J.D. Rhoades's Blog, page 30
September 17, 2012
Romney Camp: REMAIN CALM! ALL IS WELLLLLLL!
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Well, it looks as if in the Battle of the Conventions a couple of weeks ago, the Democrats came out on top. The Republicans got a weak-to-nonexistent “bounce” in the polls, and Barack Obama surged ahead.One way you can tell that the Democrats took that round is the way the Romney campaign is trying to pretend that conventions and post-convention “bounces” just don’t matter.Romney pollster Neil Newhouse sent out a memo that reminds one of that Kevin Bacon character from “Animal House” screaming, “Remain calm! All is well!” before the panicked crowd runs him over and literally stomps him flat.“While some voters will feel a bit of a sugar high from the conventions,” Newhouse said, “the basic structure of the race has not changed significantly.”Well, Neil, if you mean the structure where Barack Obama has been leading for months in enough states to give him more than the 270 votes he needs to win the Electoral College, then I guess you’re right.But that doesn’t really help you. And it doesn’t explain why your campaign is pulling ad buys in crucial high-electoral-vote states like Pennsylvania and Michigan. It also leaves out the significant gains President Obama has made in the crucial swing state of Ohio.It doesn’t explain why Mr. Etch A Sketch suddenly backpedaled on the bill the right loves to hate (the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare) by saying, “Well, I am going to keep some parts that people like.” Then he had to backpedal yet again when the Rabid Right went back into its customary full-blown tantrum mode.Remember, the Republicans are the party that’s “not letting fact-checkers determine their campaign,” the party that believes that if you just repeat a lie enough times, it doesn’t matter that it’s not true.And I think they’d really like it to be true that nobody’s affected by conventions, because the image of their convention that’s burned into everyone’s mind is that of a old man stumbling through an argument with a chair.
In contrast, the Democratic convention was forward-looking and upbeat. Again and again, the Democrats took R-Money’s tired old talking point that “Obama can’t run on his record” and stuffed it back in his face like Shaquille O’Neal dunking on a hapless defender.I confess, when Joe Biden’s speech began, I was holding my breath hoping he wouldn’t say something stupid. But he delivered one of the best lines of the convention, the one that sums up not only why Barack Obama can run on his record, but why he is: “Osama bin Laden is dead, and General Motors is alive.”Because here’s the thing. In many ways — not all, but many — we really are better off than we were four years ago.The stock market is up, and corporate profits are at all-time highs. Statistics from the National Association of Realtors show that national sales of existing homes are up about 10 percent from July 2011 to July 2012. Auto sales are up as well. If, for some reason, you don’t think these numbers helped the economy, then I guess you’re telling us that the kind of trickle-down economics espoused by RomneyCorp isn’t working, right?Add to this the fact that we’re well out of the quagmire that The President Who Must Not Be Named created in Iraq, and are on our way out of the morass in Afghanistan. I’d have to say that the people fighting those wars, and their families, are better off.Of course, since Mitt Romney doesn’t seem to think those soldiers and their families are “important” enough to be mentioned in his convention speech (according to a campaign spokesman), I suppose that doesn’t count to him.
As for the president’s own speech, it concentrated on shared sacrifice and hard work rather than soaring “yes we can” rhetoric. It was a reminder that we’ve come a long way, but we still have a long way to go, and that “we” means all of us.Mitt Romney, on the other hand, blew smoke about how he was going to create “12 million jobs” (a figure which some economic forecasters say is going to happen no matter who’s president) but offered no forecast of how he’s going to do it, other than pursuing the same policies that were in place when the economy tanked.He says he’s going to cut taxes and still balance the budget by closing loopholes, which he refuses to identify. He’s already proven he’ll say anything to get elected. Meanwhile, Barack Obama talks to us like we’re grown-ups. And that’s one of the many reasons I’m voting for him.
Well, it looks as if in the Battle of the Conventions a couple of weeks ago, the Democrats came out on top. The Republicans got a weak-to-nonexistent “bounce” in the polls, and Barack Obama surged ahead.One way you can tell that the Democrats took that round is the way the Romney campaign is trying to pretend that conventions and post-convention “bounces” just don’t matter.Romney pollster Neil Newhouse sent out a memo that reminds one of that Kevin Bacon character from “Animal House” screaming, “Remain calm! All is well!” before the panicked crowd runs him over and literally stomps him flat.“While some voters will feel a bit of a sugar high from the conventions,” Newhouse said, “the basic structure of the race has not changed significantly.”Well, Neil, if you mean the structure where Barack Obama has been leading for months in enough states to give him more than the 270 votes he needs to win the Electoral College, then I guess you’re right.But that doesn’t really help you. And it doesn’t explain why your campaign is pulling ad buys in crucial high-electoral-vote states like Pennsylvania and Michigan. It also leaves out the significant gains President Obama has made in the crucial swing state of Ohio.It doesn’t explain why Mr. Etch A Sketch suddenly backpedaled on the bill the right loves to hate (the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare) by saying, “Well, I am going to keep some parts that people like.” Then he had to backpedal yet again when the Rabid Right went back into its customary full-blown tantrum mode.Remember, the Republicans are the party that’s “not letting fact-checkers determine their campaign,” the party that believes that if you just repeat a lie enough times, it doesn’t matter that it’s not true.And I think they’d really like it to be true that nobody’s affected by conventions, because the image of their convention that’s burned into everyone’s mind is that of a old man stumbling through an argument with a chair.
In contrast, the Democratic convention was forward-looking and upbeat. Again and again, the Democrats took R-Money’s tired old talking point that “Obama can’t run on his record” and stuffed it back in his face like Shaquille O’Neal dunking on a hapless defender.I confess, when Joe Biden’s speech began, I was holding my breath hoping he wouldn’t say something stupid. But he delivered one of the best lines of the convention, the one that sums up not only why Barack Obama can run on his record, but why he is: “Osama bin Laden is dead, and General Motors is alive.”Because here’s the thing. In many ways — not all, but many — we really are better off than we were four years ago.The stock market is up, and corporate profits are at all-time highs. Statistics from the National Association of Realtors show that national sales of existing homes are up about 10 percent from July 2011 to July 2012. Auto sales are up as well. If, for some reason, you don’t think these numbers helped the economy, then I guess you’re telling us that the kind of trickle-down economics espoused by RomneyCorp isn’t working, right?Add to this the fact that we’re well out of the quagmire that The President Who Must Not Be Named created in Iraq, and are on our way out of the morass in Afghanistan. I’d have to say that the people fighting those wars, and their families, are better off.Of course, since Mitt Romney doesn’t seem to think those soldiers and their families are “important” enough to be mentioned in his convention speech (according to a campaign spokesman), I suppose that doesn’t count to him.
