(Tom Toles via GoComics.com)
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It’s been a good week for Professor Krugman. The latest “gift” from the GOP allows him to make fun of the Zombie-Eyed Granny Starver’s “Delusions of Wonkhood“:
… Look, I know wonks. Ryan is not a wonk. Yes, he likes charts and slides. But he very clearly doesn’t know what his numbers actually mean. When the famous plan was unveiled, it was quite clear that he never even realized that the Heritage projection of his plan’s impact made a completely ridiculous assertion about what would happen to unemployment. Nor did he realize that his assumptions about discretionary spending would require cutting such spending — including defense! — to levels not seen since Calvin Coolidge.
One question one might ask is whether Ryan is aware that he isn’t actually a wonk, that he just plays one on TV. Maybe not; some of what he says suggests the Dunning-Kruger effect at work: he may be so innumerate that he doesn’t realize that he has no idea what the numbers he throws around mean. And after all, why would he, given all the praise he’s received for putting up a line graph or pie chart here and there?…
If you see Ryan leaking real tears from those notorious baby blues, it may be that someone has explained the Dunning-Kruger reference to him.
Meanwhile, Dave Weigel, at Slate:
Today’s Good News for Obama: Nine words: “There are 11 different ways to win without Ohio.” They were spoken by Fox News contributor and super PAC Hercules Karl Rove on Monday night, as he assured conservative viewers that Mitt Romney could become the first Republican to ever—ever—lose Ohio and win the election….
“It’s just a flesh wound!”
And finally, Matt Taibbi bitches that “This Presidential Race Should Never Have Been This Close“:
… The mere fact that Mitt Romney is even within striking distance of winning this election is an incredible testament to two things: a) the rank incompetence of the Democratic Party, which would have this and every other election for the next half century sewn up if they were a little less money-hungry and tried just a little harder to represent their ostensible constituents, and b) the power of our propaganda machine, which has conditioned all of us to accept the idea that the American population, ideologically speaking, is naturally split down the middle, whereas the real fault lines are a lot closer to the 99-1 ratio the Occupy movement has been talking about since last year….
To me the biggest reason the split isn’t bigger is the news media, which wants a close race mainly for selfish commercial reasons – it’s better theater and sells more ads. Most people in the news business have been conditioned to believe that national elections should be close.This conditioning leads to all sorts of problems and journalistic mischief, like a tendency of pundits to give equal weight to opposing views in situations where one of those views is actually completely moronic and illegitimate, a similar tendency to overlook or downplay glaring flaws in a candidate just because one of the two major parties has blessed him or her with its support (Sarah Palin is a classic example), and the more subtly dangerous tendency to describe races as “hotly contested” or “neck and neck” in nearly all situations regardless of reality, which not only has the effect of legitimizing both candidates but leaves people with the mistaken impression that the candidates are fierce ideological opposites, when in fact they aren’t, or at least aren’t always. This last media habit is the biggest reason that we don’t hear about the areas where candidates like Romney and Obama agree, which come mostly in the hardcore economic issues.
It’s obviously simplistic to say that in a country where the wealth divide is as big as it is in America, elections should always be landslide victories for the candidate who represents the broke-and-struggling sector of the population. All sorts of non-economic factors, from social issues to the personal magnetism of the candidates, can tighten the races. And just because someone happens to represent the very rich, well, that doesn’t automatically disqualify him or her from higher office; he or she might have a vision for the whole country that is captivating (such a candidacy, however, would be more feasible during a time when the very rich were less completely besotted with corruption).
But when one of the candidates is Mitt Romney, the race shouldn’t be close. You’ll hear differently in the coming weeks from the news media, which will spend a lot of time scratch- ing its figurative beard while it argues that a 54-46 split, or however this thing ends up (and they’ll call anything above 53% for Obama a rout, I would guess), is evidence that the system is broken. But what we probably should be wondering is why it was ever close at all.
Nunca el Jefe
It’s difficult to change narratives about people- first impressions and all that, but you can see it happen when there is an overreach of the kind that Ryan is trying to perpetrate. As with Palin, the evaluators themselves end up having skin in the game after the public tongue baths they give. Good for Prof. Krugman to keep on this. It would be nice if the total lack of details offered by the R’s avowed wonk would start to gain some traction in the public mindset.
But really, the gig should have been up for Ryan when he admitted that he listens to Rage Against the Machine. The man clearly has no idea about the ideas that are presented to him. And as long as I am ranting and waiting for my pony, it would be nice to get a public reassessment of Mitt’s actual intelligence, because I just don’t see it, frankly. His success seems more predicated on a willingness to do crappy, shady, but legal things. That ain’t brains at work.
Applejinx
Nice! Really? Ohio has _never_ gone blue and that’s now in play?
Oh, wait, losing Ohio and winning the election…
pattonbt
Sent in my electronic ballot today (Colorado)! Love early overseas voting!
Uncle Glenny
Is it pronounced “her CUOOL row-VAY”?
PeakVT
Why Obama’s Money Is Worth More Than Romney’s
raven
The Mika abuse is continuing.
Or something like that.Suffern Ace
I’ve got two hours to figure out how to stretch five minutes of material into 45 minutes. I really don’t want to speak at all. But the staff want to hear about my goals for the department. the unifying theme of “you guys stop sucking so much and start behaving like people who I might think about promoting” didn’t go over well last year. I need a more empowering way to covey that message.
