“Crimes Against Accuracy”: Mitt Romney’s Truth-Free Campaign
The former Massachusetts governor has no use for honesty in his campaign.
If you haven’t already, you should read Ed Kilgore and Greg Sargent on Mitt Romney’s speech yesterday in Michigan, where he tried to clarify and contrast his approach on the economy. The message was typical of Romney’s rhetoric; an attempt to flip an attack and direct it at his opponent. In this case, Romney decried Obama as the purveyor of failed policies, and presented himself as a reform conservative in the mold of Bill Clinton and the New Democrats.
As Kilgore argues, the argument is laughable on its face. The Obama administration is staffed with Clintonites. It’s core policies—on health care, especially—were variations on policies pushed during the Clinton years, and Obama’s foreign policy falls well within the approach of the Clinton administration. What’s more, as Greg Sargent points out, there is no way in which Romney is running as a departure from the previous Republican administration. An RNC spokesperson summed this up well—the Romney agenda is the Bush platform, “just updated.”
But if there’s anything that truly stands out about Romney’s speech in Michigan, it’s the extent to which its stuffed with falsehoods, misrepresentations, and outright lies. Romney claims that Obama has brought “big government” “back with a vengeance”—the truth is that government spending has fallen sharply after a decade increase under President Bush (note: this isn’t a good thing). Romney attacks Obama’s plan to repeal the Bush tax cuts on the rich as a “throwback to discredited policies”, but doesn’t tell his audience that those are Clinton-era rates. He attacks the Affordable Care Act as a takeover of American health care (false), blames Obama for the accumulation of debt (false), and warns—apocalyptically—that Obama will “substitute government for individuality, for choice, for freedom.”
For political reporters with time and space constraints, there is no way to counter all of this, even if you had the inclination. On a regular basis, the Romney campaign issues so many distortions—so many lies—that it’s nearly impossible to keep up. New York Times editorial editor David Firestone is as frustrated as I am on the relentless march of Romney’s dishonesty:
[F]or months he and his campaign have pushed the boundaries of veracity on a huge range of subjects, from the number of jobs created during the Obama administration to the economy’s effect on women to the phony “apology tour” he claims the president has taken. For these crimes against accuracy he is chided by newspaper fact checkers and denounced by editorialists. […]
Otherwise, the Romney campaign hasn’t paid much of a price for its untruths. Mr. Obama has done his share of exaggerating, too, and voters may figure that all politicians do it. That’s a false equivalency: unlike Mr. Romney’s campaign, the president’s is grounded in reality.
Constant mendacity is the norm for Romney and his campaign, and odds are good that he won’t suffer for it. Campaign reporters don’t have a strong incentive to challenge him on his misrepresentations, and interested parties have a hard time dealing with the deluge. In other words, we should strap ourselves in and prepare for five more months of Romney’s truth-free operation.
By: Jamelle Bouie, The American Prospect, May 9, 2012
“Rewriting History, Again”: No, Mitt Romney Didn’t Save The Auto Industry
One might think that presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney would be a little more careful on two fronts: thinking about how his comments will come across before he says them, and being sensitive to concerns about him changing his views on things. So what would lead a smiling Romney to take credit for the resurgence of the automobile industry?
Somewhat incredibly, Romney, campaigning recently in auto industry-reliant Ohio, told a Cleveland radio station:
I’ll take a lot of credit for the fact that this industry’s come back. My own view is that the auto companies needed to go through bankruptcy before government help. And frankly, that’s finally what the president did. He finally took them through bankruptcy.
Forget about the auto industry turnaround; Romney’s remarkable statements represent a turnaround in either policy or memory that makes the stunning new success of GM pale in comparison. This is a candidate who, in 2008, penned a New York Times op-ed entitled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.” And while the headline (which Romney did not write) was a tad provocative, Romney was very clear in the piece in saying that if the auto bailout went ahead, “you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye.”
It’s hard to imagine Romney forgot about that op-ed, which has been resurrected many times in the media. It’s a weakness for Romney in the industrial Midwest. But purporting to be the source of Obama’s strategy (as if the president was taking advice from Romney) is a metaphorical shaking of the Etch A Sketch that requires a bodybuilder to achieve.
A lot of conservatives are unhappy with Romney, and it’s not just because they don’t think he’s conservative enough, it’s because they aren’t confident he means what he says about conservative issues. The man who promised to be more pro gay rights than late Sen. Ted Kennedy has a hard time convincing social conservatives he will be the opposite. The man who once supported abortion rights has a tough task in convincing the GOP base that he feels differently now. It’s one of the reasons primary foe Rick Santorum took so long to endorse Romney, and then did so in a long E-mail to Santorum supporters—an E-mail in which he delivered the most tepid of endorsements to Romney. So attempting to rewrite history for voters in Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania doesn’t help with his image.