As for the president’s own speech, it concentrated on shared sacrifice and hard work rather than soaring “yes we can” rhetoric. It was a reminder that we’ve come a long way, but we still have a long way to go, and that “we” means all of us.Mitt Romney, on the other hand, blew smoke about how he was going to create “12 million jobs” (a figure which some economic forecasters say is going to happen no matter who’s president) but offered no forecast of how he’s going to do it, other than pursuing the same policies that were in place when the economy tanked.He says he’s going to cut taxes and still balance the budget by closing loopholes, which he refuses to identify. He’s already proven he’ll say anything to get elected. Meanwhile, Barack Obama talks to us like we’re grown-ups. And that’s one of the many reasons I’m voting for him.
September 9, 2012
Don’t Facts Matter Any More?
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I recently pointed out that, despite the hand-wringing of the professional hand-wringing class, the current election is not even close to being the nastiest in terms of political rhetoric.All that said, there’s one thing that’s striking about this one, one thing I have not seen before. That’s the degree to which one side has not only decided to entirely abandon the entire idea of being factually accurate, but has also decided to be completely up front about doing so.Shortly before the Republican National Convention, Neil Newhouse, a pollster working with the Romney campaign, appeared on a panel organized by ABC News. He was asked about the frequently repeated and just as frequently debunked claim that President Obama had “gutted” the work requirements of welfare reform.This allegation was a blatant and shameless distortion of a proposal by the Obama administration to grant exemptions from the federal requirements to state governments — but only to those who could show they had alternative plans to put more welfare recipients back to work.Every single fact checker from every source that examined the allegation pronounced it false. Former President Bill Clinton, who was lauded in Romney ads as the person who created the welfare reform proposal, said the Romney claim was untrue. (And if you needed any more evidence that the world has gone insane, seeing Republicans holding Bill Clinton up as an example of good policy-making should make up anyone’s mind.)Even conservative Newt Gingrich had to admit that there was “no proof” that the administration had done to welfare reform what the Romneyites said it had.Yet when questioned about the fact that the Republican candidate had approved an ad to which The Washington Post’s fact checker had given “four Pinocchios,” its highest rating for mendacity, Newhouse didn’t even attempt to defend the truthfulness of the ad. His response: “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.”Wow. We knew these guys had chutzpah, but that one was really mind-boggling. It’s not unknown for both sides to stretch the truth in a campaign, but most of the time when confronted, they at least try to provide some justification. I mean, even Gingrich tried to cover himself by using the old “well, we don’t have any evidence that Obama did this, but it sounds like something he’d do.”Newhouse basically said, “Every fact checker says it’s a lie, and we don’t care.”Of course, why should they? We do, after all, live in a media environment where the “public editor” of The New York Times feels the need to wonder whether “Times news reporters should challenge ‘facts’ that are asserted by newsmakers they write about.” (Answer: Yes.) And they’ve known for years that the Beltway press is reluctant to jeopardize their all-important access by saying “wait a minute, that’s not true.” They might stop getting invited to the good cocktail parties or make the advertisers angry if they do.Fortunately, that seems to be changing in the face of the relentless tide of pure, brazen BS flowing from the Romney swamp. Recently, CNN’s Soledad O’Brien committed an act of actual journalism when she responded to Romney surrogate John Sununu’s noisy repetition of another debunked Romney talking point: that Obama had “gutted” (they seem to like that word a lot) Medicare by $717 billion.O’Brien pointed out that sources such as the Congressional Budget Office, Factcheck.com and CNN’s own analysis had refuted the claim. Sununu became furious, rudely shouting at O’Brien that she should “put an Obama bumper sticker on her forehead” when she said such things. O’Brien’s calm response was enough to warm even my cold and cynical heart: “You can’t just repeat it and make it true, sir.”
The main thing Romney’s snake-oil campaign is depending on is that a depressingly large number of Americans truly do not know the difference between a fact and an opinion. Confront many people with facts that conclusively refute some crazy allegation they’ve made, and they’ll huff, “I’m entitled to my opinion.”That’s true, as far as it goes. As the saying goes, however, you aren’t entitled to your own facts. Again, the American press has done an abysmal job of educating people as to the difference.Their idea of “objectivity” has been “Republicans say this, Democrats say that, who do the polls say is winning?” In a world where a presidential campaign spokesman feels no qualms about blithely stating, in effect, “Fact checking? Who cares?” actual reporting of actual facts — and confronting those of either party who’d misrepresent them — is more important than ever.
I recently pointed out that, despite the hand-wringing of the professional hand-wringing class, the current election is not even close to being the nastiest in terms of political rhetoric.All that said, there’s one thing that’s striking about this one, one thing I have not seen before. That’s the degree to which one side has not only decided to entirely abandon the entire idea of being factually accurate, but has also decided to be completely up front about doing so.Shortly before the Republican National Convention, Neil Newhouse, a pollster working with the Romney campaign, appeared on a panel organized by ABC News. He was asked about the frequently repeated and just as frequently debunked claim that President Obama had “gutted” the work requirements of welfare reform.This allegation was a blatant and shameless distortion of a proposal by the Obama administration to grant exemptions from the federal requirements to state governments — but only to those who could show they had alternative plans to put more welfare recipients back to work.Every single fact checker from every source that examined the allegation pronounced it false. Former President Bill Clinton, who was lauded in Romney ads as the person who created the welfare reform proposal, said the Romney claim was untrue. (And if you needed any more evidence that the world has gone insane, seeing Republicans holding Bill Clinton up as an example of good policy-making should make up anyone’s mind.)Even conservative Newt Gingrich had to admit that there was “no proof” that the administration had done to welfare reform what the Romneyites said it had.Yet when questioned about the fact that the Republican candidate had approved an ad to which The Washington Post’s fact checker had given “four Pinocchios,” its highest rating for mendacity, Newhouse didn’t even attempt to defend the truthfulness of the ad. His response: “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.”Wow. We knew these guys had chutzpah, but that one was really mind-boggling. It’s not unknown for both sides to stretch the truth in a campaign, but most of the time when confronted, they at least try to provide some justification. I mean, even Gingrich tried to cover himself by using the old “well, we don’t have any evidence that Obama did this, but it sounds like something he’d do.”Newhouse basically said, “Every fact checker says it’s a lie, and we don’t care.”Of course, why should they? We do, after all, live in a media environment where the “public editor” of The New York Times feels the need to wonder whether “Times news reporters should challenge ‘facts’ that are asserted by newsmakers they write about.” (Answer: Yes.) And they’ve known for years that the Beltway press is reluctant to jeopardize their all-important access by saying “wait a minute, that’s not true.” They might stop getting invited to the good cocktail parties or make the advertisers angry if they do.Fortunately, that seems to be changing in the face of the relentless tide of pure, brazen BS flowing from the Romney swamp. Recently, CNN’s Soledad O’Brien committed an act of actual journalism when she responded to Romney surrogate John Sununu’s noisy repetition of another debunked Romney talking point: that Obama had “gutted” (they seem to like that word a lot) Medicare by $717 billion.O’Brien pointed out that sources such as the Congressional Budget Office, Factcheck.com and CNN’s own analysis had refuted the claim. Sununu became furious, rudely shouting at O’Brien that she should “put an Obama bumper sticker on her forehead” when she said such things. O’Brien’s calm response was enough to warm even my cold and cynical heart: “You can’t just repeat it and make it true, sir.”
