The Republican primaries really are going to be a gigantic train wreck, aren't they?

This makes me so happy. Can we call him Generalissimo Romney for the rest of the campaign? Not that it's important, or means anything, but it certainly is fun.

As you trade unionists like to say, Arbeit Macht Frei ...

Makes you wish you could force an election within 3 months. Whatever the mood a year from November, it's bound to be different.

Also, not really a gaffe but still clearly from the same playbook.

Seems to be a gaffe-plagued household.

I love the photo in the Boston Herald article.

Next Romney speech:

"I'd like to thank AIPAC for inviting me, I think we can work together to bring freedom to the middle east. As the saying goes, arbeit macht frei"

Yeah, what's with the hat?

This may be linked above, but he's also said that his missionary trip to France made him appreciate how well off Americans are compared to the rest of the world.

Which got me to trying to imagine a French Mormon. Perhaps my mental stereotypes have overwhelmed my creative powers, but I can't do it. (And I have met Taiwan Chinese Mormons).

His father's gaffe was actually commendable. He was starting to pull away from the Vietnam War, and he got trashed for it.

9: As the Herald gets closer to bankruptcy it gets sillier.

"Yeah, what's with the hat?"

Hmm, that image is blocked. Maybe this one?

I'm an idiot -- the way the photo was cropped, I didn't recognize the shape of the hat, and I thought he was actually wearing a green hat. I don't know how I missed the cigar.

The really shocking thing is how much influence the Anti-Castro crowd has.

15: Your comment worked as snark on the lameness of the image, which is what I took it to be.

I don't know how I missed the cigar.

Or the jacket?

I love that he also tried to work "Libertad, libertad, libertad" in there. Combined with the mispronounced names, that's three gaffes for the price of one. Someone should advise him to use the real catchphrases of a free Cuba next time, like "You want to play rough," "day hello to my little friend" and "all a man has in this world is his balls and his word."

16: They're a single-issue bloc. That makes them effective. (Tho' the fiery types are getting old and Raoul might have something to say about freedom, peace, love, and the return of all their property and perks the moment Fidel dies.)

I doubt the return of property. Fifty years later, whoever's been using it all that time is going to be pretty firmly attached. But other than that, I expect relations will warm up once Miami Cubans no longer have their personal devil to kick around.

I kind of have the impression that Miami Cubans hate Raul as much as Fidel if not more so.

They're a single-issue bloc.

In a closely contested state with a shitload of electoral votes.

They're a single-issue bloc.

In a closely contested state with a shitload of electoral votes.

And yet the Amish fail to use their political muscle in Ohio and PA.

3 is awesome. Reminds me of a chicken coop I once knew above which painted, "Eier Macht Frei".

24: Up with what will the Amish not put?

Prepare ye the way of the Giuliani Presidency.

"Eier Macht Frei".

Should be "Machen".

Which got me to trying to imagine a French Mormon.

There might be about 10 of them. LDS missionaries haven't even managed to correct most French people's confusion of "Mormon" and "Amish"---the result, I kid you not, of poor translation of the subtitles to "Witness."

Do French Mormons drink wine and have mistresses? And smoke cigarettes with erotic languor? Those seem to be the key sticking points.

And pencil-thin mustaches. And dark glittering eyes.

BTW, I've established that suave continental lover stereotype was in play in "Madame Bovary". Her suave, skeezy aristocratic lover matched the American movie stereotype pretty well, as did her escapist fantasies of romance. So the stupid American cliches about the French, the continental lover, etc., aren't ethnocentric, it's just that we're mediocre French provincial types.

There's a portrait which shows a leering Descartes ogling Queen Christina of Sweden and her milk-fed cousin. He isn't twirling his moustaches, but he might as well be.

That didn't end so well for Descartes.

French people's confusion of "Mormon" and "Amish"---the result, I kid you not, of poor translation of the subtitles to "Witness."

That's hilarious.

Sexual exhaustion. But I don't need to tell you about Swedes.

Here's the official Crooked Timber report on French Mormons. by yabonn.

There's a little Mormon center-or-something in the Marais, in Paris. The Marais is a traditional Jewish part of the city, and also the gay part of the city.

So, if you can picture it, you have there Joe Moustache and Bob Leather on their merry way to some fun downstairs in that special bar, some random rollerblade Adonis showing his new pecs to an appreciative terrasse, some Jewish dude talking to another Jewish dude and quite often yours truly eating a falafel - all pretty busy to their respective tasks.

And two tall, blond, thin, pale guys, with shirts and badges, on the entrance of their center. Trying hard to look like they find all this absolutely normal, and eager to tell you about... plates?

Lately they put a pretty girl with the guys, to get attention. Treachery, I say - nearly got me last time.

So, to answer the interrogation above : no, i don't think they have a lot of success converting people. Not in the Marais at least.

Apart of that, I'd say that a big part of the US right seems content to just fantasize the outside world, but they know I'm writing on orders of my mulsimonazis overlords.

I saw a bunch of Mormon missionaries standing on a corner of the Place de la Bastille, singing Christmas songs like a flock of buskers. They must've given up knocking on doors or ministering to the local congregation because that's desperate product-placement tactics.

In 2000-2002, my cousin did the exact same mission as Romney did---south of France---and I think his grand total was two "investigators": people who declare a vague curiosity into learning more about the religion. No converts.

Why do they send guys? It seems to me that wholesome blond Mormon ladies could get their foot in the door much more easily.

Are there missionaries who come back with pencil-thin moustaches, berets, a taste for wine, and cute convert wives?

1. The ladies are supposed to be getting quick B.A. degrees so that they can support their husbands for a couple of years before starting to have children. If for some reason the ladies don't get married by about 25 or 26, then they're sent off on withered old maid missions.

2. They've been taking steps against the cute convert wives phenomenon. (There are also lots of women in underdeveloped countries very willing to marry completely naive youngsters with US passports.) Missionaries are now rotated much more frequently through different towns and even regions. They also switch missionary companions almost every three months now. And the reason they don't come back with moustaches and new habits is because they're watched like hawks.

They tend instead to come back annoyingly earnest and somber, like 20 year-old patriarchs. There's nobody so priggish as a recently returned Mormon missionary.

Most Frenchmen would do a withered old 25 year old.

My Mormon buddy at work was downright jolly, and as easy-going as anyone I've ever known. I thought he was an apostate, but it turned out that he was just cruising right along without making waves.

Not to stereotype Frenchmen or anything.

And the reason they don't come back with moustaches and new habits is because they're watched like hawks.

Not the ones in Samoa aren't.

Sniffle. And I posted that back on the 19th.

Nobody reads me any more. :-(