Romney’s argument in 2008 would look smarter if Obama’s strategy didn’t work. But it did, and even if Romney has a sincere free-market opposition to industry bailouts, he could acknowledge that happy development without endorsing government ownership of private industry. He could say, Gosh, I’m glad things are looking up. But we’re going down a dangerous road if we let the federal government tinker with private companies that way. It undermines the principles of the free market and entrepreneurship, and it exposes the government to private-sector losses if the companies don’t rebound. That’s a less powerful argument to make now that the auto industry is coming back, but at least it’s sincere and consistent.
It’s also possible that this is all about Obama, and the refusal by some of his opponents to give him credit for anything, even if there’s a clear success. Obama gave the order to kill Osama bin Laden, and it worked—the most hated man in America is dead, and not a single Navy SEAL died in the mission. But many Republicans first blasted Obama for not crediting Bush’s work on the effort, and now are mad because Obama is touting the major success as some proof that, well, he’s done some good things in office. No one can credibly argue that it’s bad that bin Laden is dead, so Obama critics—who still can’t seem to accept the fact that he’s actually the president—want to argue that Obama had little to do with it.
That makes Romney’s “I take a lot of credit” comment especially jarring. If it’s “spiking the ball” for Obama to take credit for killing bin Laden, how do we characterize the words of a candidate who takes credit for something he opposed, but which turned out to be successful? The campaign, like most campaigns, will erase some of the past with a symbolic Etch A Sketch. But you can’t Etch A Sketch away history.
By: Susan Milligan, Washington Whispers, U. S. News and World Report, May 9, 2012
“A New Low”: Scott Brown’s Campaign Of Hypocrisy And Republican Dirty Tricks
For 50 years now, ever since Dick Nixon taught them how, Republicans have used the same tactics over and over again to try and win elections: attack Democrats as snobby elites and raise questions about issues like affirmative action to try and appeal to working class white voters who tend to be the biggest group of swing voters. With Nixon and Reagan, that at least made political sense even though it was reprehensible, because they both had close personal connections to the working class. But even with the Bush families’ degrees from Yale and long-term family wealth, they still did it. Even with Mitt Romney’s two degrees from Harvard and his great wealth, Republicans are still doing it. And with Scott Brown’s incredible wealth and his campaign team’s close ties to Harvard, they are doing it in their nasty campaign against Elizabeth Warren.
For months, the Massachusetts Republican Party has sent video after video and press release after press release attacking Elizabeth Warren, with great vitriol, for being a Harvard elitist. They have made the accusation in dozens of press releases and videos. Polling shows that the Harvard association doesn’t hurt Warren, but the Republicans keep attacking along these lines because it is the only thing they know how to do. Even though Warren’s biography shows a woman who grew up in a working class family barely hanging on, that she pulled herself up by her bootstraps through her hard work and determination, they are going to continue to try and distract voters from the important economic issues in this race by smearing her with these whispers about affirmative action and accusations of, horror of horrors, getting a job teaching at the school where Mitt Romney got his two degrees.
They so desperately want to do this that they are starting to be downright funny in their tactics: having their campaign chairman Robert Maginn, using his status as a double degree holder from Harvard, demand an investigation of Warren’s history of using affirmative action at Harvard. Given that it has already been attested by her entire interview committee that she didn’t, and given that affirmative action is not a crime even if she had, there is absolutely nothing to investigate. But give them an award for pure silliness: getting their Harvard elitist to pull rank to demand they look into this. The Bushes and Karl Rove must be laughing hard at this one.
Maginn has come under fire before for running a Republican-style campaign of saying anything it takes and does to win — even to the point of encouraging, accepting, and gloating about apparently impermissible corporate donations to the Massachusetts Republican Party. But this is a new low and represents one of the most hypocritical developments yet in a race where Brown’s hypocrisy has already been rampant even for a Republican.
This race is going to have a lot of twists and turns. We can count on only two things. First, we know Elizabeth Warren is going to keep taking on the big Wall Street special interests that are funding Scott Brown’s campaign. Second, we know Scott Brown is going to keep going to the old school, Dick Nixon inspired Republican playbook.
By: Michael Lux, Daily Kos, May 7, 2012
“Path To Salvation Doesn’t Pass Through Barbarity”: Bernie Sanders Brings The Anti-Austerity Fight to America
Bernie Sanders is as focused as any member of Congress could be on the struggles of the state he represents, and more generally on the challenges facing working people across the United States.