The main thing Romney’s snake-oil campaign is depending on is that a depressingly large number of Americans truly do not know the difference between a fact and an opinion. Confront many people with facts that conclusively refute some crazy allegation they’ve made, and they’ll huff, “I’m entitled to my opinion.”That’s true, as far as it goes. As the saying goes, however, you aren’t entitled to your own facts. Again, the American press has done an abysmal job of educating people as to the difference.Their idea of “objectivity” has been “Republicans say this, Democrats say that, who do the polls say is winning?” In a world where a presidential campaign spokesman feels no qualms about blithely stating, in effect, “Fact checking? Who cares?” actual reporting of actual facts — and confronting those of either party who’d misrepresent them — is more important than ever.
September 3, 2012
I'm In Good Company!
– In an ocean of self-published titles, two questions surface: How can readers find quality e-books, and how can authors of quality e-books find readers?
Before Amazon’s Kindle changed the face of electronic publishing, in 2006, 51,237 self-published titles were printed as physical books, according to the data company Bowker. Last year, Bowker estimated that more than 300,000 self-published titles were issued in either print or digital form.
How can readers sift through hundreds of thousands of self-published titles to find quality e-books that will be worth their investment of money and time?
Author collectives such as the recently launched “Killer Thrillers” provide one answer. All 22 Killer Thrillers members are award-winning, bestselling, and internationally published thriller authors committed to bringing high standards and professional quality to their self-published works.
Of the 163 self-published titles currently featured on the Killer Thrillers website, many first appeared in print. Others are original e-books. All are written by talented, experienced thriller authors who’ve proven they know how to tell a ripper of a story by winning major awards, becoming regional, national, and international bestselling authors, and seeing their novels translated and published in other countries. Some of the Killer Thrillers titles have also been optioned for television and film.
New York Times bestselling author David Morrell, christened “the father of the modern action novel” for his iconic creation, John Rambo, lists 15 self-published e-books on the Killer Thrillers website including First Blood, the title that introduced the world to John Rambo, The Brotherhood of the Rose, the basis for a television mini-series, and his other Rambo books.
“I'm in the process of archiving my entire 40-year output of novels, essays, short stories, and non-fiction works as e-publications,” Morrell says. “E-books are wonderful for authors. No more out-of-print titles.”
Killer Thrillers authors include Brett Battles, Raymond Benson, Sean Black, Robert Gregory Browne, Blake Crouch, Karen Dionne, Timothy Hallinan, Katia Lief, CJ Lyons, Bob Mayer, Grant McKenzie, David Morrell, Boyd Morrison, J.F. Penn, Keith Raffel, J.D. Rhoades, Jeremy Robinson, L.J. Sellers, Zoë Sharp, Alexandra Sokoloff, Mark Terry and F. Paul Wilson.
http://www.killer-thrillers.com
September 2, 2012
Sane Republicans: Rare and Endangered, But They Do Exist
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As some of you may have noticed, one of my interests is in finding and cataloguing a rare breed known as the Sane Republican. Alas, not only is it a rare breed, it’s getting rarer.
They’re being hunted to near extinction by other species such as the Raging Right-Winged Moonbat and the Red-Faced Red-State Howler Monkey. Yet, this plucky species continues to live on, and can be sighted if you’re paying attention.Let’s start by heading to upstate New York, where first-term Republican Congressman Richard Hanna told The Syracuse Post Standard that he was “frustrated” by how much “we — I mean the Republican Party — are willing to give deferential treatment to our extremes at this point in history.”As a specific example, Hanna mentioned the demand of Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Insane Asylum) and other right-wingers that Huma Abedin, deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, be investigated for Islamic extremist ties, not for any action of hers, but because some of her family members were “connected” (in ways not specified by Bachmann) to “Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations.”Hanna responded to this bit of neo-McCarthyism by noting that “we render ourselves incapable of governing when all we do is take severe sides.”Normally, such reasonable statements, especially as they relate to Congresswoman Crazy Eyes, would be the equivalent of painting a set of cross hairs on your forehead. But Hanna survived a challenge from a candidate favored by the tea party (remember them?) back in June. It remains to be seen what will happen when he faces Democrat Dan Lamb in November.Next let’s head down to Utah, aka the Beehive State, the only state I know of that has its own official state firearm (the Browning M1911 automatic pistol). Utah’s Republican governor, Gary Herbert, recently responded to an Obama administration proposal to relax some of the federal work requirements for welfare recipients for states who wished to try their own projects. The requirements for participation were that state plans (a) get more people working and (b) produce verifiable results.Herbert did not, however, repeat the Romney administration’s repeatedly refuted falsehood that the proposal “gutted” work requirements, and would lead to people just “sitting around and getting a welfare check.”You’d think giving states greater flexibility in implementing federal programs would be regarded as a good thing by Republicans. But the Romneyites weren’t going to miss a chance to throw a little race-baiting — OK, a lot of race-baiting — into the campaign by resurrecting the well-worn specter of the lazy “welfare queen” from the Reagan years, and never mind the fact that such an accusation was a blatant lie.Herbert, on the other hand, is trying to get stuff done. He told The Huffington Post that “the idea of flexibility is something that all states want to have,” and that his own state had asked for one of the waivers.He disagrees with the administration’s method of implementation, contending that it has to be done through Congress, but that’s actually a reasonable argument to have, in contrast with the hysterical ranting of a proven lie, which is what RomneyCorp has chosen.Also in the Beehive State, we find Republican Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. When President Obama announced, to howls of rage from the right, that he’d no longer be using federal resources to deport children of illegal immigrants if they met certain conditions, Shurtleff called it “clearly within the president’s power” and pronounced himself “pleased” with the decision.“Law enforcement makes decisions based on the resources available to them,” Shurtleff said. “The administration is saying, ‘Here’s a group we could be spending our resources going after, but why? They’re Americans, they see themselves as Americans, they love this country.” Exactly.There are others, of course. But sadly, the Republican herd often drives the moderates and even the mildly sane out of the fold, like former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida, who’ll be speaking at the Democratic Convention.Because, you see, there’s a word for what used to be called “moderate Republicans.” The word is “Democrats.” A goodly number of current Democratic positions, including the Affordable Care Act, were ideas from the Republican Party, before it completely lost its mind.If you’re a moderate Republican who doesn’t feel at home in the GOP anymore, you might consider jumping ship. And if that suggestion fills you with scorn or apoplectic rage, you’re not one of the people I was talking to.