Bill E Pilgrim
I’ve been disputing this talking point about how Romney “should” be winning, which nearly everyone repeats without questioning it. What, Americans “should” be interested in returning to the disastrous policies that drove things off a cliff less than four years ago?
People trot out historical stats about how incumbents have fared when the economy is weak, but the cold statistics only tell half the story. For example George Herbert Walker Bush lost to Clinton during a weak economy, but Clinton wasn’t in the position of promising a return to some totally catastrophic policies of less than four years earlier, the Presidency had been in Republican hands for coming up on 12 years at that point.
It’s like the entire Village has actually convinced itself that the GW Bush years didn’t lead to the economic catastrophe of 2008, just one term ago. Which of course is the Republican spin, surprise surprise.
It’s actually almost eerie how little either campaign has even acknowledged that George W Bush even happened, especially since Romney’s foreign policy team is packed with Bush’s neocons. I’m almost sort of wondering if the Obama campaign is keeping that attack under wraps until closer to election day, at which point they’ll dump it on him like a barrel of rotting fish.
kay
@Applejinx:
They need Ohio because they lose MN, WI, MI, PA and IL in presidential elections.
It’s always phrased as “Republicans can’t lose Ohio” but of course they COULD lose OH if they didn’t lose all those other states every 4 years.
It’s really a favorable way to spin it, for the GOP. Makes it sound like there’s this pesky swing state that stands in the way of their popular mandate, when really they’re losing this giant block of more populated states towards the middle of the country, making OH crucial.
Davis X. Machina
Economic reductionism? Check.
Belief — untrammeled by evidence — in a progressive silent majority out there, just waiting?
Yep. It’s Taibbi.
raven
@Or something like that.Suffern Ace: Sounds like you need to let them talk.
Thomas F
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/09/every-person-is-afraid-of-the-drones-the-strikes-effect-on-life-in-pakistan/262814/
http://livingunderdrones.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Stanford_NYU_LIVING_UNDER_DRONES.pdf
A disturbing reminder that the administration that most, if not all, of us here will be voting for is purveying grotesque violence and terror in parts of the world we will likely never encounter. It braces one to think what the fire next time will be like.
MikeJ
@Davis X. Machina: Taibbi is possibly the dumbest pundit working that doesn’t write for National Review.
Schlemizel
I whipped up a quick little campaign poster for Rmoney/rAyn in honor of the Krug’s comment. Tell me what you think:
http://i.imgur.com/4tsCd.jpg
bjacques
@Or something like that.Suffern Ace:
Positive-sounding examples and anecdotes, even if the best you have to work with is “your zeal is commendable.”
amk
taibi sounds whiny. Is he always this way ?
Alex S.
@Davis X. Machina:
Nice. I wanted to say that, just with more words.
Lavocat
The only thing Taibbi got wrong is that he underestimated the level of incompetence in the Democratic party. Otherwise – right on the money.
bemused
Morning Joe started out quite subdued this morning….Romney gloom.
PeakVT
@Schlemizel: It needs a sentence, and maybe a demotivator-style border.
Baud
I’ve been disputing this talking point about how Romney “should” be winning, which nearly everyone repeats without questioning it
I agree. It’s maddening.
PeakVT
Even Forbes is joining the Romney beat-down parade:
Zandar
Taibbi’s all over the place on that one, stating that there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the two parties on economic issues, but that he’s pissed off about the Both Sides Do It narrative. One side is incompetent, the other side is evil, but gosh he’s sick of the false equivalencies.
I cannot roll my eyes hard enough.
Narcissus
If I was motivated, I’d make a Mika stinkface tumblr.
pluege
Taibbi leaves out the most important reason the race that shouldn’t be close is: the SCOTUS Cretin 5 giving our elections over to unlimited non-disclosed money. Hundreds of millions spent by a few plutocrats and foreign corporations on the right, spewing lies about Democrats can buy a lot of confusion and hidden reality. The imbalance in Citizens United money favoring the right is the reason the election is close.
Or something like that.Suffern Ace
@Davis X. Machina: He’s basically writing a “democrats in disarray” piece. He probably wrote the same thing in 2008 and we didn’t notice it then.
hildebrand
Taibbi is a lot like John Stewart – hipster Broders with decent vocabularies.
NorthLeft12
@MikeJ: How about most insightful? Or better yet, most honest?
I guess you could say Taibbi is dumb because he chooses not to play the serious game along with most other pundits. I doubt you will ever see him on any of the Sunday morning group gropes, because his point of view will upset and unnerve the titans of political thought[from both “sides”] who inhabit those chambers.
NorthLeft12
@MikeJ: How about most insightful? Or better yet, most honest?
I guess you could say Taibbi is dumb because he chooses not to play the serious game along with most other pundits. I doubt you will ever see him on any of the Sunday morning group gropes, because his point of view will upset and unnerve the titans of political thought[from both “sides”] who inhabit those chambers.
Todd
@Thomas F:
Your concern is noted.
Now go fuck off.
SiubhanDuinne
@Schlemizel:
I love it!
@PeakVT:
Disagree on “it needs a sentence.” I think it’s perfect as is and would lose its punch with any additional verbiage. This is an instance where less is more. JIMHO, you understand.
Applejinx
@PeakVT: Nice!
So part of what’s going on with Romney taxes is that he’s likely been making money leveraging currencies such as the rouble?
In other words- Romney, knowing the Republicans are doing everything they can to wreck Obama and indeed the country, to the point of getting the country’s credit rating downgraded (!) set himself up to make millions of dollars investing in foreign currencies- RUSSIAN currency!- relative to the dollar?