But that does not mean that the independent senator from Vermont fails to recognize when things are kicking up around the world—especially when those developments have meaning for the fights he is waging in Washington.
So it should come as little surprise that the news from Europe—of a democratic rejection of failed austerity policies—has caught his imagination.
Sanders knows that austerity is not just a European crisis. It threatens America as well. And he is highlighting what his Senate website recognizes as: “An Austerity Backlash.”
The senator is right to be excited that citizens are pushing back.
Sanders says Europe’s voters are sending a message that America’s voters can and should echo: the time has come to reject austerity measures that have unfairly burdened working families, while redistributing ever more wealth upward to millionaires and billionaires.
France on Sunday elected a new president, Socialist François Hollande, who campaigned on a promise to tax the very wealthy in order to free up funds for investment in job creation, education and social services.
Hollande rejects the attacks on unions and cuts to education and public services that have stalled European economies, promising that he will not casually continue the job-killing austerity policies foisted on Europe by bureaucrats and bankers.
There is, Hollande says, “hope that at last austerity is no longer inevitable.”
In Greece, the leader of the Syriza, the radical coalition that as a result of Sunday’s election results has leapt from the sidelines of politics to status as the nation’s second-largest party, is even more blunt in his rejection of austerity.
“We believe the path of salvation doesn’t pass through barbarity of austerity measures,” argues Syriza’s Alexis Tsipras.
Hollande and Tsipras are different players, with different styles and different policies.
Yet, their dramatic shows of strength in Sunday’s voting, along with similarly strong results for critics of austerity running in German state elections and Italian local elections, suggests that voters are fed up with the austerity fantasy that says the best response to tough times is a combination of tax cuts for the rich and pay and benefits for the workers.
What should Americans make of the results?
Sanders knows. The independent senator from Vermont, who has led the fight to preserve education, healthcare and social services funding in the face of proposals by House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan and his fellow proponents of an American austerity agenda, says the message sent by European voters can and should be echoed by American voters.
Yes, of course, the accent will be different, as will specific concerns and proposals. America is different from Germany, Greece and France.
But the threat posed by failed and dysfunctional policies is the same.
“In the United States and around the world, the middle class is in steep decline while the wealthy and large corporations are doing phenomenally well,” says Sanders. “The message sent by voters in France and other European countries, which I believe will be echoed here in the United States, is that the wealthy and large corporations are going to have to experience some austerity also and that that burden cannot solely fall on working families.”
Sanders is making the connections, recognizing the importance of a democratic push-back against policies that are as cruel as they are economically unsound.
“In the United States, where corporate profits are soaring and the gap between the rich and everybody else is growing wider, we must end corporate tax loopholes and start making the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes,” the senator explains. “At the same time, we must protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Austerity, yes, but for millionaires and billionaires, not the working families of this country.”
Sander is, of course, correct.
Let’s just hope that his message is echoed by other leaders in the United States.
Just as austerity is wrong for Europe, it’s wrong for the United States.
By: John Nichols, The Nation, May 7, 2012
“Corporations Are Very Rich People”: Record $824 Billion Last Year As Conservatives Claim Obama Anti-Business
A favorite conservative attack on President Obama is that his policies — and even his personality — amount to an assault on American businesses. “President Obama himself is the most anti-business presidentin my lifetime. With rhetoric not befitting a president he has attacked oil companies, banks, airplane users, Wall Street and anyone who makes money,” wrote Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association.
However, according to the latest data, President Obama has been very good for America’s biggest businesses. Last year, in fact, the Fortune 500 made a record $824 billion, topping the previous record set before the Great Recession:
The Fortune 500 generated a total of $824.5 billion in earnings last year, up 16.4% over 2010. That beats the previous record of $785 billion, set in 2006 during a roaring economy. The 2011 profits are outsized based on two key historical metrics. They represent 7% of total sales, vs. an average of 5.14% over the 58-year history of the Fortune 500. Companies are also garnering exceptional returns on their capital. The 500 achieved a return-on-equity of 14.3%, far above the historical norm of 12%.
Of course, that return to pre-recession level earnings hasn’t translated into job or wage growth for America’s workers. In fact, inflation-adjusted wages fell last year. Big companies are also squeezing more productivity out of their workers, with annual revenue generated per worker increasing by more than $40,000 over the last five years. CEO pay, meanwhile, increased 15 percent last year.
This data also puts the lie to the Republican claim that corporate tax cuts will spur businesses to hire. If all it took were extra cash, businesses would be hiring like crazy. However, they are clearly not doing so — and the effective corporate tax rate is already at a forty year low.
By: Pat Garofalo, Think Progress, May 7, 2012
Share This Blog
Unknown Feed- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
mykeystrokes.com 