No, seriously.

Does this make you question his judgment capabilities?

Quote :

"Mitt note: This summer, Romney said his favorite novel is the Battlefield Earth series by L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology. If you saw the really awful John Travolta movie "Battlefield Earth" and assumed it was another example of a movie not as good as the book -- actually, the movie was much better than the books, which number among the worst dreck ever to leave a printing plant."

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/071211&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab2pos1

12/12/2007 12:33:47 PM

is he the mormon or is that another guy?

either way, loving a work by the head scientology honcho throws up some red flags for me, but if he's mormon on top of it, this guy is a just a fucking gullible nutbag.

12/12/2007 1:06:41 PM

he's the mormon

12/12/2007 1:10:44 PM

stupid topic for a thread. but also i know lots of very reasonable people who hated the movie but loved the book. i haven't read it so i don't know.

12/12/2007 1:19:06 PM

Dude, just because he liked the novel Battlefield Earth doesn't condemn him. You can still get a cheap kick out of reading it without becoming a Scientologist... Crappy SciFi in my humble opinion, but it's still nothing more than a SciFi novel with anti-psychology messages.

12/12/2007 1:22:59 PM

Quote :

"stupid topic for a thread."

It's just a joke. I don't mean this for serious discussion. I find it funny that a man running for President thinks that this is the greatest book of all-time he ever read...and would then admit it. Romney is the most calculating politician on the Republican side, it just surprises me he would publicly say it.

12/12/2007 1:41:01 PM

Quote :

"it just surprises me he would publicly say it."

yeah, that's the key here. Especially for a Morman, a religion that many American's see as nothing more than a large cult with little more credibility than Scientology

12/12/2007 1:48:07 PM

I'd be lying if I said a candidate's religion wasn't an issue for me. In principle it wouldn't, but some of these "religions" are so nutty and so out there that you can't help but call into question the psychological health of the person who believes this stuff.

12/12/2007 1:49:06 PM

^taxes are more important to me than someone religion. Unless they make a law saying I have to go to church, it just wont affect me.

Battlefield Earth was one of the worst movies Ive ever seen. I dont know about the book, but my god was that movie bad.

12/12/2007 2:19:41 PM

As I said in another Mitt Romney thread:

Quote :

"I know a few mormons and they all seem like good people, but as far as I'm concerned, Mormonism is just above scientology on the religious totem pole and I have a hard time taking one seriously as a presidential candidate. Buying into the whole story really makes me question anyone's decision making."

12/12/2007 2:21:07 PM

Definitely heard the book wasn't nearly as bad as the movie. I have no idea how good it actually may be, but it would be very hard to make it worse than the movie.

12/12/2007 2:21:26 PM

Wow... so these days we base our political views on peoples taste in movies and books? No wonder this country is so divided.

12/12/2007 3:03:06 PM

It really isn't so much that he liked the books. I've read some shitty books that I liked, too. The problem is that they are his favorite books. So either:

1) He's never read any of the many great works produced by human civilization.
2) He read them, but was completely incapable of appreciating them.
3) He's read and understood the great works, but, all things considered, prefers Battlefield Earth.

The other, perhaps larger part of the problem, is that a man running for President of the United States, who's biggest obstacle is that he's affiliated with a "nutball religion," decided that it would be a good idea to go ahead and associate himself with the only religion that people consider to be even more ridiculous.

I don't want candidates to spend so much effort crafting responses just to appeal to the public. I'd prefer honesty. But if you're going to spend the effort -- and Romney does -- you should at least do better than this.

12/12/2007 3:36:59 PM

Quote :

"1) He's never read any of the many great works produced by human civilization. 2) He read them, but was completely incapable of appreciating them. 3) He's read and understood the great works, but, all things considered, prefers Battlefield Earth."

I just lol'd, because I hate reading novels and two of your first points apply strongly to me

If you polled America on the topic "Battlefield Earth", most people will give you a blank stare and think your some sci-fi geek carrying a concealed light saber (I've never seen or heard about the book until this thread). In my opinion, Romney has very little to worry about by revealing his favorite book.

12/12/2007 3:59:58 PM

even though i do think that was a stupid answer, because of both public image and showing pretty bad personal taste, i think this is still in order:

Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/poll_bullshit_is_most_important

12/12/2007 4:21:07 PM

I think that it's pretty clear that at all future presidential debates each candidate should be asked what their favorite Star Wars film is and why.

12/12/2007 4:57:26 PM

^ That's not a bad idea. Would you vote for someone that said Phantom Menace?

