J.D. Rhoades's Blog, page 31
July 29, 2012
How to Speak Wingnut
Latest Newspaper Column
Talking or conversing online with a member of the Rabid Right can often be a frustrating experience. It often seems like the two of you are talking past each other.This is because while wingnuts speak something that appears to be English, they're not really speaking the same language as you. They use a sort of argot or cant, made up of dog-whistles and code words whose full and deeper meaning is only understood by them or people like them.So here's a helpful guide in understanding wingnut speech, or, as I call it, Wingspeak:What they say: "Obama was never properly vetted. We don't know anything about him."What they mean: "We've dug and dug but none of us has ever been able to turn up a shred of credible evidence for all of the ridiculous stuff we've made up about Barack Obama."What they say: "The press is covering up this story."What they mean: "The press won't report our half-truths, distortions and outright lies as if they were facts."What they say: "The press has a liberal bias."What they mean: "The press keeps finding out true but damaging things about us."What they say: "We need to cut spending."What they mean: "We need to stop giving money to black and poor people so the government can pay for my retirement and health care."What they say: "We need entitlement reform."What they mean: "For every entitlement but the ones I get."What they say: "Government can't create jobs."What they mean: "Government shouldn't spend money to create jobs except for ones resulting from defense, road or bridge projects in my district."What they say: "I know it isn't politically correct to say this, but..."What they mean: "I am about to say something incredibly racist, sexist or just pig-ignorant, and I want to look like I'm daring and edgy instead of a brain-dead boob."What they say: "You just call everyone who disagrees with you a racist!"What they mean: "I say racist stuff all the time, but maybe if I play the aggrieved, falsely accused victim, I can get away with it."What they say: "You just call people names because you haven't got any real arguments!"What they mean: "I'm going to hope people ignore the fact that you just used actual evidence to clean my clock in this argument by self-righteously feigning indignation over the way you said it."What they say: "Barack Obama isn't a real American."What they mean: "Obama is black."What they say: "Barack Obama doesn't love America."What they mean: "Obama is black."What they say: "Barack Obama wasn't born here, he was born in Kenya."What they mean: "Obama is black."What they say: "Barack Obama should release his college transcripts."What they mean: "He couldn't have legitimately gotten into college and done as well as he did without getting special treatment, because he's, you know, black."What they say: "Mitt Romney should release his tax returns only when President Obama releases his school records."What they mean: "We're positive there's something in those tax returns that will destroy Romney's candidacy, so we'll come up with any flimsy non sequitur to try and excuse why he shouldn't release them. Also, Obama should release his school records because he's, you know, black."What they say: "Obamacare is socialism!"What they mean: "We don't really have any idea what's actually the Affordable Care Act, but we know this: We don't like socialism, we don't like Obama, and we don't like this plan, even though it was originally proposed by Republicans, because this time it was backed by a guy who's a Democrat and, you know, black, so we're going to call it something that sounds impressive and ominous, even though it clearly shows we know as much about socialism as we know about quantum physics."What they say: "President Obama is engaging in Chicago-style gutter politics."What they mean: "Obama's using the same hardball tactics against us that we've used to win every election we've succeeded in, and doing it better, since the stuff he's saying is actually true."What they say: "The Obama campaign is getting desperate."What they mean: "We're getting hurt badly by the latest round of revelations."As a general rule of thumb, when they say, "How dare those awful liberals (fill in supposed outrage here)," what they mean is "You can't do that! Only we can do that!"Hope this helps.
Talking or conversing online with a member of the Rabid Right can often be a frustrating experience. It often seems like the two of you are talking past each other.This is because while wingnuts speak something that appears to be English, they're not really speaking the same language as you. They use a sort of argot or cant, made up of dog-whistles and code words whose full and deeper meaning is only understood by them or people like them.So here's a helpful guide in understanding wingnut speech, or, as I call it, Wingspeak:What they say: "Obama was never properly vetted. We don't know anything about him."What they mean: "We've dug and dug but none of us has ever been able to turn up a shred of credible evidence for all of the ridiculous stuff we've made up about Barack Obama."What they say: "The press is covering up this story."What they mean: "The press won't report our half-truths, distortions and outright lies as if they were facts."What they say: "The press has a liberal bias."What they mean: "The press keeps finding out true but damaging things about us."What they say: "We need to cut spending."What they mean: "We need to stop giving money to black and poor people so the government can pay for my retirement and health care."What they say: "We need entitlement reform."What they mean: "For every entitlement but the ones I get."What they say: "Government can't create jobs."What they mean: "Government shouldn't spend money to create jobs except for ones resulting from defense, road or bridge projects in my district."What they say: "I know it isn't politically correct to say this, but..."What they mean: "I am about to say something incredibly racist, sexist or just pig-ignorant, and I want to look like I'm daring and edgy instead of a brain-dead boob."What they say: "You just call everyone who disagrees with you a racist!"What they mean: "I say racist stuff all the time, but maybe if I play the aggrieved, falsely accused victim, I can get away with it."What they say: "You just call people names because you haven't got any real arguments!"What they mean: "I'm going to hope people ignore the fact that you just used actual evidence to clean my clock in this argument by self-righteously feigning indignation over the way you said it."What they say: "Barack Obama isn't a real American."What they mean: "Obama is black."What they say: "Barack Obama doesn't love America."What they mean: "Obama is black."What they say: "Barack Obama wasn't born here, he was born in Kenya."What they mean: "Obama is black."What they say: "Barack Obama should release his college transcripts."What they mean: "He couldn't have legitimately gotten into college and done as well as he did without getting special treatment, because he's, you know, black."What they say: "Mitt Romney should release his tax returns only when President Obama releases his school records."What they mean: "We're positive there's something in those tax returns that will destroy Romney's candidacy, so we'll come up with any flimsy non sequitur to try and excuse why he shouldn't release them. Also, Obama should release his school records because he's, you know, black."What they say: "Obamacare is socialism!"What they mean: "We don't really have any idea what's actually the Affordable Care Act, but we know this: We don't like socialism, we don't like Obama, and we don't like this plan, even though it was originally proposed by Republicans, because this time it was backed by a guy who's a Democrat and, you know, black, so we're going to call it something that sounds impressive and ominous, even though it clearly shows we know as much about socialism as we know about quantum physics."What they say: "President Obama is engaging in Chicago-style gutter politics."What they mean: "Obama's using the same hardball tactics against us that we've used to win every election we've succeeded in, and doing it better, since the stuff he's saying is actually true."What they say: "The Obama campaign is getting desperate."What they mean: "We're getting hurt badly by the latest round of revelations."As a general rule of thumb, when they say, "How dare those awful liberals (fill in supposed outrage here)," what they mean is "You can't do that! Only we can do that!"Hope this helps.
