the last bandage is removed, please begin reciting your proposed inauguration speech."

Round and round the bandages are unraveled. The first rays of light begin to appear to the patient's eyes through the continued unraveling of the layers of bandage, breaking through at last into his private world of darkness.

"Now, sir, begin!"

"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country!"

"NO CHANGE!  NO CHANGE!  He's still boring as hell!"

"Doctor, he'll never be President now!" 

Submitted for your approval, one political candidate from Massachusetts named John Fitzgerald Kennedy.  Now the question may be asked "where is this time and place where somebody like Mitt Romney might be considered a cool guy?" The answer is "it doesn't really matter." 

For charisma truly is in the eye of the be-voter. 

Lesson to be learned in this thankfully non-Presidential election year of 2013 or any other, both on Earth and in  ... 

The Twilight Zone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And you didn't think I was capable of a true Twilight Zone ending!

(And thank you to Rod Serling for The Eye of the Beholder, the great Twilight Zone episode on which this humble parody is based.)

You Say You Want a Resolution?

You say you want a resolution?

Actually, you don't.  You should want to make a resolution for 2013 about as much as you want discretion lessons from General Petraeus. 

New Year's resolutions are the source of more guilt than a battalion of Jewish mothers.  A 2007 survey showed that 88% of all people who set New Year's resolutions fail to keep them, a figure we know to be reliable because the researcher performing the survey had resolved for 2007 to be slipshod and inaccurate in surveys about resolutions.

And face facts: there's little doubt the 12% of folks who actually succeed with their resolutions have been keeping every one made since birth, unlike you and me who've been breaking them regularly since we first resolved to stop sucking on our pacifiers in the middle of the last century. 

So you still say you want a resolution?  Here's why you don't:

1) Increase your vocabulary. 
Want to start throwing words like indolent and ingenuous around?   Dude, you're not about to be hired by the New York Review of Books and the lazy and simple-minded idiots you hang with wouldn't understand you anyway.

2) Get a better job.
In this economy?  Look, you're putting food on the table.  Granted it's a very small table.

3) Stop your excessive drinking.
Instead, join the Republican Party; you'll learn all about the wasteful federal programs for the 47% who won't take responsibility for their own lives.  Sign up for each one and pretty soon you'll be living better than Mitt Romney.  And you'll still be drinking!

4) Watch less television.
There's a rumor Kim Kardashian might take off her top this year.  You going to miss that? 

5)  Lose weight.
So you get on a scale and it makes a highly audible "BOINGGG" sound and the needle spins like a seismograph in the middle of an earthquake. Sure, you could resolve to lose weight but if you're over 45 nobody's going to want to have sex with you anyway. Relax and enjoy the Swedish meatballs. 

6) Stop procrastinating
I'll come up with a rationalization for this one later.

7) Volunteer to help those suffering through a disaster.  
 Why? What did the victims of Hurricane Sandy ever do for you all the years you were married?

8) Join a gym.
Gyms and fitness centers in January look like the national convention of the American Society of Endormorphs & Ectomorphs. By February they resemble a 3-D audiovisual depiction of your social life.  Why hand money over to a cynical corporation so thoroughly on to you?

9)  Stop Biting Your Nails.
Yeah, you could do this. Odds are you're going to wind up biting something else, like my nails or the nails of the guy on the bus next to you. 

10) Be a Better Person.
You?

Hope all of this is helpful.  But what, after all, is the one true reason that you ought to never say you want a resolution?

That's the one.

Happy New Year! 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My Luncheon with Barack

Today for the first time since the Presidential election, President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney got together for a luncheon meeting at the White House.  With Americans at fever pitch to know exactly what took place, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney issued the following statement late Thursday:

"I am pleased to announce that  President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney joined together today for a special luncheon meeting to discuss their respective ideas for the future of the United States of America.  

After greeting one another in the Oval Office,  Mr. Romney offered his gracious wishes to the President for a successful four-year term to which the two toasted with a glass apiece of  Moet and Chandon Dom Perignon White Gold 1995, both men pronouncing it to be 'exhilarating yet not pretentious.'
  
Retiring to the White House Dining Room for the formal meal, Mr. Obama enjoyed oysters with carbonated lemon and fennel and Mr. Romney a salad of fall greens with English cucumber and bell radishes for which he selected a discrete dash of pepper from a properly over-sized wooden pepper mill. Mr. Obama declared his first course 'molto bene,' and Mr. Romney adjudged his 'excellent roughage.'