12/12/2007 5:39:15 PM

Pfffft. I wouldn't even vote for someone who said Return of the Jedi.

12/12/2007 5:45:08 PM

jedi>empire

12/12/2007 5:59:59 PM

can we please elect someone who's not a retard?

12/12/2007 6:08:28 PM

^^ I'm not casting a vote for anyone who liked the episode where they turned Han Solo into a comic sidekick, made teddy bears a huge plot device, threw in some idiotic plot twists and then threw in stupid shit to conveniently explain those plot twists.

http://www.electric-escape.net/node/449

And Mr. Boombastic was terrible.

12/12/2007 6:20:03 PM

I thought that it was a pretty entertaining book. Kind of dragged on a bit, you felt like you were getting near the end and realized you were like halfway done, but it was a good read.

I heard the movie was one of the worst in history though.

12/12/2007 6:25:44 PM

Huh. I thought his favorite book would have been something like Ender's Game

[Edited on December 12, 2007 at 6:52 PM. Reason : -]

12/12/2007 6:51:46 PM

I wonder when he will start talking about his magic Mormon underwear

12/12/2007 7:08:13 PM

if I remember correctly, it was a pretty popular series back in its day

12/12/2007 8:58:26 PM

I'm still trying to figure out why ESPN is doing political punditry on a topic that has nothing to do with sports...

12/12/2007 10:04:37 PM

Well, the elections are more about who's ahead in the polls and who has raised the most money. Not particularly worried about issues, perhaps thats what its devolved to... game theory.

12/12/2007 10:17:11 PM

^^ You never read Tuesday Morning Quarterback? It's an awesome article from the Page 2 part of the site, written not by an ESPN analyst but a journalist that just writes about football and other stuff once a week. He talks mainly about football but throws some culture items in as well. Like this week he talks about pro sports teams embracing scalping now that they figured out how to make money off it, how that means in the future we could look at seats to sports being auctioned, gift cards and the value of them. Plus, he goes in detail on teams' performances and individual plays in the NFL week that was. In previous weeks he has talked about how and why Christmas starts earlier every year, scientists complaining about a research project cause if the research is good enough to solve an issue it will stop them from receiving future grants, and how recruiting is en vogue now for high school football.

The blurb about Romney's favorite book being Battlefield Earth was after this:

Quote :

"We Are Not Amused: It's bad enough that many politicians, athletes and celebrities use the royal "we" when speaking of themselves. Is it because they don't understand language or because they think they actually are royalty? Last week, Mitt Romney dove further into this pretentious nonsense by referring to himself as "we personally." Asked about illegal immigrants doing his landscaping while he is off denouncing others for not stopping illegal immigration, Romney said in Meredith, N.H., that he had been double-crossed by a landscaping company that claimed to employ only legal workers. Romney went on to declare that "we personally" met with the owner of the landscaping firm to insist on legal workers. "We personally"!"

[Edited on December 12, 2007 at 10:23 PM. Reason : .]

12/12/2007 10:17:59 PM

What about The Empire Strikes Back?

12/12/2007 10:22:15 PM

^^so we can be fairly certain that Romney and Romney alone met the owner of the landscaping company? Romney and his lawyers/staff/wife could have met with the owner, in which case you would use "we" instead of "I."

My wife and I personally checked all the baby sitter's references.
We personally checked all the baby sitter's references.

Given the nature of politics today I could easily see him bringing several staff members with him when he talked to the owner of the landscaping company. You wouldn't want to give your opponents ammunition to take you down by hiring illegals. I mean you see how the one guy overreacts to saying "We personally!!1!1!" If for nothing else you'd probably bring staff along just to serve as witnesses.

^^^over the years I've noticed more and more how politics mirror the kinds of arguments and debate that you would hear on an elementary school playground. Billy is weird, he likes grape bubblegum. Sally is stuck up, she said "we personally."

I don't know if it has always been this way or if I am just more aware of it, but most of the stuff you hear in the media is playground politics. If you want to know where someone stands on an issue you just have to research that yourself.

[Edited on December 13, 2007 at 8:00 AM. Reason : -]

12/13/2007 7:58:35 AM

^ We personally disagree with y'all. Politics is a bunch of bulls***. Always has been, always will be. The less they talk the better for they to get elected by us personally. They will tell us everything we personally want to hear, regardless of if they believe it or not. Y'all are better served by telling the politicians they personally can stuff it and just do as y'all said and do the research yourselves.

[Edited on December 13, 2007 at 8:45 AM. Reason : .]

12/13/2007 8:25:52 AM