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Moving right along, normally our Friday columns open with a bit of lighthearted news roundup, which is where I'd point out things like what Donald Trump is up to (always good for a laugh), and then move on to mutant butterflies in Japan due to radioactivity from their power plant disaster, which would end with a joke about Mothra.
With that "fair warning" out of the way, there are two highly amusing talking points coming from the Republican camp this week. If your irony-detector is as acute as mine, you'll appreciate the GOP completely and utterly destroying two of their bedrock positions just to score a few cheap political points. I don't know about you, but I find this sort of thing to be one of the more enjoyable forms of political entertainment around.
Getting back to Silly Season 2012 here in America, though -- this is, of course, the official time of year when all the politicians in Washington take (according to them) a well-deserved break from doing the job they're paid to do, to enjoy a luxurious five-week vacation. Because, as we all know, the nation's business has been so fully accomplished that there's really nothing more for Congress to do in August, so they might as well take the month off, right?
In a surprise announcement today, the International Olympic Committee has filed a lawsuit against Mitt Romney and his entire family. Not, as some might have expected, for his recent comments about the London Olympics, but rather because Mitt has been using the term "Romney Olympics" to describe a summer festival held at his palatial vacation home, up to and including this year. The I.O.C. is famously protective of the term "Olympics" and who is allowed to use it, and according to their press release, they are merely protecting their brand. No word on what financial penalty the I.O.C. will be seeking, as an I.O.C. spokesperson told us, "We're going to have to subpoena Mitt's tax returns before we can answer that." He also added, "Mitt's dancing horse will be disqualified from the dressage event, as well."
To begin, we're not going to have our normal partisan talking points today. We're going to follow the lead set by Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, and we're just not going to go there today. There will be plenty of time for many vicious partisan talking points in the upcoming weeks, never fear. But today, it just doesn't feel right.
Even Truman's infamous "Do-Nothing Congress" actually managed to get a lot more done than what we've got now, folks
Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, trapping you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.
All kidding aside, though, it certainly has been fun to see the other side spin. As a child's reader might put it: "See GOP spin. Spin, spin, spin! So sad, the spinning."
For political wonks, this has been a week of waiting. Starting last weekend, we've all been waiting for Mitt Romney to address the issue of Barack Obama's new immigration policy. This waiting has been fruitless, and will continue for some time to come, apparently. Picture a phone ringing endlessly with nobody there to answer it... but we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Marco Rubio's chances of becoming Mitt Romney's running mate just got a little worse. Granted, he is still a senator from Florida -- the biggest prize among the "battleground" states this November. But Rubio's signature issue was just completely and brilliantly co-opted by President Obama, which tends to significantly lessen Rubio's value to Romney as a vice presidential choice.