I do not think this would make the teabagger base happy.
Words kinda fail. Really? I know capital has no country loyalties, but talk about a tin-eared move.
I thought ‘Romney took amnesty for what would be felony tax evasion’ was the worst thing his taxes could be hiding- and that would hurt him with swing voters, probably not the base which hates taxes too.
“Romney makes his money off hurting the country and the value of the dollar against the Russian rouble”? Really?
SFAW
@Or something like that.Suffern Ace:
You could always throw in (or start with) the “Who’s with me?” type of rousing speech. I was thinking of the “Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?” speech, but you might have a different favorite.
ETA: Of course, for stretching things out, you might take a tip from Miss Anne Elk, and her presentation re: her New Theory on the Brontosaurus, which was hers, and which she came up with.
WereBear
Why isn’t Taibbi blaming the voters? Younger voters break Democratic because their entire lifetimes have been the Republican party in full dementia mode.
Older voters have lived through it. They shouldn’t need to be told!
Yes, the Democrats should grow a spine. They are growing one now, and Taibbi is still whining.
EconWatcher
@NorthLeft12:
When he refers to “Democratic incompetence,” Taibbi seems to be saying that the Obama team is running an incompetent campaign against Romney, and if only they were competent, they would be winning by 20 points. And that’s really, really dumb.
Romney is a poor candidate, but part of the reason he’s flailing so badly is that the Obama people defined him and painted him into a corner very early in the game. They made all of his alleged prior accomlishments toxic, and they forced him to surrender his credibility before most people even knew much about him.
They did it so well that maybe it looks easy and obvious to Taibbi. But that just shows their skill and his lack of understanding (or need to grandstand–I’m never sure when we’re supposed to take the guy seriously).
I’ve been reading Taibbi since his Exile days. He’s a fun polemicist, and he sometimes comes up with some interesting nuggets. His depiction of Goldman Sachs as a “giant vampire squid” was very nicely done and actually took hold (even if used ironically) in the mainstream press. But if you’re looking for serious analysis, you’re kidding yourself.
gnomedad
Yes,
OttoPaul, apes read philosophy, they just don’t understand it.Linda Featheringill
I asked the google machine to explain the D-K reference to me and it did.
:-)
[back to reading the post]
1badbaba3
The rank incompetence of the Democratic Party. I guess both sides do it. Mine was snark. What’s his fucking excuse?
@Todd: Thank you for that. Haven’t had my coffee yet. Best I can muster this early is a weak “Moran”.
raven
@bemused: So you missed him screaming at lady punching bag?
bemused
@raven:
Evidently I did. I tend to tune out after I find out there won’t be any rational guests. How bad was it?
It was yesterday, I believe, that Joe actually said “a rising tide floats all boats”.
Thomas F
@Todd: You are a beautiful and lovely specimen of conscientious liberalism, my friend. I hope you wake up everyday and hug yourself in the mirror.
AxelFoley
@Todd:
Beat me to it.
Linda Featheringill
@Thomas F:
Obama is not a pacifist. If you wanted a pacifist, you should have supported Dennis Kucinich. Did you? No? Then STFU.
arguingwithsignposts
drooooooonnnnnnneeeeeeesssss!
raven
@bemused: She mentioned Gingrich and his support for Aken and just went off on her that it was not relevant to the presidential. I have to believe it’s all a setup, they have to have a list of things to cover.
Elizabelle
@Schlemizel:
That is most excellent, sir.
Think I will print that out and tape it into my rear window.
different-church-lady
There are times when Taibbi’s ability to rework conservative-level resentment and paranoia into language attractive to liberals just leaves me jaw-dropped.
I mean, “this should have been a slam-dunk” is in the mind of every single conservative pundit right now. Taibbi’s gotta be the only liberal who’s pushing it.
Linda Featheringill
@Schlemizel:
D-K campaign poster: That’s cute. :-)
EconWatcher
@different-church-lady:
The common denominator of all wingnuts is emotional immaturity. They’re not all stupid–many of them are very smart and accomplished in particular fields. But they’re all emotionally immature, with childlike grievances, pouty lips, and hands over their ears.
That does not mean, however, that everyone on our side is emotionally mature…..
BruinKid
I wish Matt Taibbi would do a big story on all the voter suppression efforts going on in this country. Why hasn’t Rolling Stone written about groups like True the Vote? Ari Berman has written several pieces for them on the efforts by GOP legislatures and governors themselves, but I haven’t seen any word in the magazine about these shadowy outside groups.
Like, who’s putting up the money behind True the Vote? And would they happen to be two filthy rich brothers?
Southern Beale
We had a neighborhood meeting last night about a local zoning issue, at which point I concluded that a lot of people are fucking morons.
That is all.
Todd
@Thomas F:
Three options, all shitty. In Option 1, you do nothing, thereby allowing the perpetuation of a lawless haven for terrorists which do threaten your national interests and those of imperfect, but basically stable and lawful nations. Option 2 is to escalate sanctions against the nation that is failing to hold this terror group in some form of abeyance, ultimately leading to invasion and full blown war with big heaping piles of collateral corpses. Option 3, targeted drone attacks with the tacit approval of the Pak government, limiting the collateral damage.
There is no Option 4.
Thomas F
@AxelFoley: It’s lovely to have a canned response on hand from the Balloon Juice glossary. It does all your thinking for you.