Mitt's Painted Into a Corner
The Pilot: Southern Pines, NC, July 22, 2012
First a quick correction: Last week, as a couple of readers pointed out, I had a brain fluff and mentioned the "Republican-controlled Senate."Clearly it's the House the Republicans control, and I could have sworn that's what I wrote. But, sure enough, the original column has the mistake right there, plain as day. Mea culpa. It's the Republican-controlled House that's wasting precious time and millions of taxpayer dollars on votes that are little more than stunts meant to do nothing but generate ads for the fall. Hope this clears things up.Anyway, it seems that Willard Mitt "Etch a Sketch" Romney has gotten himself into another hilarious pickle with his zany antics. Romney's been basing his entire campaign message around "trust me to fix the economy, I'm a big shot businessman who made bunches and bunches of money."Well, I guess he can't run on his single four-year term as an actual chief executive, during which his signature achievement was a health care reform plan that provided the blueprint for the Affordable Care Act - you know, the so-called "Obamacare" that the current GOP hates with the burning intensity of a thousand suns, despite the fact it was originally a Republican idea.No, he can't run on his record as the moderate governor of "Taxachusetts." The Rabid Right would eat him for lunch. So he's made his biggest selling point his tenure as the top kahuna of a bewildering set of interlocking entities known as Bain Capital.Until, that is, people (including fellow Republicans Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry) started pointing out that some of Bain's strategies for making money from the companies it took over looked uncomfortably like one of those "bust out" scenarios from "Goodfellas" or "The Sopranos": Move in, use the company's credit to jack up its debt and pay themselves big fees with the borrowed money, then, if "restructuring" (usually involving firing a lot of people and moving jobs overseas) didn't turn things around, declare bankruptcy and walk away with pockets full of cash.It was the accusations of "offshoring" jobs overseas that really got Mitt's goat. He had nothing to do with that, he insisted. His official campaign statement said that "Governor Romney left Bain Capital in February of 1999 to run the Olympics and had no input on investments or management of companies after that point."Then The Boston Globe found documents filed with the SEC and signed by Romney that told a different story. As just one filing from Feb. 20, 2001 put it: "Mr. W. Mitt Romney is the sole shareholder, sole director, chief executive officer and president of Bain Capital and thus [and this is the important part] is the controlling person of Bain Capital." Oops.The Romney campaign went into frantic spin mode, spamming Mitt's mug across five networks in one day to explain how a person described in legally required filings as the "controlling person" in 2001 wasn't really in control in 2001. "Who you gonna believe," the defense ran, "me, or those lyin' documents with my signature on them?"It reached the height of absurdity when Romney surrogate Ed Gillespie earnestly explained that Romney had "retroactively" retired from Bain in 2002, after which late night comedians such as Jon Stewart and Conan O'Brian were seen literally dancing for joy at the gift they'd been handed.Now it may be entirely true that Romney, despite what he said at the time, had no say in the "day to day" running of Bain. But does that really help Romney? Isn't that one of the things that disgusts people about corporate America - that required regulatory filings are just a sham, that no one's accountable, even though they say they are, and that this all seems perfectly normal to the mainstream corporate-owned media?Are the American people really supposed to believe that that the guy who embraces this sort of corporate gamesmanship, obfuscation, and skullduggery is the solution to the problems in the economy? Finally, what's Romney going to do now that he's being forced to distance himself from the very experience he's touting as his main qualification for the White House?I'm thinking he's got nothing. Which means we'll be hearing more lies about "socialism" and "apologizing for America" and attacks on the president's patriotism, interspersed with whining about how mean Obama is and demands for apologies that won't happen, all of which only serve to make Mittens look like a weak, ineffectual chump (see "Kerry, John: 2004 campaign").Meanwhile, "where are the tax returns?" will become the Democratic version of "where's the birth certificate?"It's going to be a long campaign. For Romney.
First a quick correction: Last week, as a couple of readers pointed out, I had a brain fluff and mentioned the "Republican-controlled Senate."Clearly it's the House the Republicans control, and I could have sworn that's what I wrote. But, sure enough, the original column has the mistake right there, plain as day. Mea culpa. It's the Republican-controlled House that's wasting precious time and millions of taxpayer dollars on votes that are little more than stunts meant to do nothing but generate ads for the fall. Hope this clears things up.Anyway, it seems that Willard Mitt "Etch a Sketch" Romney has gotten himself into another hilarious pickle with his zany antics. Romney's been basing his entire campaign message around "trust me to fix the economy, I'm a big shot businessman who made bunches and bunches of money."Well, I guess he can't run on his single four-year term as an actual chief executive, during which his signature achievement was a health care reform plan that provided the blueprint for the Affordable Care Act - you know, the so-called "Obamacare" that the current GOP hates with the burning intensity of a thousand suns, despite the fact it was originally a Republican idea.No, he can't run on his record as the moderate governor of "Taxachusetts." The Rabid Right would eat him for lunch. So he's made his biggest selling point his tenure as the top kahuna of a bewildering set of interlocking entities known as Bain Capital.Until, that is, people (including fellow Republicans Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry) started pointing out that some of Bain's strategies for making money from the companies it took over looked uncomfortably like one of those "bust out" scenarios from "Goodfellas" or "The Sopranos": Move in, use the company's credit to jack up its debt and pay themselves big fees with the borrowed money, then, if "restructuring" (usually involving firing a lot of people and moving jobs overseas) didn't turn things around, declare bankruptcy and walk away with pockets full of cash.It was the accusations of "offshoring" jobs overseas that really got Mitt's goat. He had nothing to do with that, he insisted. His official campaign statement said that "Governor Romney left Bain Capital in February of 1999 to run the Olympics and had no input on investments or management of companies after that point."Then The Boston Globe found documents filed with the SEC and signed by Romney that told a different story. As just one filing from Feb. 20, 2001 put it: "Mr. W. Mitt Romney is the sole shareholder, sole director, chief executive officer and president of Bain Capital and thus [and this is the important part] is the controlling person of Bain Capital." Oops.The Romney campaign went into frantic spin mode, spamming Mitt's mug across five networks in one day to explain how a person described in legally required filings as the "controlling person" in 2001 wasn't really in control in 2001. "Who you gonna believe," the defense ran, "me, or those lyin' documents with my signature on them?"It reached the height of absurdity when Romney surrogate Ed Gillespie earnestly explained that Romney had "retroactively" retired from Bain in 2002, after which late night comedians such as Jon Stewart and Conan O'Brian were seen literally dancing for joy at the gift they'd been handed.Now it may be entirely true that Romney, despite what he said at the time, had no say in the "day to day" running of Bain. But does that really help Romney? Isn't that one of the things that disgusts people about corporate America - that required regulatory filings are just a sham, that no one's accountable, even though they say they are, and that this all seems perfectly normal to the mainstream corporate-owned media?Are the American people really supposed to believe that that the guy who embraces this sort of corporate gamesmanship, obfuscation, and skullduggery is the solution to the problems in the economy? Finally, what's Romney going to do now that he's being forced to distance himself from the very experience he's touting as his main qualification for the White House?I'm thinking he's got nothing. Which means we'll be hearing more lies about "socialism" and "apologizing for America" and attacks on the president's patriotism, interspersed with whining about how mean Obama is and demands for apologies that won't happen, all of which only serve to make Mittens look like a weak, ineffectual chump (see "Kerry, John: 2004 campaign").Meanwhile, "where are the tax returns?" will become the Democratic version of "where's the birth certificate?"It's going to be a long campaign. For Romney.