As some of you may have noticed, one of my interests is in finding and cataloguing a rare breed known as the Sane Republican. Alas, not only is it a rare breed, it’s getting rarer.
They’re being hunted to near extinction by other species such as the Raging Right-Winged Moonbat and the Red-Faced Red-State Howler Monkey. Yet, this plucky species continues to live on, and can be sighted if you’re paying attention.Let’s start by heading to upstate New York, where first-term Republican Congressman Richard Hanna told The Syracuse Post Standard that he was “frustrated” by how much “we — I mean the Republican Party — are willing to give deferential treatment to our extremes at this point in history.”As a specific example, Hanna mentioned the demand of Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Insane Asylum) and other right-wingers that Huma Abedin, deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, be investigated for Islamic extremist ties, not for any action of hers, but because some of her family members were “connected” (in ways not specified by Bachmann) to “Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations.”Hanna responded to this bit of neo-McCarthyism by noting that “we render ourselves incapable of governing when all we do is take severe sides.”Normally, such reasonable statements, especially as they relate to Congresswoman Crazy Eyes, would be the equivalent of painting a set of cross hairs on your forehead. But Hanna survived a challenge from a candidate favored by the tea party (remember them?) back in June. It remains to be seen what will happen when he faces Democrat Dan Lamb in November.Next let’s head down to Utah, aka the Beehive State, the only state I know of that has its own official state firearm (the Browning M1911 automatic pistol). Utah’s Republican governor, Gary Herbert, recently responded to an Obama administration proposal to relax some of the federal work requirements for welfare recipients for states who wished to try their own projects. The requirements for participation were that state plans (a) get more people working and (b) produce verifiable results.Herbert did not, however, repeat the Romney administration’s repeatedly refuted falsehood that the proposal “gutted” work requirements, and would lead to people just “sitting around and getting a welfare check.”You’d think giving states greater flexibility in implementing federal programs would be regarded as a good thing by Republicans. But the Romneyites weren’t going to miss a chance to throw a little race-baiting — OK, a lot of race-baiting — into the campaign by resurrecting the well-worn specter of the lazy “welfare queen” from the Reagan years, and never mind the fact that such an accusation was a blatant lie.Herbert, on the other hand, is trying to get stuff done. He told The Huffington Post that “the idea of flexibility is something that all states want to have,” and that his own state had asked for one of the waivers.He disagrees with the administration’s method of implementation, contending that it has to be done through Congress, but that’s actually a reasonable argument to have, in contrast with the hysterical ranting of a proven lie, which is what RomneyCorp has chosen.Also in the Beehive State, we find Republican Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. When President Obama announced, to howls of rage from the right, that he’d no longer be using federal resources to deport children of illegal immigrants if they met certain conditions, Shurtleff called it “clearly within the president’s power” and pronounced himself “pleased” with the decision.“Law enforcement makes decisions based on the resources available to them,” Shurtleff said. “The administration is saying, ‘Here’s a group we could be spending our resources going after, but why? They’re Americans, they see themselves as Americans, they love this country.” Exactly.There are others, of course. But sadly, the Republican herd often drives the moderates and even the mildly sane out of the fold, like former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida, who’ll be speaking at the Democratic Convention.Because, you see, there’s a word for what used to be called “moderate Republicans.” The word is “Democrats.” A goodly number of current Democratic positions, including the Affordable Care Act, were ideas from the Republican Party, before it completely lost its mind.If you’re a moderate Republican who doesn’t feel at home in the GOP anymore, you might consider jumping ship. And if that suggestion fills you with scorn or apoplectic rage, you’re not one of the people I was talking to.
August 28, 2012
QOTD: You Built It All Yourself, Huh?
“Personal property is the effect of society; and it is as impossible for an individual to acquire personal property without the aid of society, as it is for him to make land originally.
Separate an individual from society, and give him an island or a continent to possess, and he cannot acquire personal property. He cannot be rich. So inseparably are the means connected with the end, in all cases, that where the former do not exist, the latter cannot be obtained. All accumulation, therefore, of personal property, beyond what a man’s own hands produce, is derived to him by living in society; and he owes on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of civilisation, a part of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came.”
Thomas Paine, Founding Father
h/t to commenter The Other Chuck at Balloon Juice
Separate an individual from society, and give him an island or a continent to possess, and he cannot acquire personal property. He cannot be rich. So inseparably are the means connected with the end, in all cases, that where the former do not exist, the latter cannot be obtained. All accumulation, therefore, of personal property, beyond what a man’s own hands produce, is derived to him by living in society; and he owes on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of civilisation, a part of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came.”
Thomas Paine, Founding Father
h/t to commenter The Other Chuck at Balloon Juice
August 26, 2012
Dirtiest Campaign Ever? Really?
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Have you ever noticed how, about this time of every election year, the chattering and scribbling classes erupt in a frenzy of clutching their pearls, fanning themselves, and looking for the nearest fainting couch, because "Oh, mah stars, this is the nastiest, most divisive campaign evah!"It happened in 1988. It happened again in 1992. And in 1996. And 2000, 2004, and 2008. Every single one of those campaigns was decried by pundits and wounded pols crying foul as "the most negative," "most divisive" or "dirtiest" in history.Poppycock. Poppycock and balderdash. Also, codswallop. As former Obama and Clinton campaign aide Blake Zeff points out in a recent article in the online journal Buzzfeed, "Not only is this not the most negative campaign ever - it's not the most negative campaign of your lifetime, unless you happen to be 3 years old."Don't believe me? Return with me, friends, in the Wayback Machine to the thrilling days of yesteryear. Specifically, to the year 1800, when Thomas Jefferson and John Adams found themselves pitted against one another in a nasty fight for the presidency and, like every election before or since, for the future of the nation.Jefferson's campaign got the ball rolling, saying Adams had a "hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman."Adams' men wasted no time in firing back, warning that if Jefferson was elected, "murder, robbery, rape, adultery, and incest would be openly practiced, the air will be rent with the cries of the distressed, the soil will be soaked with blood, and the nation black with crimes." They also called Jefferson an "atheist, mountebank, trickster, and Francomaniac."Fast forward to 1872, when Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, hero of the Union, was opposed by New York Congressman and former newspaper editor Horace Greeley. Greeley's supporters called the Grant administration "the crowning point of governmental wickedness."Grant, however, had the backing of the nation's wealthiest men, and poor Greeley was saddled with a running mate with a drinking problem so bad that at one campaign picnic, he got plastered and tried to butter a watermelon. Say what you like about Joe Biden, he never pulled a gaffe that big. Too bad they didn't have YouTube.In the 1884 election, supporters of James Blaine accused Grover Cleveland of fathering an illegitimate child with the taunt "Ma! Ma! Where's My Pa?" to which Cleveland supporters shot back, "Gone to the White House, Ha! Ha! Ha!" Cleveland supporters also had a chant of their own: "Blaine! Blaine! James G. Blaine! The continental liar from the state of Maine!"I'm not sure why they used "continental." "Monumental" would have fit and made more sense. But I'm sure they had their reasons.The advent of mass media, television in particular, gave negative campaigning a truly visceral wallop. Among the first to gather controversy was Lyndon Johnson's infamous "Daisy" ad, which featured an adorable little girl picking daisies in a field. When she gets to "10," a metallic voice starts a countdown. The girl looks up in puzzlement just as the count reaches zero, at which point we see an image of a mushroom cloud.The message is clear: If you vote for Goldwater, in the words of Johnson's voiceover, "we must die" in a nuclear war.Interestingly, the ad, like the infamous "Mitt Romney killed my wife" ad by a pro-Obama Super PAC, only ran once on actual TV, but the controversy swirling around it gave it millions worth of dollars in free air time.In recent years, we've had ads which implied that Michael Dukakis was responsible for the rape and armed robbery of a Maryland couple (1988). We've had ads accusing a decorated veteran of lying about his war record (2004). We've been told a candidate would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign (2008).And in every one of those years, someone's claimed that "this is the nastiest campaign ever." Well, I won't believe that until someone pulls a Thomas Jefferson and calls Mitt Romney or Barack Obama a hermaphrodite. Frankly, my biggest problem with modern negative campaigning is that it lacks that kind of style.