For their main courses, the President feasted upon grilled longfin tuna with pumpkin seed, eggplant puree, and sganarelle and Mr.Romney upon the slow roasted quail with creamed cunegonde, broccoli, and gremolata. Each man next eagerly loosened his belt to make ready for the final course of Turkish Coffee and Flaming Bananas Foster prepared table side and tres forte on the rum!

Deliciouso!

The President and Mr. Romney then  retired to the Oval Office where they enjoyed a snifter of finest White House brandy and a couple of excellent but odoriferous Nicaraguan cigars and agreed that everything possible must be done to avoid going over the fiscal cliff because the finest and most succulent seafood is on this side of the cliff!

The President and Governor Romney shook hands and agreed they would meet again shortly for another meal,  Governor Romney promising next time he'd pick up the check provided Mr. Obama doesn't raise his taxes too much.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Yummy, Mr. President!  Double Yummy!"

A Long Strange Trip

What a long strange trip it's been!

We've had:

• Flavors of the month 
• Brain farts 
• Flip flops 
• Vacant stares
• Job creators
• Foot long hot dogs 
• Unproven evolution 
• Family values
• Invented people
•  $10,000 bets
• "Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan"
• Smoking in the commercial
• Huntsman in, Huntsman out
• Bachmann in,  Bachmann out
• Perry in, Perry out
• Cain in, Cain out
• Cain in, out, in, out, in, out - allegedly!
• The bane of Bain
• Santorum and Jesus 
• Newt  in, Newt out
• Climate Change, What Me Worry? 
• Cut the deficit
• Tax the rich
• Paul in, Paul out
• Santorum in, Santorum out 
• 12 million jobs
• Arithmetic
• Safety nets
• Didn't build that
• Clinton to the rescue
• Eddie Munster
• 47%
• Obama asleep
• Mitt moderates
• Fire Big Bird!
• Body shut downs
• God digs rape
• Biden's ridin'
• Oh, Sandy,
• "Oh, Barack!"

and then, an election that's over in a couple of hours.

Two years of campaigning, negative advertising,  lies and distortions, untold dollars spent,  and thousands upon thousands upon thousands of hours focused on polls and politicking instead of solving the nation's problems, all leading up to maybe four hours or so of suspense.  

That's like two hours of foreplay followed by less than a half-second of sex.

Something's wrong.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Legendary Jewish Vampire, Vlad The Retailer

So, I like shiksehs ...

The times had not been particularly kind of late for the Legendary Jewish Vampire, Vlad the Retailer.

It was  early November and even the normally joyous holiday of Halloween had failed to cheer Vlad.  Like many in the current American economy, the Legendary Jewish Vampire was in a desperate straits. During the final days of the Vampire Boom several years ago vampires had become as overexposed as "Honey Boo Boo" and Vlad had found himself wholly unable to make a halfway decent Unliving.

This was also an election year in the United States of America.  Vlad had not voted in an American election since 1908 when he cast his ballot for William Howard Taft but less because of any keen analysis of the issues than because for a vampire Mr. Taft was such incredible eye candy.

As of today still one of the Undead undecided,  Vlad had to ask himself the key question: 

"Am I better off now than I was 400 years ago?"

Back in those days, things weren't easy for a Jewish vampire.  Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition,  but Vlad the Retailer expected it every morning about 8:00 and never later than 8:35  even on days the Grand Inquisitor would sleep in. 

In hopes of finding acceptance  in Renaissance society,  Vlad had taken up painting, and his sensitive Abbott & Costello Meet the Virgin and Child  did in fact achieve some modest renown as one of the finer paint-by-numbers canvases of the period.  Yet his art career foundered when a commissioned still life turned out to be way more still than life, and Vlad found himself fleeing from angry mobs decrying him a fiend, a demon,  and a monster, and they didn't like the fact that he was a vampire either.

Vlad chowed down on a Corned Beef Special --- consisting of corned beef, cole slaw, and some random guy from St. Petersburg in the act of pulling up his pants (aka Russian dressing) ---  and thought over the choices in the upcoming election. 