July 15, 2012
Insanity Is The Most GENEROUS Explanation
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Thirty-three times in 18 months.
That’s how many times the Republican-controlled House has voted to repeal all or part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (which they call “Obama-care”), even though they know that such a measure is doomed to fail in the Senate.Even if such a bill through some miracle managed to somehow survive the Senate, it would certainly be vetoed by President Barack Obama. The most recent vote came this past Wednesday.I’ve often said that a key quirk in the wingnut psyche is the absolutely unshakeable conviction that if something fails repeatedly, it’s because they just didn’t ram their heads against the wall hard enough. “The economy crashed despite big tax cuts? That just means we need more tax cuts to grow the economy!” And so on.There’s a fine line between perseverance and insanity, and Cryin’ John Boehner and his merry band of fools crossed that line so long ago that they can’t even see it in the rearview mirror anymore.Of course, it’s entirely possible that this wasn’t some form of mental illness on the part of the Prince of Orange and his crew. There are some cynics who say that the Republican leadership knew the measure, like the 32 before it, was doomed to fail. There are some who even say that the whole thing was a political stunt.They say the whole thing’s a ploy to get House members staked out on their positions on the health care reform bill so that those votes could be used against them in the upcoming election, when those impressive voiceover announcers who only seem to surface at election time will be intoning “Congressman Schmendrick voted with Obama” with the type of voice-of-doom gravitas that suggests that they equate that voting record with unqualified support for child molestation.But that’s hard to believe, don’t you think? I mean, that would make the Republican leadership seem like a bunch of completely politicized hacks who would take one of the 42 remaining days they’ve allotted themselves until the end of the year to address the people’s business and use it for the sole purpose of creating sound bites.That would be a crassly cynical act by a party that’s decided to abandon the idea of addressing any real progress on jobs, immigration, national security, energy independence or any substantive issue at all, a party whose one and only priority is not governing, but winning.That can’t really be it, can it? I mean, I know that’s what Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said was his party’s “No. 1 priority” a while back, but he was joking, right? Because that would make them seem pretty useless to the average American.No, I’ve got to go with insanity here. Another indicator that the Republicans are suffering from some sort of mental breakdown is the things they say about the ACA that are completely divorced from the reality of the actual bill.Quotes like Mitt Romney’s assertion that “Obamacare puts the government between you and your doctor.” Or his claim that “Obamacare means 20 million American will lose the health insurance they have and want to keep.”Or the oft-repeated claim, most recently seen in an ad from one of those shadowy anonymous SuperPACs attacking Florida Sen. Ben Nelson, that the health care law’s cost will be $2 trillion, “double what we were promised.” Or the claim from Florida Gov. Rick Scott that a company with 20 employees “could go out of business” because of the law’s requirement to buy insurance (even though companies with fewer than 50 employees are exempt from that requirement).All of these assertions have been rated “false” by the nonpartisan fact-checking site Politifact. The “business with 20 employees” canard from Scott was given the lowest rating for truthfulness: “Pants on Fire.” And yet Republicans keep repeating these and other proven falsehoods over and over and over again.Now, some people would insist that that means they’re all a pack of liars who have such complete contempt for the American voter that they think you’ll believe anything.To believe they’re not seriously delusional would mean that they believe, as Adolf Hitler stated in “Mein Kampf,” that “in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility … for the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world.”And that can’t be right. They can’t really think that way. Can they?
Thirty-three times in 18 months.
