On March 23 I posted a story on the abject willingness of many, including Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, to misrepresent the actions and policies of President Obama. One takeaway from this is that a willingness to lie, with the belief that one will not be held accountable, has escalated in recent years. And yes, it has coincided strongly with the Republican party's jaw-dropping turn to the right. Lying, in other words, has become a calculated risk, part and parcel of campaign strategies, embedded in speech, spin, and soundbites.
Lying and the overall bullshit factor are on the increase in part because the media lets it happen. More fundamentally, we see a political party that is desperately trying to discredit a remarkably scandal-free sitting president, and has resorted to demeaning and hateful rhetoric known to work with a voter base that scores low on information but generally high on authoritarian personality scales.
And of course, Republicans know they are facing unfavorable demographic trends. A rational person would think the party would want to embrace a wider swath of voters and give them compelling reasons to vote Republican. Instead, that party's politicians and operatives resort to strident and inflammatory rhetoric. They do not know what else to do because they are scared of the future, and they have embraced an inflexible and unsustainable ideology that has boxed them in. They cannot offer up real solutions without violating party dogma. In such an environment, it is no surprise that the candidates feel they are justified in lying, slandering, and misrepresenting opponents. If you want to win, you can't be squeamish.
Take Mitt Romney, who, despite everything, is still likely to be the Republican nominee. It would be an understatement to say I have a problem with this class warrior, the choice of oligarchs everywhere. It isn't the Mormon thing, per se, even if that makes some Republicans squirm. After all, Romney's acceptance of magic underwear or Joseph Smith's inane story of the golden plates is not any less credible than Santorum's belief in transubstantiation or papal infallibility.
It is mostly because Romney has the interests of the one percent at heart; a Wall Street First kind of guy who thinks gutting social programs and further shifting wealth to the very top is viable policy.
But on a more personal level I am offended by a man who now feels the lying is an acceptable campaign tactic. Adultery and divorce no longer carry the social stigma they once did, much to Newt's relief, so why should bald-faced lying?
The video below shows Rachel Maddow discussing Romney's honesty issue. As she says, "there is something different" about Romney and his campaign, well beyond the usual twisting and distorting we find with most candidates, the kind we long accepted as the nature of hard-ball politics. Maddow gives specific, undeniable, calculated lies, and then notes the indifference the Romney camp shows when it is caught.
These examples are not mistakes or gaffs; everyone makes those and everyone deserves to be cut at least a little slack when they make them, especially during an exhausting primary race. Maddow's very reasonable question is to ask whether Romney's chronic, almost pathological willingness to lie, even when he knows fact-checkers can easily call him out, is now a leading indicator of where American politics is headed, a new standard of cynicism and calculated manipulation.
Showing posts with label Maddow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Maddow. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Facts Keep Getting in the Way
Man I love it when Rachel Maddow sets bloviating liars like Karl Rove straight. He, along with the presidential candidates still standing keep trying to find something new to pin on Obama. Now he's getting blamed for high gas prices. It is an old tactic used to score points with low-information voters because apparently many of them really do support candidates who promise the holy grail of American consumerism; cheap gas and lots of it.
In the video below we have Rove, on Fox News, of course, claiming the President is anti-oil, laughably mischaracterizing the role of the US Export-Import Bank, and essentially trying to plant the seed in the viewer's head that Obama is so nefarious that for reasons that elude thinking people, he, the President, would want energy prices to go up in a recovering economy and an election year. Newt Gingrich is shown making similar charges. Gee, I had no idea that Obama is so ingeniously treacherous.
Rachel Maddow brilliantly points out the idiocy of these charges through the ample use of her favorite weapon, facts. Watch as she shows how domestic oil production has been going up every year since Obama took office. She is referencing an article from that socialist rag, the Houston Chronicle, that says in part:
Rove does have one redeeming quality; his first name is pretty cool. He even manages to spell it right.
In the video below we have Rove, on Fox News, of course, claiming the President is anti-oil, laughably mischaracterizing the role of the US Export-Import Bank, and essentially trying to plant the seed in the viewer's head that Obama is so nefarious that for reasons that elude thinking people, he, the President, would want energy prices to go up in a recovering economy and an election year. Newt Gingrich is shown making similar charges. Gee, I had no idea that Obama is so ingeniously treacherous.
Rachel Maddow brilliantly points out the idiocy of these charges through the ample use of her favorite weapon, facts. Watch as she shows how domestic oil production has been going up every year since Obama took office. She is referencing an article from that socialist rag, the Houston Chronicle, that says in part:
The United States' rapidly declining crude oil supply has made a stunning about-face, shredding federal oil projections and putting energy independence in sight of some analyst forecasts.
After declining to levels not seen since the 1940s, U.S. crude production began rising again in 2009. Drilling rigs have rushed into the nation's oil fields, suggesting a surge in domestic crude is on the horizon.
The number of rigs in U.S. oil fields has more than quadrupled in the past three years to 1,272, according to the Baker Hughes rig count. Including those in natural gas fields, the United States now has more rigs at work than the entire rest of the world.