@Linda Featheringill: I voted for a politically accountable foreign policy that did not involve the intentional terrorizing of innocent men, women, and children in various parts of the Middle East with weapons of mass death. I’d urge you to actually read from the cited article the interviews of said men, women, and children who are in a catatonic state of fear on a day-to-day basis because of our drone policy. A policy administered by the president and perhaps a handful of other people in the executive branch. One need not be a pacifist, which I am not, to be sickened by this state of affairs.
hep kitty
No more convincing evidence that this is a seminal moment in our history. Even my 82 y.o. parents have never seen anything like this and, finally, I have no words to describe what I have seen and experienced over the last 9 years.
A slow build-up of madness, greed, avarice and insane bloviations, with the Romney campaign being the final crescendo of doom for the R party.
It’s certainly turning out better than I ever expected.
JGabriel
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Paul Krugman:
There’s that number again.
.
Donut
@Zandar:
Thank you for being the first to point this out.
I also think the notion that Romney and Obama have a lot of agreement on economic issues, and how their prospective voting blocs feel about those issues, needs a little more supporting evidence than what Taibbi gives (which is, uh, none).
Also, too, the “should be close” meme is always based on data points like unemployment, GDP growth, etc, but completely ignoring the fact that elections have (at least) as much to do with emotion as they do with reason.
Nobody really votes for the best policy options. Seriously, please dispense with that buklshit.
I’m sure many have convinced themselves that they are the exception to the rule, but in the end we all vote with our guts/hearts above all else.
dr. bloor
Nah. He wouldn’t understand that, either.
hep kitty
Oh, and this is good. My mom’s staunch republican friends are now saying “What’s the matter with Romney??”
different-church-lady
@Bill E Pilgrim: It’s not that Romney should be winning. It’s that Obama was starting off with a whole bunch of very weak cards in his hand, so his odds of losing were large. Who freakin’ knew before the game began that Romney was this weak a player?
It’s never a gimmie for either side. But Romney fumbled away all of the built-in advantages he walked into. It’s like team Romney got to start the game with the bases loaded and no outs and still couldn’t bring any runs home — it wouldn’t have been the whole ballgame, but most of the time you score with that kind of advantage.
different-church-lady
@hildebrand: Except John Stewart is funny.
hep kitty
@Narcissus: That would be awesome. Please get motivated and share.
Schlemizel
You guys are way too hard on TommyF. He is absolutly right & he should run right out and elect a President that will put an end to this nightmare . . . that would be . . . Rmoney? Ah, no he would make it worse. The Greenies? Johnson? Please don’t make me vomit – you might just as well vote for Rmoney as those guys since the end result would be the same.
Pretend for a minute that one of these pure at heart candidates did win, imagine how much fun they would have with this Congress. Then try to imagine them doing anything better than President Obama. Any.thing.
Whine about him all you want about BHO but at the end of the day he is the best we can get this year and a damn sight better than any alternative in the field.
different-church-lady
@EconWatcher: Venn diagrams. Lots and lots of Venn diagrams.
bemused
@raven
Joe is a blowhard bully.
Schlemizel
@Elizabelle:
I posted in on FB (I try not to post much political stuff there) I figure most people will need to google K-D before they get the joke.
different-church-lady
@ 50‘s linked article:
What’s really too bad is that Occupy turned out to be a single-trick pony that couldn’t figure out the difference between a tactic and a movement.
JR in WV
@Linda Featheringill:
I actually had a programmer that could only work in COBOL, a little. We had moved on to windows programming years before, but no matter how much training he got in the new environment, he couldn’t do it.
Yet he thought he was one of the best members of the software development team!
Truly amazing!
JGabriel
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different-church-lady:
Wouldn’t that be pretty much everyone who voted against him in the 2008 GOP primary, or saw his performance in the 2008 primary, and everyone who suffered under his MA governorship?
The Republican electorate, given its current composition, ideology, and goals, is incapable of selecting someone who can play strongly with the rest of the country.
.
Lojasmo
@Schlemizel:
RonnnnnnPauuuul!
different-church-lady
@JGabriel:
I suffered under his MA governorship, and it still didn’t give me any clues he’d be this incompetent.
And who in the general population paid attention to the 08 GOP primary?
EconWatcher
It’s hard to gauge the success of a loose movement like Occupy. They did manage to make the 99% and the 1% part of common vocabulary. Did they help create an environment where the hits on Romney’s business career and ideology landed harder? I think they might have.
If so, they were more successful than most street movements in our recent history. Compare, for example, to the antiglobalization protesters of the 90s. I believe they achieved exactly nothing.
WereBear
@different-church-lady: Occupy is not done yet, methinks. Let them find their way.
On the other hand, why should the Republicans expect a slam dunk at this juncture? Does that make any sense?
The economy sucks; and most people rightly blame Bush. The whole merry crew has been teapartied into saying what they actually think; and discovered that most people will then recoil as they would from toad vomit. President Obama saved General Motors and brought Bin Laden to justice; most people like that.
Someone here said people want to vote for Republicans and get Democratic policies; brilliant! Only the pithed-frog reflex of voting Republican and the bone-deep racism of many people have kept this as close as it was. I’ve never seen more evident of Isaac Asimov’s essay on change in science, only in this case it is politics: people with the stupid ideas have to die.
Because most people just will not change their minds, no matter how much incentive there is.
Southern Beale
It’s the party. They’ve sequestered themselves away from the rest of America, enjoying life in the conservative hothouse as mistermix put it last week. It was only a matter of time before the rest of the country realized the GOP had become some weird cult and no one wants to be a part of it.