That’s how many times the Republican-controlled House has voted to repeal all or part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (which they call “Obama-care”), even though they know that such a measure is doomed to fail in the Senate.Even if such a bill through some miracle managed to somehow survive the Senate, it would certainly be vetoed by President Barack Obama. The most recent vote came this past Wednesday.I’ve often said that a key quirk in the wingnut psyche is the absolutely unshakeable conviction that if something fails repeatedly, it’s because they just didn’t ram their heads against the wall hard enough. “The economy crashed despite big tax cuts? That just means we need more tax cuts to grow the economy!” And so on.There’s a fine line between perseverance and insanity, and Cryin’ John Boehner and his merry band of fools crossed that line so long ago that they can’t even see it in the rearview mirror anymore.Of course, it’s entirely possible that this wasn’t some form of mental illness on the part of the Prince of Orange and his crew. There are some cynics who say that the Republican leadership knew the measure, like the 32 before it, was doomed to fail. There are some who even say that the whole thing was a political stunt.They say the whole thing’s a ploy to get House members staked out on their positions on the health care reform bill so that those votes could be used against them in the upcoming election, when those impressive voiceover announcers who only seem to surface at election time will be intoning “Congressman Schmendrick voted with Obama” with the type of voice-of-doom gravitas that suggests that they equate that voting record with unqualified support for child molestation.But that’s hard to believe, don’t you think? I mean, that would make the Republican leadership seem like a bunch of completely politicized hacks who would take one of the 42 remaining days they’ve allotted themselves until the end of the year to address the people’s business and use it for the sole purpose of creating sound bites.That would be a crassly cynical act by a party that’s decided to abandon the idea of addressing any real progress on jobs, immigration, national security, energy independence or any substantive issue at all, a party whose one and only priority is not governing, but winning.That can’t really be it, can it? I mean, I know that’s what Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said was his party’s “No. 1 priority” a while back, but he was joking, right? Because that would make them seem pretty useless to the average American.No, I’ve got to go with insanity here. Another indicator that the Republicans are suffering from some sort of mental breakdown is the things they say about the ACA that are completely divorced from the reality of the actual bill.Quotes like Mitt Romney’s assertion that “Obamacare puts the government between you and your doctor.” Or his claim that “Obamacare means 20 million American will lose the health insurance they have and want to keep.”Or the oft-repeated claim, most recently seen in an ad from one of those shadowy anonymous SuperPACs attacking Florida Sen. Ben Nelson, that the health care law’s cost will be $2 trillion, “double what we were promised.” Or the claim from Florida Gov. Rick Scott that a company with 20 employees “could go out of business” because of the law’s requirement to buy insurance (even though companies with fewer than 50 employees are exempt from that requirement).All of these assertions have been rated “false” by the nonpartisan fact-checking site Politifact. The “business with 20 employees” canard from Scott was given the lowest rating for truthfulness: “Pants on Fire.” And yet Republicans keep repeating these and other proven falsehoods over and over and over again.Now, some people would insist that that means they’re all a pack of liars who have such complete contempt for the American voter that they think you’ll believe anything.To believe they’re not seriously delusional would mean that they believe, as Adolf Hitler stated in “Mein Kampf,” that “in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility … for the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world.”And that can’t be right. They can’t really think that way. Can they?
July 8, 2012
Romney Shaking That Etch a Sketch Just As Hard As He Can, To No Avail
Latest Newspaper Column:
Last week, conservatives of all stripes were handed a great big steaming pile of disappointment when the Supreme Court voted 5-4 that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka "Obamacare") was constitutional. In particular, the Supremes upheld the "individual mandate," which requires most people to buy insurance or pay a penalty.
The reaction was pretty much what you'd expect from the unhinged right, for whom Obama Derangement Syndrome is the new normal. There were calls for the impeachment of Chief Justice John Roberts. Someone briefly changed Roberts' Wikipedia page to brand him "Chief Traitor of the United States."
Former Michigan GOP spokesperson Matt Davis went even further: "[H]as the Republic all but ceased to exist?" he wrote on the Michigan Capitol blog. "If so, then is armed rebellion today justified?" When pressed for clarification, he refused to back down: "You can't have people walking with lattes and signs and think the object of your opposition is going to take you seriously. Armed rebellion is the end point of that physical confrontation."
Later, however, he did amend his remarks to say he'd "take out the part about armed rebellion." Whew. Good thing. Else someone might think the right wing was made up of, you know, radical traitors.
Some conservatives did paw through the wreckage of their hopes for a black eye for the president, trying to salvage something. They found it, or so they thought, in Chief Justice Roberts' opinion that, while the mandate could not be upheld as an exercise of the Constitution's Commerce Clause, it did fall within their power to levy and collect taxes, because of the penalty provision. They seized upon the idea of a "tax" and began waving it about with glee.
"The biggest tax increase in the history of the world!" trumpeted Rush Limbaugh. (Wrong, as usual. As noted by numerous sources, even if you accept it as a tax, it comes in 10th in U.S. history, behind Bush the Elder's 1990 tax increase and far behind that of Saint Ronnie Reagan in 1992.)
But calling the mandate a tax increase, while it handed the Republicans in Congress a new talking point, handed their presidential candidate a ticking time bomb. Mitt Romney's health care plan in Massachusetts, which he's on video touting as a model for the country, contained a nearly identical health insurance mandate. But Romney's insisting he didn't raise taxes in Massachusetts.
So, when campaign spokesman Eric Fehnstrom (who gave us the notorious "Etch A Sketch" quote) told NBC that Mitt "disagreed with the ruling of the court. He agreed with the dissent written by Justice Scalia, which very clearly stated that the mandate was not a tax," he really didn't have any choice.
Or did he? If you're Mitt Romney, you always have a choice, if you regard directly contradicting what you just said as a choice. Wednesday, Mitt raised that Etch A Sketch above his head and shook with all his might to try to wipe out his campaign's stated position of the day before.
"While I agreed with the dissent," Romney said, "that's taken over by the fact that the majority of the court said it is a tax, and therefore it is a tax. They have spoken. There is no way around that."
Now, one could view this not as a contradiction, but as a nuanced statement that Romney still doesn't think it's a tax, but that it's legally one now, so we have to live with that. But that hands Romney another set of problems:
First, Republicans don't do nuance. Nuance is what they beat John Kerry to death with in 2004. The second problem is similar: The rubes, racists and rageaholics of the Republican base hate the president so much, they will completely disregard anything Romney says or does and pull the lever for him anyway.
Romney could kill a kitten with a hammer at the podium during a campaign stop and by nightfall, right-wing bloggers, Republican talk radio and Fox News would be flooded with pundits insisting the kitten had it coming, and it'd be an article of faith among the Rabid Right by the weekend.
But to independents and undecideds, saying, as Romney did in a CBS interview, "It wasn't a tax when I did it, but it is when it's in Obamacare," makes you look like a weasel. Romney is just that, of course, but this particular act of weaseltude may be the one he can't wiggle away from.
Last week, conservatives of all stripes were handed a great big steaming pile of disappointment when the Supreme Court voted 5-4 that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka "Obamacare") was constitutional. In particular, the Supremes upheld the "individual mandate," which requires most people to buy insurance or pay a penalty.
The reaction was pretty much what you'd expect from the unhinged right, for whom Obama Derangement Syndrome is the new normal. There were calls for the impeachment of Chief Justice John Roberts. Someone briefly changed Roberts' Wikipedia page to brand him "Chief Traitor of the United States."
Former Michigan GOP spokesperson Matt Davis went even further: "[H]as the Republic all but ceased to exist?" he wrote on the Michigan Capitol blog. "If so, then is armed rebellion today justified?" When pressed for clarification, he refused to back down: "You can't have people walking with lattes and signs and think the object of your opposition is going to take you seriously. Armed rebellion is the end point of that physical confrontation."
Later, however, he did amend his remarks to say he'd "take out the part about armed rebellion." Whew. Good thing. Else someone might think the right wing was made up of, you know, radical traitors.
