As I Was Saying ...

Remember how I've been noting that lately the GOP candidates, two in particular, have been riffing off my material? You might reasonably think it's just so much hubris on my part, or maybe it's the reverse and I'm writing off their script. I don't think so. Honestly, the only reason I mention this is that whenever something like this comes up in the debates my initial reaction is, 'hey wait a minute, that sounds familiar', followed by: 'I wrote that!'

Now, it's possible that Mittens or Newt may have intoned something that got buried deep in my subconscious while I was sleeping, but I don't watch their campaign rallies or speeches as a cure for insomnia, or anything else, and I'm not about to do a Lexis-Nexis search. Mostly, my thinking was the rational dismissal, 'ah, it's that old Zeitgeist rearing its head again.' But it kept happening. So, what the hell, I decided to document it and let the reader decide.

 If anything, it's become fodder for the Idiot Punditocracy. Here's CNN's Soledad O'Brien having a panic attack over a phrase that Newt stole from ME and used in the debate on Monday, January 16:

Soledad O'Brien scrutinized Gingrich's choice of words "unilateral disarmament" to describe a campaign free from negative ads. Gingrich had defended his attack ads on Mitt Romney noting that when faced with attack ads from his opponents, "if you unilaterally disarm, you might as well drop out of the race."

"When you hear a candidate talking about his fellow candidates and using the words unilateral disarmament, that's almost scary. I mean, how worried are you about the damage that Newt Gingrich could do to the front-runner?"

Gosh Soledad, I'm so sorry to have scared you or stirred such consternation within the Idiot Punditocracy (you too, Ron Brownstein — when you lie with idiots you risk catching Teh Stoopid)... Would you feel any better if you knew the source, Soledad?

This is ME: Written on Friday the 13th as gratuitous advice to Dylan Ratigan:

Name names and point the finger at the real villains; what do you expect, I ask again — for Democrats to unilaterally disarm? Not gonna happen, and thank your oracle for it.

Okay, whatever. You might say Zeitgeist. I can dig it. But here's the thing: It happened before and it happened again! Moreover, Mittens follows a different pattern from Newt. In Mittens' case, he (or his 'people') likes to flip a phrase of mine to give it the exact opposite Republican meaning. There was this from Mittens' 1/10 victory speech in New Hampshire:

"The middle class has been crushed..." Blah-blah-blah. As if this guy has any earthly idea of what constitutes the middle class.

ME, from a 1/5 post, on the devastation wrought by actual Big Government Republicans:

"[T]he actual Big Government Republicans waged two wars off the books, enriched beyond measure their crony capitalist pals, and crushed the middle class and unions."

In last night's debate, Romney said this about 'Obamacare':

"[W]here Barack Obama believes that he knows better for the American people what's best for them. He's wrong. We're right."

ME, from a 1/17 post, on how Progressives were right about the futility of President Obama seeking to compromise with Republicans while Chris Matthews and his "centrist" pals were wrong:

"We warned the President, it's not gonna happen, time's a-wastin' Mr. President, strike while the iron's hot. Guess what, we Progressives were right, you and Chris were wrong."

Same words. Opposite meaning. Zeitgeist? Random Coincidence? I don't think so. Here's my theory: Whoever writes Mittens' and Newt's material is probably under pressure to come up with catchy sound bites daily, and certainly for major events such as debates and victory speeches. So they cheat. They know they can't poach from popular internet media sources that absorb tens of thousands to millions of hits daily. So they steal from ME, one who Lawrence might have accurately described as a "smart" but "obscure" blogger. We're small but we get around.

Given Mittens' penchant for quite deliberately, it seems, flipping the meaning of my catchy sound bites, I'm thinking we might have gotten under their skin with our unflattering comic graphics of Mittens in drag, hiding from Newt behind his "SUPAPAC" mommy's skirts, as a vulture in top hat distributing pink slips, or with his hair standing on end as Newt prepares to go on the attack.

How pathetic is it that Mittens lacks the imagination to use his own words? Rick Santorum and Ron Paul have always spoken for themselves. Paul even regretted not being able to communicate clearly. But at least it's his words. Ironic that the truly genuine candidates stand to finish 3-4 in the South Carolina Primary. But ultimately, the joke's on the top two. So come on back. Phony gets you only so far, as Mittens is discovering. Even for "someone who has lived — (applause) — in the real streets of America."

REALLY!?