Their trusted ideas all failed under Bush, and the true believers refused to accept that. When their ideology is at odds with facts, it’s always the facts that are wrong. That’s classic cult behavior. So they created their own version of everything — their own media, their own science, their own Bible. One that matched their ideology. And completely cut themselves off from the rest of the country in the process.
JGabriel
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different-church-lady:
Heh. Fair enough. Good point.
.
Just One More Canuck
@Thomas F: So what is your alternative to Obama? If you are looking for a candidate with whom you agree on every single issue, you’re going to have a very long wait. I very much doubt that there is anyone here who agrees with Obama on everything, but here in the real world, that’s the way it is. Pouting on a blog is not a very effective strategy for acheiving changes in policy. Is there anything else you could possibly do that might have some impact?
General Stuck
Wow!! Obama putting some big sunlight between himself and Romney. Quinnipiac is not normally given to giving democrats any favors.
Florida: Obama 53%, Romney 44% (NYT/CBS/Quinnipiac)
Ohio: Obama 53%, Romney 43% (NYT/CBS/Quinnipiac)
Pennsylvania: Obama 54%, Romney 42% (NYT/CBS/Quinnipiac)
different-church-lady
@WereBear: I didn’t really mean my comment as a slam on Occupy nearly as much as a swipe on people who want to blame the rest of the world for their lack of staying power. They might indeed eventually figure out a next step, but I don’t see any evidence it’s going to happen soon. And it’s never going to happen if they focus on what the next stunt is. Especially considering that a rerun of the last stunt is all they’ve come up with so far.
hep kitty
I remember during the last primary, a co-worker (who I suspect was a libertarian) and I used to laugh about Mitt being such a craven, stupid loser. I guess we were right.
Southern Beale
Speaking of Bush:
Yes, it’s The Onion. Hilarious, though.
jibeaux
@EconWatcher: Well, some of them do have their hands in a “tomahawk chop” pose…
different-church-lady
@EconWatcher:
True dat. And in a way, they’re victims of their own success. If they don’t come up with another, bigger spectacle they won’t get back in the public attention. But spectacles alone do not a movement make.
dmsilev
@General Stuck: The teaser paragraph on the NYT’s website about this poll is a bit weird: “Mitt Romney’s burden is no longer to win over undecided voters, but also to woo back the voters who seem to be growing a little comfortable with the idea of a second Obama term.”.
What’s with the ‘a little comfortable’ bit?
General Stuck
@dmsilev:
I think it’s a polite way of saying Romney sucks eggs and is a circus clown not fit for being leader of the free world with a bunch of nukular launch codes, and that voters are stupid, but not that stupid. That’s my guess.
jibeaux
@dmsilev: I interpret it at trying to get people to the polls who might have recently made their peace with Obama winning again and have just decided to stay home. Maybe?
scav
@Or something like that.Suffern Ace: Something along the lines of it being an exciting time as you can see so many areas for immediate and active development and improvement? Imply that the developments should be of value both to the communal enterprise and the individuals professional development (e.g. room for both personal, professional and corporate growth)? Or is that boilerplate so obviously close to the “you guys stop sucking so much and start behaving like people who I might think about promoting” that it won’t fly?
Elizabelle
@hep kitty:
“What’s the matter with Romney?”
When they should be asking: “What’s the matter with us?”
Classic.
catclub
@Southern Beale: nice touch on the goat.
Now he can say: Here is my pet goat.
Interrobang
@EconWatcher: Uh, I was around for those protests, and we got the FTAA and MAI scuttled. Given how bad NAFTA has been overall (at least from where I’m sitting), that’s a hell of a score. We also managed to get the first inklings into the discourse about the right to profit language in those agreements, and somehow managed to seed the popular culture with the idea that maybe somehow corporations weren’t totally bastions of truth, justice, and the [Your Nationality Here] way.
That movement also gave us Adbusters and the whole “subvertising” movement, which eventually led to Banksy.
I’d say that’s a hell of a lot more than “nothing,” frankly. It maybe wasn’t entirely what people set out to achieve, but it was at least something, and in some ways, some very good somethings.
Shawn in ShowMe
My gawd, 370+ electoral votes, would be a rout. Taibbi is going to his grave as a purity troll. There’s nothing we can do to save him.
1badbaba3
Oh, by the way. KRUGTHULU! ! ! !
Bill E Pilgrim
@different-church-lady: I don’t think that’s why he’s losing, or not as big a factor as everyone in the Village is assuming. I think Romney also came with a weak hand, one that was hidden from view until the convention and afterwards.
It’s not just the “gaffes” and his awkward and mean-spirited personality, he’s also got nothing to offer except a return to policies all too fresh in people’s memory as complete catastrophes. Since the GOP and Romney are avoiding any tie to George W Bush, Romney is left flapping around spouting vague nonsense. People keep urging him to get into details, but he/his campaign are avoiding them for reasons, namely that details reveal his and Ryan’s plans to be either complete frauds or a return to George W Bush. Actually, usually both.
And as I say, the “Presidents presiding over a weak economy almost always lose” model misses a lot, there’s more to it than that.
Culture of Truth
Um, okay
Dennis SGMM
The conservative fringe has convinced willing Republican pols that if they hit themselves in the face with a claw hammer things will get much better for them. When things don’t get better the fringe insists that it’s because the pols didn’t hit themselves hard enough. The the next mid terms should be both fascinating and abhorrent. My guess is that the Republicans are still shopping around for bigger and better claw hammers.
japa21
I think a lot of moaning on the right is not because Romney is losing, and will probably lose big. I think most of the pros never really gave him much of a chance and were just going through the horse race motions. I think what is really causing them to despair is that their chance of winning the Senate is also just about gone, thanks to both Romney being as bad as he is, and the primary elections of some really bad TPers. On top of that, they now see the Dems as having a real shot at regaining the House.