Some conservatives did paw through the wreckage of their hopes for a black eye for the president, trying to salvage something. They found it, or so they thought, in Chief Justice Roberts' opinion that, while the mandate could not be upheld as an exercise of the Constitution's Commerce Clause, it did fall within their power to levy and collect taxes, because of the penalty provision. They seized upon the idea of a "tax" and began waving it about with glee.
"The biggest tax increase in the history of the world!" trumpeted Rush Limbaugh. (Wrong, as usual. As noted by numerous sources, even if you accept it as a tax, it comes in 10th in U.S. history, behind Bush the Elder's 1990 tax increase and far behind that of Saint Ronnie Reagan in 1992.)
But calling the mandate a tax increase, while it handed the Republicans in Congress a new talking point, handed their presidential candidate a ticking time bomb. Mitt Romney's health care plan in Massachusetts, which he's on video touting as a model for the country, contained a nearly identical health insurance mandate. But Romney's insisting he didn't raise taxes in Massachusetts.
So, when campaign spokesman Eric Fehnstrom (who gave us the notorious "Etch A Sketch" quote) told NBC that Mitt "disagreed with the ruling of the court. He agreed with the dissent written by Justice Scalia, which very clearly stated that the mandate was not a tax," he really didn't have any choice.
Or did he? If you're Mitt Romney, you always have a choice, if you regard directly contradicting what you just said as a choice. Wednesday, Mitt raised that Etch A Sketch above his head and shook with all his might to try to wipe out his campaign's stated position of the day before.
"While I agreed with the dissent," Romney said, "that's taken over by the fact that the majority of the court said it is a tax, and therefore it is a tax. They have spoken. There is no way around that."
Now, one could view this not as a contradiction, but as a nuanced statement that Romney still doesn't think it's a tax, but that it's legally one now, so we have to live with that. But that hands Romney another set of problems:
First, Republicans don't do nuance. Nuance is what they beat John Kerry to death with in 2004. The second problem is similar: The rubes, racists and rageaholics of the Republican base hate the president so much, they will completely disregard anything Romney says or does and pull the lever for him anyway.
Romney could kill a kitten with a hammer at the podium during a campaign stop and by nightfall, right-wing bloggers, Republican talk radio and Fox News would be flooded with pundits insisting the kitten had it coming, and it'd be an article of faith among the Rabid Right by the weekend.
But to independents and undecideds, saying, as Romney did in a CBS interview, "It wasn't a tax when I did it, but it is when it's in Obamacare," makes you look like a weasel. Romney is just that, of course, but this particular act of weaseltude may be the one he can't wiggle away from.
July 1, 2012
Well, He's No Bill Pullman, But He'll Do
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When you look at the polling data on November's presidential election, it's easy to be confused (if you're at all intellectually honest) or to find evidence that your chosen candidate is the clear front-runner (if you're not).For instance, a Bloomberg poll taken between June 15 and June 18 shows President Obama up by a whopping 13 points. The Rasmussen tracking poll for the same period shows Mitt Romney up by 1. The Fox News poll shows a tie. Most others show Obama with a slight lead, often within the margin of error.Anything that close is subject to change without notice - at which point, supporters of one candidate or the other will commence the usual tiresome premature victory lap.There is one poll, however, conducted by the National Geographic TV channel, that gives the president a clear and commanding lead on one vital question - 65 percent of those responding to that poll believe that President Obama would do a better job of protecting the country from an alien invasion.I'm not talking about the aliens from south of the border, the very thought of which turns so many people on the right into miserable, depressed creatures who can't even discuss the subject without devolving into a jeremiad about the Doom of American Civilization as it's buried under wave after wave of the Brown Hordes.No, I'm talking about real aliens. You know, the little gray goomers with big heads and enormous black eyes. Or the slimy buglike critters in their bio-suits from "Independence Day." Or... you get the idea.The poll, conducted by Kelton Research for the NG channel, was part of a promotion of a new show called "Chasing UFOs." Despite the fact that the respondents overwhelmingly believe in Obama's ability to deal with an attack from the stars, 79 percent of them also believe that the government "has kept information about aliens and UFOs a secret from the public," according to a story in the online political blog The Hill.And yet, only 36 percent of those same respondents believe UFOs actually exist, 17 percent are sure they don't, and 48 percent of them aren't sure.As most polls do, this one raises as many questions as it answers. Chief among these questions is, "What in the world has happened to the National Geographic?" I mean, when I was growing up, the National Geographic was the serious, glossy magazine that brought the world to you, often in the form of maps and educational posters torn out and tacked up on your classroom bulletin board.But now, the TV arm of this educational giant is bringing us stuff like "Chasing UFOs" and commissioning polls to ask people whether they thought The Hulk, Spider Man or Batman would do a better job against aliens. (Silly question. The Hulk, clearly. And 21 percent of those polled agreed with me. So there.)It also makes you wonder, though: How can 79 percent of people believe the government is keeping the truth about aliens from us, while only 36 percent believe they exist? Do the other 43 percent believe the truth the government is keeping from us is that there are no aliens? But that doesn't make sense either, when you consider that the White House officially announced in December that there was "no evidence" of alien life, or that extraterrestrials have made any contact with humanity.Maybe what we can take away from this poll is that 100 percent of those responding, like most poll respondents, weren't really thinking very seriously about the questions. Or that they were all idiots.The NatGeoTV poll also fails to address another burning question, even more pressing than the one about aliens. I'm talking, of course, about the question of which presidential candidate would do the best job of protecting us from the Zombie Apocalypse.In a world where a naked guy was shot and killed by the cops while trying to eat another man's face, for no reason anyone can determine, it's not an idle question.If that incident, as some have said, is only the beginning, I'm putting my money on Obama. After all, he's already spent the last few years dealing with the cold-blooded and the brain-dead in Congress. And if that doesn't make up your mind, a good look at Mitt Romney's soulless eyes should do it.The dude's only a few degrees of body temperature from turning into a Walker himself.