Have you ever noticed how, about this time of every election year, the chattering and scribbling classes erupt in a frenzy of clutching their pearls, fanning themselves, and looking for the nearest fainting couch, because "Oh, mah stars, this is the nastiest, most divisive campaign evah!"It happened in 1988. It happened again in 1992. And in 1996. And 2000, 2004, and 2008. Every single one of those campaigns was decried by pundits and wounded pols crying foul as "the most negative," "most divisive" or "dirtiest" in history.Poppycock. Poppycock and balderdash. Also, codswallop. As former Obama and Clinton campaign aide Blake Zeff points out in a recent article in the online journal Buzzfeed, "Not only is this not the most negative campaign ever - it's not the most negative campaign of your lifetime, unless you happen to be 3 years old."Don't believe me? Return with me, friends, in the Wayback Machine to the thrilling days of yesteryear. Specifically, to the year 1800, when Thomas Jefferson and John Adams found themselves pitted against one another in a nasty fight for the presidency and, like every election before or since, for the future of the nation.Jefferson's campaign got the ball rolling, saying Adams had a "hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman."Adams' men wasted no time in firing back, warning that if Jefferson was elected, "murder, robbery, rape, adultery, and incest would be openly practiced, the air will be rent with the cries of the distressed, the soil will be soaked with blood, and the nation black with crimes." They also called Jefferson an "atheist, mountebank, trickster, and Francomaniac."Fast forward to 1872, when Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, hero of the Union, was opposed by New York Congressman and former newspaper editor Horace Greeley. Greeley's supporters called the Grant administration "the crowning point of governmental wickedness."Grant, however, had the backing of the nation's wealthiest men, and poor Greeley was saddled with a running mate with a drinking problem so bad that at one campaign picnic, he got plastered and tried to butter a watermelon. Say what you like about Joe Biden, he never pulled a gaffe that big. Too bad they didn't have YouTube.In the 1884 election, supporters of James Blaine accused Grover Cleveland of fathering an illegitimate child with the taunt "Ma! Ma! Where's My Pa?" to which Cleveland supporters shot back, "Gone to the White House, Ha! Ha! Ha!" Cleveland supporters also had a chant of their own: "Blaine! Blaine! James G. Blaine! The continental liar from the state of Maine!"I'm not sure why they used "continental." "Monumental" would have fit and made more sense. But I'm sure they had their reasons.The advent of mass media, television in particular, gave negative campaigning a truly visceral wallop. Among the first to gather controversy was Lyndon Johnson's infamous "Daisy" ad, which featured an adorable little girl picking daisies in a field. When she gets to "10," a metallic voice starts a countdown. The girl looks up in puzzlement just as the count reaches zero, at which point we see an image of a mushroom cloud.The message is clear: If you vote for Goldwater, in the words of Johnson's voiceover, "we must die" in a nuclear war.Interestingly, the ad, like the infamous "Mitt Romney killed my wife" ad by a pro-Obama Super PAC, only ran once on actual TV, but the controversy swirling around it gave it millions worth of dollars in free air time.In recent years, we've had ads which implied that Michael Dukakis was responsible for the rape and armed robbery of a Maryland couple (1988). We've had ads accusing a decorated veteran of lying about his war record (2004). We've been told a candidate would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign (2008).And in every one of those years, someone's claimed that "this is the nastiest campaign ever." Well, I won't believe that until someone pulls a Thomas Jefferson and calls Mitt Romney or Barack Obama a hermaphrodite. Frankly, my biggest problem with modern negative campaigning is that it lacks that kind of style.
August 19, 2012
Ryan: Norman Schwarzkopf or G.A. Custer?
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In Winston Churchill's memoir of the Second World War, he relates his reaction to the news that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor: "I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful."