And if Obama wins, the Dems actually gain some seats in the Senate (and the filibuster is rendered virtually powerless) and the Dems retake the House, they know that they will be a shrinking minority for years to come.
Pongo
@Linda Featheringill: Yes–so showing my age here, but I had always heard this phenomenon described as ‘unconscious incompetent’ from Kirkpatrick’s four levels of competence. Guess it’s been repackaged and given an eponymous (and far less descriptive) name. Too bad, as I think the notion of ‘unconscious incompetent’ pretty much sums it up without the need for Google searches.
Perfect example of why eponymous naming has fallen out of favor in many of the hard sciences. It can be misleading (clearly Dunning and Kruger were not the ‘discoverers’ of this phenomenon), has zero descriptive value and often serves only to feed the ego of researchers.
Shawn in ShowMe
@Culture of Truth:
I guess we shouldn’t tell Taibbi that the Obama administration is doing more for veterans than any in recent memory yet they still choose to support the other guy by a considerable margin.
Bill E Pilgrim
The sneering at Taibbi cracks me up. One of the most brilliant journalists we have and some people are still on the “it’s just a kid writing for Rolling Stone” nonsense, which of course is the same thing the right says.
I’ve read a lot of the people writing comments here and the idea that your commentary is more serious and insightful than his is truly hilarious. The fact that the whole attitude is because he won’t be partisan enough or dares to criticize Obama shines through like a beacon.
Frankensteinbeck
I am not prone to this language normally, but that Taibi article is the dumbest fucking thing I have ever read.
What reality does Taibbi live in? Has he never heard of identity politics, tribalism, or racism? Fundies who vote only on abortion or gay marriage positions? Vast swathes of the nation vote obviously against their self-interest all the time for reasons like they grew up knowing that Republicans were Good and Democrats were Evil. That he gets this wrong is such a gigantically glaring error that by itself it renders the article garbage.
What reality does Taibbi live in? Obama supports raising the taxes on the rich. Romney supports cutting them to zero. Obama does not just support, but passed FinReg. Romney wants to repeal it. Obama supports increased government regulation across the board, and Romney blames government regulation for the lack of a Twilight Sparkle in every garage. Their economic stances are totally opposite. This is another gigantic error that not only makes the article moot, but makes Taibbi sound like an idiot.
I will hope these are just peculiar areas of blindness on his part.
@Thomas F:
Your ‘politically accountable foreign policy’ will include one of the three options from @Todd‘s comment. Please pick one instead of making a vague generalization. What actual policy do you support for dealing with the terrorists in Pakistan?
Matt McIrvin
@Bill E Pilgrim: Alf Landon should have been winning in 1936!
Schlemizel
@Pongo:
I think you are right. I have to work with a guy who is ignorant and arrogant & it is the worst combination possible, Either of the two is passable but the two together make for disasters.
See: 2000 – 2008 Bush, Geo. W. (Boy Blunder)
Culture of Truth
No, I don’t think Taibbi is brilliant or even particularly insightful in his political analysis. This sentence: “the rank incompetence of the Democratic Party, which would have this and every other election for the next half century sewn up” seems more like childish attention-seeking than serious analysis, which among other problems misunderstands what a political party is and what one does.
But by all means, please show us all how’s it’s done.
Davis X. Machina
@Bill E Pilgrim: I don’t care if he’s 93 years old and writes for the Boston Evening Transcript — Taibbi’s stock in trade is facile, reductionist cheerleading with which we happen to agree, so we don’t mind it, or notice it, at least not much.
Pointing out “Everybody’s bought” made you brilliant — back in the days of Ida Tarbell. News analysis should, at a minimum, contain either news, analysis, or hopefully both.
Chyron HR
@Bill E Pilgrim:
You forgot the part about how we “mindlessly worship Dear Leader”. Or does that one only get trotted out when people fail to grovel obsequiously before Glenn Greenwald?
Shawn in ShowMe
This ain’t about his attitude toward Obama. This is about Taibbi’s perpetual confusion of fantasy and reality. A grown ass man who thinks Democrats would be cleaning up in the South if they simply purified themselves in the waters of Lake Minnetonka shouldn’t be trusted for political advice.
CarolDuhart2
@General Stuck: This. Despite four years of over-the-top assertions about another Obama (which by the way, defies observable reality), Obama is still fairly popular. Folks have recently seen at least twice Obama’s cool handling of crisis. Everything seems to fluster Romney, that is when he’s not trying to take advantage.
People like not having to worry about a lot of things, unlike Bush when you woke up every morning wondering what disaster is going to happen that day.
Michael
@dmsilev: I’m pretty sure that’s referring to voters who have been, up to this point, undecided, but are now breaking for Obama, leading to his inflated vote totals.
So Romney can’t just persuade undecideds…there aren’t enough left. He also has to convince some Obama-leaners to switch sides, the most likely candidates being those who just decided for Obama and as such whose support is theoretically weakest.
Of course, as the Yogi Berra saying goes, in theory, there’s no difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there is.
Voters who are just now breaking for Obama are doing so in all likelihood because of Romney’s awful post-DNC month. Hard to imagine they’d be that persuadable that the last month was just a mirage, and the REAL Romney is someone they would find attractive as a political candidate.