When you look at the polling data on November's presidential election, it's easy to be confused (if you're at all intellectually honest) or to find evidence that your chosen candidate is the clear front-runner (if you're not).For instance, a Bloomberg poll taken between June 15 and June 18 shows President Obama up by a whopping 13 points. The Rasmussen tracking poll for the same period shows Mitt Romney up by 1. The Fox News poll shows a tie. Most others show Obama with a slight lead, often within the margin of error.Anything that close is subject to change without notice - at which point, supporters of one candidate or the other will commence the usual tiresome premature victory lap.There is one poll, however, conducted by the National Geographic TV channel, that gives the president a clear and commanding lead on one vital question - 65 percent of those responding to that poll believe that President Obama would do a better job of protecting the country from an alien invasion.I'm not talking about the aliens from south of the border, the very thought of which turns so many people on the right into miserable, depressed creatures who can't even discuss the subject without devolving into a jeremiad about the Doom of American Civilization as it's buried under wave after wave of the Brown Hordes.No, I'm talking about real aliens. You know, the little gray goomers with big heads and enormous black eyes. Or the slimy buglike critters in their bio-suits from "Independence Day." Or... you get the idea.The poll, conducted by Kelton Research for the NG channel, was part of a promotion of a new show called "Chasing UFOs." Despite the fact that the respondents overwhelmingly believe in Obama's ability to deal with an attack from the stars, 79 percent of them also believe that the government "has kept information about aliens and UFOs a secret from the public," according to a story in the online political blog The Hill.And yet, only 36 percent of those same respondents believe UFOs actually exist, 17 percent are sure they don't, and 48 percent of them aren't sure.As most polls do, this one raises as many questions as it answers. Chief among these questions is, "What in the world has happened to the National Geographic?" I mean, when I was growing up, the National Geographic was the serious, glossy magazine that brought the world to you, often in the form of maps and educational posters torn out and tacked up on your classroom bulletin board.But now, the TV arm of this educational giant is bringing us stuff like "Chasing UFOs" and commissioning polls to ask people whether they thought The Hulk, Spider Man or Batman would do a better job against aliens. (Silly question. The Hulk, clearly. And 21 percent of those polled agreed with me. So there.)It also makes you wonder, though: How can 79 percent of people believe the government is keeping the truth about aliens from us, while only 36 percent believe they exist? Do the other 43 percent believe the truth the government is keeping from us is that there are no aliens? But that doesn't make sense either, when you consider that the White House officially announced in December that there was "no evidence" of alien life, or that extraterrestrials have made any contact with humanity.Maybe what we can take away from this poll is that 100 percent of those responding, like most poll respondents, weren't really thinking very seriously about the questions. Or that they were all idiots.The NatGeoTV poll also fails to address another burning question, even more pressing than the one about aliens. I'm talking, of course, about the question of which presidential candidate would do the best job of protecting us from the Zombie Apocalypse.In a world where a naked guy was shot and killed by the cops while trying to eat another man's face, for no reason anyone can determine, it's not an idle question.If that incident, as some have said, is only the beginning, I'm putting my money on Obama. After all, he's already spent the last few years dealing with the cold-blooded and the brain-dead in Congress. And if that doesn't make up your mind, a good look at Mitt Romney's soulless eyes should do it.The dude's only a few degrees of body temperature from turning into a Walker himself.
June 27, 2012
In Which I Am Dissed by the Washington Post
It seems my recent column on Bryce Harper and "Clown Question, bro" drew the attention of Washington Post sports columnist Dan Steinberg:
The awesomely named lawyer wrote a column on Bryce Harper for the Southern Pines (N.C.) Pilot. Filing his dispatch from outer space, Rhoades noted “the rise and fall of the catch phrase ‘That’s a clown question, bro,’ which apparently was coined, had its vogue, and was declared dead in the course of a week. And I seem to have missed the whole thing.“It seems there’s a young player for baseball’s Washington Nationals named Bryce Harper.”Indeed. It seems there is.Mr. Steinberg was apparently amused and/or miffed by the fact that I felt the need to explain who Bryce Harper is. Sorry, Dan. As I've said before, politics is my baseball. (Actually, it's "politics is my football," but it's the same idea). But thanks for the shout out, Mr. Steinberg. Glad you like the name!
The awesomely named lawyer wrote a column on Bryce Harper for the Southern Pines (N.C.) Pilot. Filing his dispatch from outer space, Rhoades noted “the rise and fall of the catch phrase ‘That’s a clown question, bro,’ which apparently was coined, had its vogue, and was declared dead in the course of a week. And I seem to have missed the whole thing.“It seems there’s a young player for baseball’s Washington Nationals named Bryce Harper.”Indeed. It seems there is.Mr. Steinberg was apparently amused and/or miffed by the fact that I felt the need to explain who Bryce Harper is. Sorry, Dan. As I've said before, politics is my baseball. (Actually, it's "politics is my football," but it's the same idea). But thanks for the shout out, Mr. Steinberg. Glad you like the name!
June 24, 2012
No More Clown Questions, Bro (UPDATED)
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One of my all-time favorite science fiction short stories is R.A. Lafferty's "Slow Tuesday Night." The basic premise of the story is that humanity has removed a mental block that slowed down action and decision-making, and people now live at a freakishly accelerated clip.
"Transportation and manufacturing had then become practically instantaneous," Lafferty writes. "Things that had once taken months and years now took only minutes and hours. A person could have one or several pretty intricate careers within an eight-hour period." One character makes and loses four fortunes in the course of the night, "not the little fortunes that ordinary men acquire, but titanic things."
The story's a clever satire on how life seems to keep moving faster - and it was written in 1965. One wonders what Lafferty would make of the speed of life now. We haven't quite gotten to the insane pace of his fictional world yet, but sometimes things happen that make it seem like it's not that far off.
The most recent example is the rise and fall of the catch phrase "That's a clown question, bro," which apparently was coined, had its vogue, and was declared dead in the course of a week. And I seem to have missed the whole thing.
It seems there's a young player for baseball's Washington Nationals named Bryce Harper. Harper, after hitting a game-winning home run against the Toronto Blue Jays, was being interviewed in the locker room. A Canadian reporter stepped forward and asked, "Bryce, you know, in Canada you're of legal drinking age. A celebratory Canadian beer would seem to make sense after a hit like that. Favorite beer?"
Now, as noted above, Bryce is a young fellow. Nineteen, to be exact. And he's a Mormon to boot, so drinking beer, Canadian or otherwise, is not likely to be on his agenda. The team's PR man tried to step in, but Harper fielded the question (so to speak) with an aplomb far beyond his years. Giving the reporter a disgusted look, he delivered the smackdown: "I'm not going to answer that. That's a clown question, bro."