"It's staggering," said Marshall Adkins, who directs energy research for the financial services firm Raymond James. "If we continue growing anywhere near that pace and keep squeezing demand out of the system, that puts you in a world where we are not importing oil in 10 years."
Monday, February 13, 2012
"Have You Got a Better One?"
Mitt Romney has a habit of stepping in it, what with his lines about banks being people, how he likes to fire people, and how he too is unemployed. He was even caught pointing to his blue jeans trying to prove he is a regular guy. I mean, shit, he actually pointed at them as if he should somehow get points or something, as if it made a damn bit of difference. And he does this with a remarkable lack of self awareness, not realizing how phony he looks. This is the guy who is insisting that he was a "severely conservative governor." This is a laughable contention that conservatives can see right through (like the rest of us).
But there is one revealing moment that has been largely overlooked. He was on the deeply conservative Laura Ingraham radio show recently where he continued to make the claim that Obama made the recession worse. He has repeated some variation of this shtick at numerous venues; Obama may not have caused the recession, but he made it worse.
Ingraham asked how effective is it to keep ragging about Obama's handling of the economy when most indicators show the economy improving.
Romney's response? You need to hear it for yourself. In the video below Rachel Maddow has two face-palm moments. The first, at about the 3:40 mark, shows Romney insisting that things are worse, and then claiming he didn't say it. It is reminiscent of John McCain's campaign statement that he never claimed he was a maverick. Say what?
And then at about the 8:35 mark, Maddow plays the audio from the Ingraham show. After some blunt questioning from Ingraham about the economy, Romney first says, "Of course it's getting better." Not only is this a contradiction of his earlier claims about making things worse, it is an indirect admission that once again, Republican policies blew up the economy and once a Democratic President was charged with cleaning up the mess.
Ingraham then points out the obvious when she says Obama inherited a major recession, enacted various policies, and we are now seeing job growth, but wonders why Romney says to vote against Obama anyway. "Isn't that a hard argument to make?," she says,
Romney's response: "Have you got a better one, Laura?"
Damn, Mitt, that's some pretty weak sauce. But thanks for making the case for the President. Obama has said the economy is turning around. Glad to see you agree.
But there is one revealing moment that has been largely overlooked. He was on the deeply conservative Laura Ingraham radio show recently where he continued to make the claim that Obama made the recession worse. He has repeated some variation of this shtick at numerous venues; Obama may not have caused the recession, but he made it worse.
Ingraham asked how effective is it to keep ragging about Obama's handling of the economy when most indicators show the economy improving.
Romney's response? You need to hear it for yourself. In the video below Rachel Maddow has two face-palm moments. The first, at about the 3:40 mark, shows Romney insisting that things are worse, and then claiming he didn't say it. It is reminiscent of John McCain's campaign statement that he never claimed he was a maverick. Say what?
And then at about the 8:35 mark, Maddow plays the audio from the Ingraham show. After some blunt questioning from Ingraham about the economy, Romney first says, "Of course it's getting better." Not only is this a contradiction of his earlier claims about making things worse, it is an indirect admission that once again, Republican policies blew up the economy and once a Democratic President was charged with cleaning up the mess.
Ingraham then points out the obvious when she says Obama inherited a major recession, enacted various policies, and we are now seeing job growth, but wonders why Romney says to vote against Obama anyway. "Isn't that a hard argument to make?," she says,
Romney's response: "Have you got a better one, Laura?"
Damn, Mitt, that's some pretty weak sauce. But thanks for making the case for the President. Obama has said the economy is turning around. Glad to see you agree.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Blowing Up the Economy
Here's Rachel Maddow giving an excellent overview of how Wall Street blew up the economy. This is the corrupt casino mentality that now dominates our lives. It is what happens when wealth is dramatically concentrated in the hands of so few that they literally don't know how to put it all to productive use.
It doesn't help that many of those same people are America's most rapacious and reckless, the ones that want you to think they are creating wealth and should only be envied. Perhaps you have heard that investment bankers show personality characteristics very similar to psychopaths. And no, it is not the occasional rogue trader.
And who protects these guys? Who refused to investigate years of fraud? Who denounces Occupy Wall Street as unAmerican practitioners of class warfare, but has shown remarkable indifference to Wall Street's trillion dollar scams?
Who were Elliot Spitzer's mortal enemies, the ones who gleefully rejoiced when he was brought down?
Those are not rhetorical questions. You know the answer.
It doesn't help that many of those same people are America's most rapacious and reckless, the ones that want you to think they are creating wealth and should only be envied. Perhaps you have heard that investment bankers show personality characteristics very similar to psychopaths. And no, it is not the occasional rogue trader.
And who protects these guys? Who refused to investigate years of fraud? Who denounces Occupy Wall Street as unAmerican practitioners of class warfare, but has shown remarkable indifference to Wall Street's trillion dollar scams?
Who were Elliot Spitzer's mortal enemies, the ones who gleefully rejoiced when he was brought down?
Those are not rhetorical questions. You know the answer.
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