True,  President Barack Obama sometimes failed to come through on promises he had made, but he had never made any promises regarding Vlad's main issue of concern, a sane national policy of Garlic Control. Vlad understood that the National Garlic Association (NGA) was just too strong both in terms of political power and smell.   

Joe Biden seemed like a decent chap, Vlad thought, but he was not fond of Mr. Biden's home state of Delaware where Vlad  had spent 100 years one weekend.

On the other side was Governor Mitt Romney and Congressman Paul Ryan.  But Governor Romney tended to flip flop like a latke on a hot griddle cooked by a nervous vampire at daybreak, and Representative Ryan looked too much like Eddie Munster.   

"I'm not prejudiced," thought Vlad, "but I'm just not ready for a werewolf Vice-President."   

Vlad made his way to the nearby voting place where he found himself deluged by multiple persons pressing political flyers into his hands.

"Vote for Governor Romney," said one. "Here's a list of his positions, updated daily." 

"Here's a rundown of Barack Obama's key positions," said another.  "For starters,  he's not Mitt Romney...""

"That's probably enough,"  said Vlad. 

Entering the polling place, Vlad signed in with the volunteer at the desk before him.

"We're gonna need picture ID," she said.

"I'm afraid that's impossible,"  replied Vlad.  "I don't cast a reflection in a mirror and no camera can photograph my image."

"Sounds like you need to upgrade to a smart phone, sir."

"No, you fool," bellowed  Vlad, "I'm a vampire!"

"Wonderful!"  said the volunteer.  "The photo ID requirement's  supposed to weed out minorities and it's working perfectly!"

"I'm also Jewish."

"Bingo, two for two!"

Following a bit of persuasion followed by a bite of persuasion, Vlad was able to enter the voting booth and exercise his franchise.  As he exited the booth,  he felt proud that he had taken part in a great American process almost as old as he was and proud that at his age he was able to exercise anything, let alone his franchise.  

Vlad lifted his arms and, gently holding the corners of  his cape,  leaped high into the air.  A bat flew off into the night.  A circumcised bat, but a bat nonetheless. 

Vlad thought maybe he'd grab himself a quick bite and then go home and watch the returns with Wolf Blitzer. 

"Good old Wolf Blitzer," thought the Legendary Jewish Vampire, Vlad the Retailer.  

"Nice Jewish boy, but I can't stand that first name!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Legendary Jewish Vampire,  Vlad ...

That's Funny!

Big Bird, Eight Years Hence

I fairly well couldn't believe it!

Hurrying through the East Concourse of Suburban Station in downtown Philadelphia, I almost tripped over him.

"Big Bird!  What the hell happened to you?!!

"It was that damn first debate ... yes, it was that first debate ... that's when it all started, that first ...."  

"Talk sense, Big Bird.  That' s when what started?"

"Day One of his presidency, Mitt Romney swept through Sesame Street with a gang of street toughs.  Two big guys held Elmo on either side while Paul Ryan beat the .... it wasn't a pretty sight!"

"Oh, Big Bird, I didn't know."'

"That's nothing, what happened to David McCullough was even worse!"

"What could possibly be worse?" 

"You've seen Pulp Fiction?"

"But where's everyone who used to live on Sesame Street?"

"Romney and his thugs dispersed us to the four corners of the Earth.  It became known as The New Diaspora, only instead of with Jews it was with hand puppets."

"Why couldn't you get some kind of  job?"

"I'm an eight foot bird with the mind of a child,  genius!  The only thing I got offered was  Greeter in Vegas."

"Couldn't you have gone on the government dole like the other members of the 47%?"

"Are you nuts? President Romney talks all the time about how he hates our guts!"

"Yes, but isn't there something you could ...?

"Buddy, the only social program left is AFDCEO,  Aid to Families with  Dependent CEOs."

"Here, Big Bird. Take this."

"Seventy-five cents?  Thanks, Diamond Jim!"

"Now where are you going ?"

"Over to the West Concourse."

"Why?"

"More Republican riders there, way better handouts!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Elmo have multiple contusions, broken bones,

 and a very battered ego.

Lower Your Expectations!

It's fairly standard practice in the days leading up to a Presidential Debate for both sides to busily go about "lowering expectations." 