Of such humble beginnings, it seems, are Internet memes born. Within a day, "clown question, bro" became the top "trending topic" on Twitter. T-shirts appeared for sale with the catch phrase on them. A beer company in Denver - called, appropriately enough, the Denver Beer Company - announced that it was bringing out a Canadian-style lager called "Clown Question, Bro."
It's too bad, I guess, that Harper didn't have the presence of mind to immediately contact an intellectual property lawyer and have his phrase trademarked. Or perhaps not. *
Because a week later, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was being quizzed by a reporter regarding President Obama's announcement that the administration would not be trying to deport the children of illegal immigrants who were of good moral character and didn't pose a threat to national security. The reporter asked if Reid intended to bring the defunct DREAM Act back to the Senate (where it had been strangled in its crib by Republican filibusters) to "put people on the record." Reid paused for a long while, then smiled and told the reporter, "That's a clown question, bro."
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At that point, blogger Dan Amira of New York Magazine declared the phrase dead after only seven days, "the victim of a brutal and obviously premeditated attack" by Reid - who was, Amira said with tongue planted firmly in cheek, under investigation for "meme-slaughter."
I guess if an old politician like Reid is saying something, it can't possibly be cool anymore. Kind of a shame, actually. "Clown question, bro" is the perfect dismissal for those questions that are just too stupid or slanted to be answered any other way. Like the now-standard "Isn't this (insert absolutely anything the president does or says from now till November) just being done for political gain?"
Maybe if Sarah Palin had answered Katie Couric's "What newspapers do you read?" with "That's a clown question, bro," she would have seemed less dimwitted. At least until the next question.
But who knows? Maybe the reports of its death are premature. Maybe the phrase will go on and have a long and happy life in our culture. I hope so. And I hope I can keep up with the next thing to come along.
*UPDATE: It seems I spoke too soon.
One of my all-time favorite science fiction short stories is R.A. Lafferty's "Slow Tuesday Night." The basic premise of the story is that humanity has removed a mental block that slowed down action and decision-making, and people now live at a freakishly accelerated clip.
"Transportation and manufacturing had then become practically instantaneous," Lafferty writes. "Things that had once taken months and years now took only minutes and hours. A person could have one or several pretty intricate careers within an eight-hour period." One character makes and loses four fortunes in the course of the night, "not the little fortunes that ordinary men acquire, but titanic things."
The story's a clever satire on how life seems to keep moving faster - and it was written in 1965. One wonders what Lafferty would make of the speed of life now. We haven't quite gotten to the insane pace of his fictional world yet, but sometimes things happen that make it seem like it's not that far off.
The most recent example is the rise and fall of the catch phrase "That's a clown question, bro," which apparently was coined, had its vogue, and was declared dead in the course of a week. And I seem to have missed the whole thing.
It seems there's a young player for baseball's Washington Nationals named Bryce Harper. Harper, after hitting a game-winning home run against the Toronto Blue Jays, was being interviewed in the locker room. A Canadian reporter stepped forward and asked, "Bryce, you know, in Canada you're of legal drinking age. A celebratory Canadian beer would seem to make sense after a hit like that. Favorite beer?"
Now, as noted above, Bryce is a young fellow. Nineteen, to be exact. And he's a Mormon to boot, so drinking beer, Canadian or otherwise, is not likely to be on his agenda. The team's PR man tried to step in, but Harper fielded the question (so to speak) with an aplomb far beyond his years. Giving the reporter a disgusted look, he delivered the smackdown: "I'm not going to answer that. That's a clown question, bro."
Of such humble beginnings, it seems, are Internet memes born. Within a day, "clown question, bro" became the top "trending topic" on Twitter. T-shirts appeared for sale with the catch phrase on them. A beer company in Denver - called, appropriately enough, the Denver Beer Company - announced that it was bringing out a Canadian-style lager called "Clown Question, Bro."
It's too bad, I guess, that Harper didn't have the presence of mind to immediately contact an intellectual property lawyer and have his phrase trademarked. Or perhaps not. *
Because a week later, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was being quizzed by a reporter regarding President Obama's announcement that the administration would not be trying to deport the children of illegal immigrants who were of good moral character and didn't pose a threat to national security. The reporter asked if Reid intended to bring the defunct DREAM Act back to the Senate (where it had been strangled in its crib by Republican filibusters) to "put people on the record." Reid paused for a long while, then smiled and told the reporter, "That's a clown question, bro."
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
At that point, blogger Dan Amira of New York Magazine declared the phrase dead after only seven days, "the victim of a brutal and obviously premeditated attack" by Reid - who was, Amira said with tongue planted firmly in cheek, under investigation for "meme-slaughter."
I guess if an old politician like Reid is saying something, it can't possibly be cool anymore. Kind of a shame, actually. "Clown question, bro" is the perfect dismissal for those questions that are just too stupid or slanted to be answered any other way. Like the now-standard "Isn't this (insert absolutely anything the president does or says from now till November) just being done for political gain?"
Maybe if Sarah Palin had answered Katie Couric's "What newspapers do you read?" with "That's a clown question, bro," she would have seemed less dimwitted. At least until the next question.
But who knows? Maybe the reports of its death are premature. Maybe the phrase will go on and have a long and happy life in our culture. I hope so. And I hope I can keep up with the next thing to come along.
*UPDATE: It seems I spoke too soon.
June 22, 2012
My Interview With Authors On The Air
The wonderfully energetic Ann White and Pam Stack interview yours truly on their on-air podcast, Authors On The Air on Blog Talk Radio. Check it out.
June 17, 2012
If Romney Ads Just Told the Truth
Latest Newspaper Column:
The 1990 movie "Crazy People" stars Dudley Moore as an ad executive who suffers a nervous breakdown and starts writing ads based on honesty about what the products are really about.Ads like: "Metamucil: It Helps You Go to the Toilet. If You Don't Use It, You'll Get Cancer and Die." And "Jaguar: For Men Who'd Like [sex] From Beautiful Women They Hardly Know."
After his bosses have Moore's character committed to an insane asylum, the ads accidentally get released to the public and become runaway hits. The bosses, after finding out that they can't replicate Moore's success, turn to him and his fellow inmates to create ads for the new "honesty in advertising" craze.
I think about that movie a lot when watching political ads. I wonder what would happen if "honesty in advertising" took hold in the Romney campaign:
VOICEOVER: Mitt Romney. Some liberals call him a flip-flopper. He was for a path to citizenship for illegals, then he was against it. He opposed amendments to define marriage as between one man and one woman, then supported them. He supported a universal mandate for people to buy health insurance, then called it socialism. He said he was a moderate "through and through," and now he says he's "severely conservative." Sometimes, even he can't remember what his positions are.