It’s not obvious to me that the recent Obama voters will be any easier to persuade than Obama supporters who’ve known for months. The more-recent additions to the coalition may have more misgivings about Obama, but they’re breaking for him precisely because Mitt is so odious. His credibility with them is shot, so hard to imagine how he can deliver a message they’d listen to.
grandpa john
@Thomas F: so tell us, What policy would you enact, if you were elected to be the decider-in-chief.Todd supplied you with 3 options which would you choose? do you have another option? somebody has to make the tough decisions and that someone is the commander in chief right? the oath of office, to preserve and protect the country?
grandpa john
@hep kitty: Because Greed and bigotry are very common character flaws
Tone in DC
@Southern Beale:
You go, Ms. Beale ;-)
Michael
Here’s the thing about drones: there is actually very little legal controversy over their use, in a targeted-killing program, by the international laws of war. As long as this (or any Admin) can make a credible case that any individual drone strike is authorized by the AUMF, they basically have to satisfy two requirements: a serious effort to distinguish an actual terrorist, and a serious effort to limit civilian casualties.
Most of our drone strikes easily pass both tests (there are questions about so-called “Signature Strikes”, but that’s a different discussion). Just for some perspective, estimates on civilian casualties of drone strikes during Obama’s presidency range from 10-47% that I’ve seen/heard. Warfare in the mid-20th century had a 1000% ratio, as in, 10 civilians killed for every 1 combatant. Compared to the earliest versions of “modern” warfare, drones are far superior.
Of course, the SCOTUS has limited the AUMF’s reach by tying to the war in Afghanistan (whereas the DC Circuit’s have given it a far broader reading), and it mentions 9/11, Al-Qaeda. As we get further and further away from that date, and new terror groups come into being, the argument that they are Al-Qaeda co-belligerents covered by the AUMF becomes far more attenuated. Same with as the Afghan war winds down.
So that leads to the IMPORTANT question, IMO, which is not, “do the drones lead to civilian casualties?” or even “are drones superior to other forms of modern warfare?,” but rather, should the War on Terror even be continued on a War Model at all? As long as the AUMF is even a little powerful, we ARE going to be prosecuting the WoT on a War Model, but once the AUMF has expired, the left will have the opportunity to make the case that we should switch to a law enforcement model.
And THAT’s when you can end the drone program.
But you need to understand the architecture of the debate first. The whole drone discussion seems to be missing the forest for the trees right now.
grandpa john
@Schlemizel: in other words ” being decider-in-chief is hard work”
Tone in DC
@WereBear:
I’ve never seen more evidence of Isaac Asimov’s essay on change in science, only in this case it is politics: people with the stupid ideas have to die.
LULz.
karen marie
@bemused: Well, that certainly cheers me up!
dmbeaster
The meme that a weak economy dooms the incumbent president has always been flawed. The classic counter-example is 1936. FDR had the advantage of the depression happening in 1929 rather than 1932, so attribution was not a problem. But still, that is the comparable dynamic for 2012. The polling seems to clearly show that enough Americans link the current economic troubles to the legacy of Bush and the Republicans. And Romney hasn’t helped himself any with his posture (let the auto industry go bankrupt!). He looks and acts like a Bush retread.
Michael
Another way of saying it is that drone strikes are quite possibly the best of all options available in a War Model, legally and practically.
And legally, right now, we are definitely prosecuting the WoT under a War Model.
But the authorization for that is nearing its sunset, and the discussion the left ought to be having is (a) what are our other options beyond a War Model to continue the WoT, and (b) how do we convince the country and our party that those options are superior to the War Model?
Do that, and the drone strikes become a non-issue.
David in NY
@CarolDuhart2:
I think that’s really right. I’m old enough to remember when Richard Nixon resigned, and Gerald Ford took over. It was wonderful, just because you didn’t have to be tense anymore about the Constitution being shredded or an innocent bystander of a nation being bombed or the like. Pictures of Jerry buttering the toast for Betty at breakfast were wonderful. And this even though the economy sucked nearly as much then as is does now.
Makes me think that the right-wing’s noise machine, under a Democratic President, is basically designed to keep the ignorant all tensed-up based on myths it creates even in relatively quiet times, when an incumbent would probably be expected to win hands-down.
dmbeaster
@Michael: The drone debate is more about how the thinking for when to use them is far looser than if we were sending piloted missions to perform the same strikes. If the cost and risk of the mission are reduced, then the threshold at which you initiate the strike goes down. You would hope that their use would be with the same degree of seriousness as for a piloted strike, but I am sure that the standard erodes since the cost and risk are less.
I dont have any problem with strikes that make sense, but are drones used as sensibly as traditional piloted strikes?
McJulie
@CarolDuhart2: Despite four years of over-the-top assertions about another Obama (which by the way, defies observable reality), Obama is still fairly popular
This is something that I think mystifies the hardcore right. They don’t understand that we find him likable, competent, pleasant to listen to, handsome, etc. etc. They don’t see it and they can’t wrap their minds around how anyone could feel that way — because imagining yourself in somebody else’s viewpoint is such a liberal kind of thing to do.
Cacti
@kay:
The EC math has become worse for them in the past 20 years. If the GOP candidate doesn’t carry Ohio and Florida, there’s essentially no path to 270.
karen marie
@different-church-lady: Bingo. Very disappointing.
Michael
@dmbeaster: I think the vast majority of drone strikes fit the bill and meet international law standards.