That is, minimizing your own candidate's debating abilities and style in such a manner that if he does indeed get his ass kicked, he can still claim to have sort of a nice ass. Following his less than stellar first debate, President Obama today unveiled a hastily revamped strategy for the rest of the campaign, centered upon the slogan:

Obama 2012:  
Knew I Shouldda Taken Debating! 

"I don't have a chance in these debates!" said the President speaking in Madison WI. "I'm just a humble tongue-tied community organizer from Chicago up against the Winston Churchill of our Times!" 

"Mitt Romney is a smooth talkin' rich white guy with distinguished  graying temples and just the right dab of grease in his hair," admitted senior campaign adviser David Axelrod. "The President has big ears and speaks in a faltering kind of stutter-stop manner.  He really should have taken Debating in high school!"

The "Knew I Shouldda Taken Debating!" slogan will shortly begin appearing on bumper stickers and lunch boxes as well as elsewhere throughout the Obama campaign.

"If things continue like this," said the President, "I wouldn't be surprised if come November I find my ass strapped to the roof of Mitt Romney's car!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tales of the 47 Percent & Other Divertissements

Sofa,  So Bad

It should come as little surprise to anyone that Clint Eastwood's bizarre appearance before the Republican National Convention a few weeks ago featured a chair. 

After all, Mr. Eastwood's obsession with home furnishings has long been known.  He began his career starring in a TV series whose theme song was:

Keep Rollin', Rollin', Rollin',
Though the streams are swollen,
Keep them dawwgies rollin', Naugahyde! 

Then he moved on to star in a number of spaghetti westerns playing the role of a mysterious stranger known as The Man with No Lamé  and finally as Detective Harry Callahan uttered one of the most famous catchphrases in all of motion picture history: 

Go Ahead, Make My Bed! 

Now I don't mean to couch my comments or table any points for discussion but whoever it was furnished the go-ahead for Mr. Eastwood to appear at the RNC?

That guy had to be futon crazy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tales of the 47 Percent

Hector:  Hey, Madge, being how youse is up, wouldja get me another eight pound bag of cheese doodles?  

Madge:  Yeah, Hector, soon as Keepin' Your Intellect Down with the Kardashians is over.

Hector:  Madge, did the Welfare check come in yet?  I got me the Disability (wink) check and the Food Stamps right here.

Madge:  It's in, Hector, along with the Beaujolais Stamps and the Cocaine Stamps.    

Hector:  Ain't government entitlement grand, Madge?!

Madge:  Say, Hector, didja take care of them picture IDs for us for the election? 

Hector:  Of course.  We just gotta vote in this election!  How about that Mitt Romney guy anyway?!!!

Madge: Yeah!  Born with a silver spoon up his butt!

Hector: All he does is spend his days runnin' around makin' boring speeches and changin' his mind about stuff. 

Madge: And he acts like he's entitled to be president or something!

Hector:  How can you not love a guy who does nothin' at all and has a humongous sense of entitlement?  

Madge: Yeah, he's our man, LET'S GO, MITT!!!  But know what, Hector?

Hector:  What's that, Madge?

Madge:  (serious) One day we really ought to quit being victims, take some personal responsibility, and start to care about our lives. 

Hector:  (concerned) Really?

Madge:  (breaking out in laughter)  No,  of course not, you idiot!

Hector:  (relieved) Race you to the cheese doodles, my girl!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ten-ish, Anyone? 

It isn't always just Republicans saying and doing goofy things these days.

Last week President Barack Obama appeared on The David Letterman Show and while he did well in the interview with Dave, he might have been better advised to bypass the opening Top Ten List.

Did you happen to see it? 

Top Ten Reasons I, President Barack Obama, 
Decided To Do The David Letterman Show

10) Because I couldn't trust Biden not to fuck it up!   

9) Unlike my opponent, I need the money. 

8) So quiet in the world,  not a blessed thing to do tonight.

7) If Clinton went on, I'd have to kiss his ass for another three weeks!

6) Needed to cheer myself up after a good cry with John Boehner.

5) Always wanted to palm Paul Shaffer's head like a basketball. 

4) Dave promised me I'd get to meet Clint Eastwood.

3) After the end credits, I get to say "I'm Barack Obama and I approve this stupid TV show!"

2) Michelle cancelled, they needed a last minute replacement. 

And the Number One reason I decided to do The David Letterman Show is: 

1) Dreamt of being on Letterman ever since I was a boy in Kenya.  Oooops!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~