ROMNEY: "I'm not familiar precisely with exactly what I said, but I stand by what I said, whatever it was."
VOICEOVER: But there's one thing Mitt Romney is consistent about and always has been. He's a Republican. Barack Obama isn't a Republican. So there.
BANNER: Mitt Romney. Vote for him. Because he's the Republican.
ROMNEY: I'm Mitt Romney, and I approved this message. At least for now.
Or how about this one:
VOICEOVER: Some liberals say Mitt Romney has a problem with the truth. He's claimed that Barack Obama didn't say it was unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon and that military options were still on the table.
OBAMA: "When I say we're not taking any option off the table, we mean it. ... I think both the Iranian and the Israeli governments recognize that when the United States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we mean what we say."
VOICEOVER: He's claimed that his position on the auto industry bailout was "exactly what President Obama followed." But in 2009, he wrote an op-ed piece in The New York Times urging lawmakers to "let Detroit go bankrupt."
VISUAL: Picture of newspaper headline: "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt by Mitt Romney."
VOICEOVER: He claimed that Barack Obama never mentioned the deficit or the debt in the State of the Union Address when he mentioned it six times.
VISUAL: Clips of President Obama talking about the deficit and the debt in his Jan. 24, 2012, State of the Union Speech. Fade to the Politifact website's "Pants on Fire" symbol.
VOICEOVER: But there's one thing you can trust about Mitt Romney: He, you know, looks like you. And Barack Obama is ... well, you know.
BANNER: Mitt Romney. Vote for him. He may be a liar, but he's not ... well, you know.
ROMNEY: I'm Mitt Romney, and I approve of this message. If you don't, then you're just calling everyone racist who doesn't agree with you.
Or this:
VOICEOVER: Some liberals, like the ones who write The Wall Street Journal's "Market Watch," say that Massachusetts under Mitt Romney was 47th in the nation in job creation. That during his tenure, Massachusetts' job growth was at 0.9 percent, far behind the national average of more than 5 percent. Some other liberals have said that Romney's top economic adviser has said that outsourcing American jobs to other countries is a "good thing." Meanwhile, under President Obama, we've had two years of positive job growth after suffering massive losses under the last Republican president. Liberals say these things, and ... well, yeah, they're true. But you should ignore all that and vote for Mitt Romney anyway, because he knows how to create jobs. Because he says he does.
BANNER: Mitt Romney. Never mind the facts. He'll create jobs this time. Really.
This is, after all, the essence of the messages I keep hearing from so-called conservatives turned born-again Romneyites: "Yeah, we don't really like him, but he's not Obama." Why not be up front about it?
The 1990 movie "Crazy People" stars Dudley Moore as an ad executive who suffers a nervous breakdown and starts writing ads based on honesty about what the products are really about.Ads like: "Metamucil: It Helps You Go to the Toilet. If You Don't Use It, You'll Get Cancer and Die." And "Jaguar: For Men Who'd Like [sex] From Beautiful Women They Hardly Know."
After his bosses have Moore's character committed to an insane asylum, the ads accidentally get released to the public and become runaway hits. The bosses, after finding out that they can't replicate Moore's success, turn to him and his fellow inmates to create ads for the new "honesty in advertising" craze.
I think about that movie a lot when watching political ads. I wonder what would happen if "honesty in advertising" took hold in the Romney campaign:
VOICEOVER: Mitt Romney. Some liberals call him a flip-flopper. He was for a path to citizenship for illegals, then he was against it. He opposed amendments to define marriage as between one man and one woman, then supported them. He supported a universal mandate for people to buy health insurance, then called it socialism. He said he was a moderate "through and through," and now he says he's "severely conservative." Sometimes, even he can't remember what his positions are.
ROMNEY: "I'm not familiar precisely with exactly what I said, but I stand by what I said, whatever it was."
VOICEOVER: But there's one thing Mitt Romney is consistent about and always has been. He's a Republican. Barack Obama isn't a Republican. So there.
BANNER: Mitt Romney. Vote for him. Because he's the Republican.
ROMNEY: I'm Mitt Romney, and I approved this message. At least for now.
Or how about this one:
VOICEOVER: Some liberals say Mitt Romney has a problem with the truth. He's claimed that Barack Obama didn't say it was unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon and that military options were still on the table.
OBAMA: "When I say we're not taking any option off the table, we mean it. ... I think both the Iranian and the Israeli governments recognize that when the United States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we mean what we say."
VOICEOVER: He's claimed that his position on the auto industry bailout was "exactly what President Obama followed." But in 2009, he wrote an op-ed piece in The New York Times urging lawmakers to "let Detroit go bankrupt."
VISUAL: Picture of newspaper headline: "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt by Mitt Romney."
VOICEOVER: He claimed that Barack Obama never mentioned the deficit or the debt in the State of the Union Address when he mentioned it six times.
VISUAL: Clips of President Obama talking about the deficit and the debt in his Jan. 24, 2012, State of the Union Speech. Fade to the Politifact website's "Pants on Fire" symbol.
VOICEOVER: But there's one thing you can trust about Mitt Romney: He, you know, looks like you. And Barack Obama is ... well, you know.
BANNER: Mitt Romney. Vote for him. He may be a liar, but he's not ... well, you know.
ROMNEY: I'm Mitt Romney, and I approve of this message. If you don't, then you're just calling everyone racist who doesn't agree with you.
Or this:
VOICEOVER: Some liberals, like the ones who write The Wall Street Journal's "Market Watch," say that Massachusetts under Mitt Romney was 47th in the nation in job creation. That during his tenure, Massachusetts' job growth was at 0.9 percent, far behind the national average of more than 5 percent. Some other liberals have said that Romney's top economic adviser has said that outsourcing American jobs to other countries is a "good thing." Meanwhile, under President Obama, we've had two years of positive job growth after suffering massive losses under the last Republican president. Liberals say these things, and ... well, yeah, they're true. But you should ignore all that and vote for Mitt Romney anyway, because he knows how to create jobs. Because he says he does.
BANNER: Mitt Romney. Never mind the facts. He'll create jobs this time. Really.
This is, after all, the essence of the messages I keep hearing from so-called conservatives turned born-again Romneyites: "Yeah, we don't really like him, but he's not Obama." Why not be up front about it?