However, there is admittedly not enough transparency from the Admin to truly evaluate them.
There are reports of “Signature Strikes,” where no actual terrorist is identified, but rather a group meets a terrorist “signature,” like a camp, out in the middle of nowhere, Waziristan, comprised of a bunch of young men, etc.
I think there’s a strong case that such strikes are illegal under the laws of war.
I think the debate over transparency, and the wisdom & legality of such strikes, are both good ones, especially given that, for the time being, we simple ARE in a War Model.
But its still a debate that also assumes too much. For me, the 1st order question is still whether or not we even ought to prosecuting the WoT pursuant to the Laws of War, under a War Model, or if Executive Power ought to be far more restrained going forward on this issue.
The way you reign in the Exec is by extinguishing his War Powers and continuing the WoT on a modified law enforcement model.
Cacti
@Michael:
I think Rmoney’s 47% comments really rubbed a lot of undecideds the wrong way.
Among the middle class, there are few who have been immune to financial difficulties or hard times at some point in their lives. To hear Mitt stand in front of a room of millionaires and dismiss with a sneer the entire bottom half of the country, just doesn’t sit well.
I also think it had in effect on senior voters, who make a large bloc of Mitt’s 47-percenters. The most recent Reuters/Ipsos poll shows that over the past 2-weeks, his lead with seniors had shrunk to +4.
1badbaba3
@Bill E Pilgrim: Leave Matty aloooooone!
See #30.
Jay C
@McJulie:
Not to mention that an awful lot of right-leaning Americans (not only, and not all hardcore nutjobs) have only heard, for the last four years, Barack Obama described in unrelievedly negative terms, his very legitimacy considered an “open question” his policies and programs outlined solely as evils to be derailed and/or killed outright, and any positive accomplishments of his Administration dismissed or belittled as “political grandstanding”.
When one lives (as a sadly enormous number of Americans do), and gets one’s political information from a closed-system media bubble with an absolutist ideological bias, it’s no wonder that so many of us have trouble forming a rational opinion of our President.
different-church-lady
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Oh yes, agreed. Basically one guy had “Things are getting better really slowly” and the other guy had “Things aren’t getting better fast enough”. Neither one of those is a winner. Obama played his into a winner, while Romney inexplicably threw away his high cards.
It does miss a lot, it’s too shallow an understanding. But it’s not wrong to observe that they are starting from a disadvantage.
rea
@Bill E Pilgrim: The sneering at Taibbi cracks me up. One of the most brilliant journalists we have
This guy just told you that the overwhelming majority of the US population is well to the left of President Obama (“our propaganda machine, which has conditioned all of us to accept the idea that the American population, ideologically speaking, is naturally split down the middle, whereas the real fault lines are a lot closer to the 99-1 ratio”) and you think he’s a brilliant journalist rather than out of touch with reality?
tomvox1
Holy mackerel, this might be the funniest piece ever published in the Politico (a very low bar, I am aware) (via K-Thug’s follow up):
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81618_Page2.html#ixzz27acASOZQ
There’s more throughout–positing that Ryan storms about his bus calling Romney “Stench” for example–but I think it’s safe to say that when Roger Simon is heaping snark all over both candidates, Romney/Ryan is headed for the dustbin of history.
different-church-lady
@Dennis SGMM: Tipping point masochism? It’s possible…
Maude
Taibbe is heading toward the Willage as fast as he can.
He read about the 2008 meltdown for a couple of months and then wrote the article that made him famous.
Taibbe, “Last week I learned how to spell financial writer. This week I am a financial writer.”
patrick II
Ryan gave a speech last year in Wisconsin where he complained that all his critics were complaining about was arithmetic. I was dumbfounded a. that he would say that, b. that the audience wouldn’t laugh him out of the building, and c. that the news report I read would just print his quote and not point out that arithmetic actually matters.
Davis X. Machina
@dmbeaster: Ask the folks in Cambodia who were there in ’70 and ’71.
Death Panel Truck
@SFAW: Just for the record, Bluto was wrong about Pearl Harbor. I have it on good authority that the Nazis had nothing to do with it:
Mnemosyne
@Maude:
Like quite a few smart writers on economics, Taibbi decided that his ability to explain how CDOs and mortgage-backed securities screwed up the economy also gave him great insight into the American electorate and how they think.
I’m still not sure how guys like that make that leap, but Taibbi isn’t the only one. Much as I love them, Charles Pierce (and, to a lesser extent, Paul Krugman) also fall into the same trap of assuming that they understand electoral politics because they’re smart enough to understand how the banksters and Republicans screwed us over. Problem is, electoral politics and economics are not actually the same field, and the thing that economics has always been weakest at is predicting human behavior.
Just ask Nate Silver, who blew his Oscar predictions because his model didn’t take into account that Mickey Rourke is an asshole who’s screwed over a lot of people in his career so they were going to be damned if they voted for him no matter how good his performance was in The Wrestler.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@Mnemosyne: So you’re saying that Taibbi is on the same level as Nate Silver and Charles Pierce?
Careful, that sort of talk can earn you an ass-whuppin round these parts. We don’t cotton to people who don’t hate Matt Taibbi with the burning light of ten thousand suns. Why not just say Hitler was a decent fellow while you’re at it? You know, as long as you’re saying nice things about history’s greatest monster, you might as well say so about the runner-up also too.
Darkrose
@Bill E Pilgrim: I’m sorry, but I can’t take anyone seriously who says we should wonder why the current polls are as close as they are because Romney sucks, but ignores the role that race plays in the election.