When I heard the news that Mitt Romney had selected Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate, I thought Barack Obama must have done the same.Because, while the Rabid Right may be patting themselves on the back and admiring the "bold stroke" of choosing Ryan, and the Beltway pundits like to wax rhapsodic over Ryan's "gutsy" budget plan, I can think of nothing Etch A Sketch Romney could have done that's more certain to ensure his eventual defeat.You know how I know Ryan is a terrible pick? One of his biggest backers was the affable boob Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard, who's frequently seen grinning his way across your TV screen and spouting nonsense, a veritable fountain of specious claptrap The two things Kristol's most famous for urging the GOP to embrace are Sarah Palin and the Iraq War, which he said would "pay for itself." How'd those work out?Kristol gets props from his buddies in the Beltway media for urging the Republicans to be "bolder" and more "ambitious," as commentator Dylan Byers wrote in Politico. But in reality, he's like the half-bright, overly aggressive major general who's always urging some lunatic charge into the enemy guns that gets a lot of his men killed.Insiders have been reporting for some time now that the Obama campaign had been trying to tie Romney to Ryan's proposed budget plans. Because here's the thing: Once people find out what's actually in the budget, it's highly unpopular, particularly his proposal to give more huge tax breaks to millionaires and pay for it by turning Medicare into a "voucher" system, where seniors would get coupons to buy insurance from private insurers.A Washington Post/Kaiser Foundation poll this month asked people whether they favored keeping the current structure of Medicare, or going to a system "in which the government guarantees each senior a fixed amount of money to help them purchase coverage either from traditional Medicare or from a list of private health plans." Fifty-eight percent rejected the change.You can see why, if you think about it. Given the amount of confusion and the grumbling of senior citizens over trying to choose between the various options in George Dubbya's budget-busting Medicare Part D plan (which Ryan voted for, by the way), I find it unlikely that they're going to welcome the fun and excitement of haggling with dozens of insurance companies over their coverage.This is especially true since repealing the Affordable Care Act (which Ryan supports) means the insurance companies will once more be free to discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. How many people do you know over 65 who don't have some kind of pre-existing condition?It gets worse when you look at the rest of the plan. A recent Democracy Corps survey showed that "President Obama's lead against Romney more than doubles when the election is framed as a choice between the two candidates' positions on the Ryan budget - particularly its impact on the most vulnerable." And if the Obama campaign has shown one thing recently, it's that they know how to define an opponent and his positions.You want to know how bad it gets for the Ryan plan? According to a report in The New York Times, when the pro-Obama SuperPac Priorities USA (they of the infamous "Bain Capital Killed My Wife" ad) was doing focus groups to determine what tack to take, they found that attacks on the Ryan budget plan and Romney's support of it didn't do all that well.First because no one really knew anything about Ryan or what was in the plan, and second, because once people heard that it called for "ending Medicare as we know it" while giving bigger tax breaks to millionaires, "they refused to believe any politician would do such a thing."Well, now they're going to hear about the plan, right from the blue-eyed horse's mouth, and the evidence is pretty clear that they're not going to like it at all. Bill Kristol and the Raging Right may think Romney's "boldness" in picking Ryan makes him into Gen. Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf.In reality, it may turn out to be more like Custer - except this time, Custer spent the day before Little Big Horn handing out quivers full of arrows for the Indians to shoot him with.
In Winston Churchill's memoir of the Second World War, he relates his reaction to the news that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor: "I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful."
When I heard the news that Mitt Romney had selected Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate, I thought Barack Obama must have done the same.Because, while the Rabid Right may be patting themselves on the back and admiring the "bold stroke" of choosing Ryan, and the Beltway pundits like to wax rhapsodic over Ryan's "gutsy" budget plan, I can think of nothing Etch A Sketch Romney could have done that's more certain to ensure his eventual defeat.You know how I know Ryan is a terrible pick? One of his biggest backers was the affable boob Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard, who's frequently seen grinning his way across your TV screen and spouting nonsense, a veritable fountain of specious claptrap The two things Kristol's most famous for urging the GOP to embrace are Sarah Palin and the Iraq War, which he said would "pay for itself." How'd those work out?Kristol gets props from his buddies in the Beltway media for urging the Republicans to be "bolder" and more "ambitious," as commentator Dylan Byers wrote in Politico. But in reality, he's like the half-bright, overly aggressive major general who's always urging some lunatic charge into the enemy guns that gets a lot of his men killed.Insiders have been reporting for some time now that the Obama campaign had been trying to tie Romney to Ryan's proposed budget plans. Because here's the thing: Once people find out what's actually in the budget, it's highly unpopular, particularly his proposal to give more huge tax breaks to millionaires and pay for it by turning Medicare into a "voucher" system, where seniors would get coupons to buy insurance from private insurers.A Washington Post/Kaiser Foundation poll this month asked people whether they favored keeping the current structure of Medicare, or going to a system "in which the government guarantees each senior a fixed amount of money to help them purchase coverage either from traditional Medicare or from a list of private health plans." Fifty-eight percent rejected the change.You can see why, if you think about it. Given the amount of confusion and the grumbling of senior citizens over trying to choose between the various options in George Dubbya's budget-busting Medicare Part D plan (which Ryan voted for, by the way), I find it unlikely that they're going to welcome the fun and excitement of haggling with dozens of insurance companies over their coverage.This is especially true since repealing the Affordable Care Act (which Ryan supports) means the insurance companies will once more be free to discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. How many people do you know over 65 who don't have some kind of pre-existing condition?It gets worse when you look at the rest of the plan. A recent Democracy Corps survey showed that "President Obama's lead against Romney more than doubles when the election is framed as a choice between the two candidates' positions on the Ryan budget - particularly its impact on the most vulnerable." And if the Obama campaign has shown one thing recently, it's that they know how to define an opponent and his positions.You want to know how bad it gets for the Ryan plan? According to a report in The New York Times, when the pro-Obama SuperPac Priorities USA (they of the infamous "Bain Capital Killed My Wife" ad) was doing focus groups to determine what tack to take, they found that attacks on the Ryan budget plan and Romney's support of it didn't do all that well.First because no one really knew anything about Ryan or what was in the plan, and second, because once people heard that it called for "ending Medicare as we know it" while giving bigger tax breaks to millionaires, "they refused to believe any politician would do such a thing."Well, now they're going to hear about the plan, right from the blue-eyed horse's mouth, and the evidence is pretty clear that they're not going to like it at all. Bill Kristol and the Raging Right may think Romney's "boldness" in picking Ryan makes him into Gen. Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf.In reality, it may turn out to be more like Custer - except this time, Custer spent the day before Little Big Horn handing out quivers full of arrows for the Indians to shoot him with.
August 14, 2012
GUESS WHO SAID IT?
'The Ryan Plan boils down to a fetish for cutting the top marginal income-tax rate for “job creators” — i.e. the superwealthy — to 25 percent and paying for it with an as-yet-undisclosed plan to broaden the tax base. Of the $1 trillion in so-called tax expenditures that the plan would attack, the vast majority would come from slashing popular tax breaks for employer-provided health insurance, mortgage interest, 401(k) accounts, state and local taxes, charitable giving and the like, not to mention low rates on capital gains and dividends."
August 12, 2012
'Help' Romney Didn't Need
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I really wasn’t going to do another column about Mitt Romney this week. Really. I promise. But I can’t help it. On Wednesday, they served up a pitch that’s so slow and easy, I just have to take a whack at it.It all started when Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul responded to an ad that was created by one of those SuperPACs that are so thick on the ground this year. The ad, titled “Understands,” features a former steelworker named Joe Soptic.The plant where Soptic worked was shut down by Romney’s company, Bain Capital. Soptic lost his health insurance. His wife was diagnosed with cancer and died because, the ad implies, she couldn’t afford to go to the doctor until she got too sick to ignore her symptoms, and by then it was too late. Mrs. Soptic died 22 days after being diagnosed.“I do not think Mitt Romney realizes what he’s done to anyone,” Soptic concludes. “And furthermore, I do not think Mitt Romney is concerned.” Basically, Soptic says, Mitt Romney and his company are responsible for his wife’s death, and the MittBot doesn’t care. Wow. That’s gonna leave a mark.Now, as it turns out, Soptic’s wife didn’t get sick till several years after Soptic lost his job, and she had health insurance from her own job for part of that time. The aforementioned Ms. Saul pointed that out. But then she stepped in it, big time. “If people had been in Massachusetts, under Governor Romney’s health care plan,” she told Fox News, “they would have had health care.”This was most likely true, and to any normal candidate, it would have been a major selling point. But Romney is not a normal candidate. He’s a guy who’s trying very hard to distance himself from his biggest achievement as governor: the health plan that was the model for the national health plan he now vows to repeal, because if he didn’t promise that, he wouldn’t get the nomination.So saying “Governor Romney’s health care plan might have saved this woman’s life” was actually exactly the wrong thing to say. If you needed any more proof that American politics in 2012 is completely insane, you need look no further than that.I suppose one can’t blame Ms. Saul too much. After all, when you work for a guy who changes his stances on issues more times that most people change positions in their sleep, it must keep getting harder and harder to keep everything straight.That didn’t stop the right wing from going completely haywire over the statement. Even more than usual, I mean. Rush Limbaugh said that “Andrea Saul’s appearance on Fox was a potential gold mine for Obama supporters.” Ann Coulter demanded that Saul be fired if Romney ever wanted any more contributions from conservatives.Erick Erickson of CNN and the flagship right wing blog RedState called it “a mind-numbingly bit of spin [sic] that may mark the day the Romney campaign died.” Erickson noted that the right wing had never really trusted or warmed to Romney, and this wasn’t helping: “Consider the scab picked, the wound opened, and the distrust trickling out again.”Euuuwww. Nice image there, Erick.The assertion that this “may mark the day the Romney campaign died” is probably as overwrought as the original ad. But Team Romney does seem to be experiencing the Death of a Thousand Cuts, almost all of them self-inflicted. They’re creating an impression that’s worse for them than the perception that they’re flip-floppers or that they don’t tell the truth — they look inept.People may be willing to overlook a little flip-flopping or even a little mendacity as something that politicians on both sides do. But when one of the overriding themes of your campaign is that your guy is this cool, experienced, uber-competent CEO who can manage us out of the crisis, ineptitude may be the only unforgivable sin.When your message is “You’re in a hole and our guy can get you out of it,” it doesn’t help if you act like you don’t know which end of the shovel is which.This is especially true when you’re going up against the guy that ended the Iraq War, got real health care reform done when no one thought he could, gave the orders that killed Osama bin Laden, saved the auto industry, and presided over 29 months of job growth despite an obstructive House determined to keep things bad for political gain.AND he can sing on-key.
I really wasn’t going to do another column about Mitt Romney this week. Really. I promise. But I can’t help it. On Wednesday, they served up a pitch that’s so slow and easy, I just have to take a whack at it.It all started when Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul responded to an ad that was created by one of those SuperPACs that are so thick on the ground this year. The ad, titled “Understands,” features a former steelworker named Joe Soptic.The plant where Soptic worked was shut down by Romney’s company, Bain Capital. Soptic lost his health insurance. His wife was diagnosed with cancer and died because, the ad implies, she couldn’t afford to go to the doctor until she got too sick to ignore her symptoms, and by then it was too late. Mrs. Soptic died 22 days after being diagnosed.“I do not think Mitt Romney realizes what he’s done to anyone,” Soptic concludes. “And furthermore, I do not think Mitt Romney is concerned.” Basically, Soptic says, Mitt Romney and his company are responsible for his wife’s death, and the MittBot doesn’t care. Wow. That’s gonna leave a mark.Now, as it turns out, Soptic’s wife didn’t get sick till several years after Soptic lost his job, and she had health insurance from her own job for part of that time. The aforementioned Ms. Saul pointed that out. But then she stepped in it, big time. “If people had been in Massachusetts, under Governor Romney’s health care plan,” she told Fox News, “they would have had health care.”This was most likely true, and to any normal candidate, it would have been a major selling point. But Romney is not a normal candidate. He’s a guy who’s trying very hard to distance himself from his biggest achievement as governor: the health plan that was the model for the national health plan he now vows to repeal, because if he didn’t promise that, he wouldn’t get the nomination.So saying “Governor Romney’s health care plan might have saved this woman’s life” was actually exactly the wrong thing to say. If you needed any more proof that American politics in 2012 is completely insane, you need look no further than that.I suppose one can’t blame Ms. Saul too much. After all, when you work for a guy who changes his stances on issues more times that most people change positions in their sleep, it must keep getting harder and harder to keep everything straight.That didn’t stop the right wing from going completely haywire over the statement. Even more than usual, I mean. Rush Limbaugh said that “Andrea Saul’s appearance on Fox was a potential gold mine for Obama supporters.” Ann Coulter demanded that Saul be fired if Romney ever wanted any more contributions from conservatives.Erick Erickson of CNN and the flagship right wing blog RedState called it “a mind-numbingly bit of spin [sic] that may mark the day the Romney campaign died.” Erickson noted that the right wing had never really trusted or warmed to Romney, and this wasn’t helping: “Consider the scab picked, the wound opened, and the distrust trickling out again.”Euuuwww. Nice image there, Erick.The assertion that this “may mark the day the Romney campaign died” is probably as overwrought as the original ad. But Team Romney does seem to be experiencing the Death of a Thousand Cuts, almost all of them self-inflicted. They’re creating an impression that’s worse for them than the perception that they’re flip-floppers or that they don’t tell the truth — they look inept.People may be willing to overlook a little flip-flopping or even a little mendacity as something that politicians on both sides do. But when one of the overriding themes of your campaign is that your guy is this cool, experienced, uber-competent CEO who can manage us out of the crisis, ineptitude may be the only unforgivable sin.When your message is “You’re in a hole and our guy can get you out of it,” it doesn’t help if you act like you don’t know which end of the shovel is which.This is especially true when you’re going up against the guy that ended the Iraq War, got real health care reform done when no one thought he could, gave the orders that killed Osama bin Laden, saved the auto industry, and presided over 29 months of job growth despite an obstructive House determined to keep things bad for political gain.AND he can sing on-key.
August 6, 2012
Romney Gaffes: A Bug Or a Feature?
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There’s a well-worn cliche among computer geeks that goes: “That’s not a bug, it’s a feature.”It started as a way to deflect criticism of software that just didn’t work as advertised (or failed to work at all) by claiming that whatever weird glitch was driving the user up the wall was always intended to be that way.For a while there, I was wondering if “it’s not a bug, it’s a feature” might explain the recent Mitt Romney International Gaffe Tour 2012.As you may have read, Romney kicked things off by dissing the British hosts of the Olympics on his first stop, earning the unenviable nickname of “Mitt the Twit” from the tabloid newspaper The Sun, and worse epithets from several others.He then went to Israel, where he told a crowd that Jews in Israel were more successful than the Palestinians because of their “culture,” which managed to be both a slam at the Palestinians and more than a little stereotypical of the Jews — after all, wasn’t Romney just trotting out the old anti-Semitic trope that “Jews are good with money”?Of course, this also fails to take into account that maybe, just maybe, the Palestinian economy is struggling because their movements are severely restricted and a good chunk of the country is sequestered behind a 25-foot wall. Just a thought.Then it was on to Poland, where a Romney press spokesman responded to shouted questions from frustrated reporters by snarling, “Kiss my [rude word]; this is a holy site for the Polish people. Show some respect.”Am I the only one who finds “Kiss my [rude word]; this is a holy site” hilarious? The spokesman then told a reporter to “shove it,” in a way that suggested he wasn’t giving advice on getting the doorknob unstuck.Now, at first glance, all of this may have made Romney and his people look inept and unprofessional. But then I had second thoughts. After all, even now, Romney’s still trying to shore up his credibility with the Rabid Right.And what better way to do that than treating other countries (even allies) with contempt, kicking the Palestinians in the teeth, and telling the press to “kiss my [rude word]”? Were all these gaffes a “bug” in the campaign software or a “feature”?But when you dig a little deeper, you find that these missteps were just the tip of the gaffe-berg. There were others, like Romney having to cancel a fundraising dinner in Israel because it was scheduled on a holy day of fasting.He also praised the Israeli health care system for keeping health care costs at “8 percent of GDP,” forgetting perhaps that the Israeli National Health Insurance Law “sets forth the state’s responsibility to provide health services for all residents of the country,” according to their Ministry of Foreign Affairs.And yes, there’s an individual mandate. Romney praising “socialism”? That’s gotta be a gaffe-and-a-half.But it was Romney’s treatment of the press that finally answered the question for me. It wasn’t just the guy telling off reporters. Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren griped that there’d been no press access to the MittBot in Poland and that reporters felt like they were “in a petting zoo … trapped in a bus while Polish citizens take pictures of us.”Here’s the thing: You can trash talk the press, you can put them in crowded buses, you can put them up in roach motels — but you cannot deny them some sort of access, even if it’s illusory. They’ll sell their souls for the thrill and the prestige of feeling like they’re “inside” with the movers and shakers.A candidate who gives them that thrill can tell them the most outrageous lies, and they’ll print them verbatim, singing the candidate’s praises all the while, extolling his “manliness” and explaining away his gaffes. You can feed them total BS, but you can’t starve them.George Dubbya Bush was great at it. John McCain cooked baby back ribs for the press and let them ride the tire swing at one of his houses. They loved the guy, giving him pass after pass.Time’s Mark Halperin even earnestly argued that McCain not remembering how many houses he had was “terrible news for Barack Obama.”But remember when Sarah Palin’s press spokeswoman responded to a question about whether Palin would take questions by jeering, “From who? From you? Who cares?” How’d that work out for her?So, on third thought, I’m going to have to go with inept. This trip showed one thing: Mitt Romney is not ready for the world stage.
There’s a well-worn cliche among computer geeks that goes: “That’s not a bug, it’s a feature.”It started as a way to deflect criticism of software that just didn’t work as advertised (or failed to work at all) by claiming that whatever weird glitch was driving the user up the wall was always intended to be that way.For a while there, I was wondering if “it’s not a bug, it’s a feature” might explain the recent Mitt Romney International Gaffe Tour 2012.As you may have read, Romney kicked things off by dissing the British hosts of the Olympics on his first stop, earning the unenviable nickname of “Mitt the Twit” from the tabloid newspaper The Sun, and worse epithets from several others.He then went to Israel, where he told a crowd that Jews in Israel were more successful than the Palestinians because of their “culture,” which managed to be both a slam at the Palestinians and more than a little stereotypical of the Jews — after all, wasn’t Romney just trotting out the old anti-Semitic trope that “Jews are good with money”?Of course, this also fails to take into account that maybe, just maybe, the Palestinian economy is struggling because their movements are severely restricted and a good chunk of the country is sequestered behind a 25-foot wall. Just a thought.Then it was on to Poland, where a Romney press spokesman responded to shouted questions from frustrated reporters by snarling, “Kiss my [rude word]; this is a holy site for the Polish people. Show some respect.”Am I the only one who finds “Kiss my [rude word]; this is a holy site” hilarious? The spokesman then told a reporter to “shove it,” in a way that suggested he wasn’t giving advice on getting the doorknob unstuck.Now, at first glance, all of this may have made Romney and his people look inept and unprofessional. But then I had second thoughts. After all, even now, Romney’s still trying to shore up his credibility with the Rabid Right.And what better way to do that than treating other countries (even allies) with contempt, kicking the Palestinians in the teeth, and telling the press to “kiss my [rude word]”? Were all these gaffes a “bug” in the campaign software or a “feature”?But when you dig a little deeper, you find that these missteps were just the tip of the gaffe-berg. There were others, like Romney having to cancel a fundraising dinner in Israel because it was scheduled on a holy day of fasting.He also praised the Israeli health care system for keeping health care costs at “8 percent of GDP,” forgetting perhaps that the Israeli National Health Insurance Law “sets forth the state’s responsibility to provide health services for all residents of the country,” according to their Ministry of Foreign Affairs.And yes, there’s an individual mandate. Romney praising “socialism”? That’s gotta be a gaffe-and-a-half.But it was Romney’s treatment of the press that finally answered the question for me. It wasn’t just the guy telling off reporters. Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren griped that there’d been no press access to the MittBot in Poland and that reporters felt like they were “in a petting zoo … trapped in a bus while Polish citizens take pictures of us.”Here’s the thing: You can trash talk the press, you can put them in crowded buses, you can put them up in roach motels — but you cannot deny them some sort of access, even if it’s illusory. They’ll sell their souls for the thrill and the prestige of feeling like they’re “inside” with the movers and shakers.A candidate who gives them that thrill can tell them the most outrageous lies, and they’ll print them verbatim, singing the candidate’s praises all the while, extolling his “manliness” and explaining away his gaffes. You can feed them total BS, but you can’t starve them.George Dubbya Bush was great at it. John McCain cooked baby back ribs for the press and let them ride the tire swing at one of his houses. They loved the guy, giving him pass after pass.Time’s Mark Halperin even earnestly argued that McCain not remembering how many houses he had was “terrible news for Barack Obama.”But remember when Sarah Palin’s press spokeswoman responded to a question about whether Palin would take questions by jeering, “From who? From you? Who cares?” How’d that work out for her?So, on third thought, I’m going to have to go with inept. This trip showed one thing: Mitt Romney is not ready for the world stage.
