A reader quotes our dissenter:
I worry about blowback now, even as I deilght in hearing O cooly say that Romney has some 'splainin to do. I still don't like the ads, and I think the intimation that there was anything criminal in those SEC filings is way over the top.
This is the kind of hand-wringing that makes the Democratic coalition unable to govern effectively. This is politics, not a peer-reviewed research essay. Is Obama's insinuation not 100% above board? Sure. But it's a half-truth that's in the service of a much larger and more important truth: that Romney is the very epitome of financial sector's arrogance and lack of accountability which is largely responsible for destroying the US economy, and the American middle class, while preserving the gains of the rich at any cost. You can worry about Obama's fidelity to detail all you want. The guy isn't a journalist; he's a politician, and the argument he's making against Romney does reveal Romney's true core as another arrogant Master of the Universe who takes it for granted that he lives by a separate set of rules from everyone else. If Obama has to exaggerate and oversimplify to get there, then so be it.
And exaggeration and oversimplification is very different than lying. Update from a reader, who disagrees that Obama is even employing "half-truths" to begin with:
Your dissenter to the dissenter says that Obama's employing half-truths in his Bain offensive, but that's OK. I agree with the thrust of his argument – the Dems shouldn't be above a little bit of embellishment to get their point across. I mean geez, the opposition lies about Obama about nearly everything about the man and his record. If the Dems shy away from some exaggeration in fighting back, they might as well just pack it in. The facts are on Obama's side, so he doesn't have to be as mendacious as Romney and his supporters, but he has to be willing to fight hard. And he is. And as a liberal who remembers the Dukakis/Gore/Kerry campaigns, I'm thrilled to see my team be the one that knows how to throw a punch for once.
But anyway, what half-truths is the emailer saying Obama's said? Romney held himself out as the CEO of the company on SEC forms. Tying what that company was doing to its CEO isn't a half-truth; it's the truth. And as we've learned, there's plenty of other documentary evidence tying Romney to Bain during that period. Romney can make himself look like an idiot by saying "sure, I was CEO on the forms, but I really wasn't." But he's the one stretching both the truth and credulity by making that argument. He has no issue doing that, as his pathetic "shame on you, Mr. Obama" interviews showed. He's doubling down on the 1999 lie. Which, if he is to be believed now, makes his SEC forms false. Which makes him a potential felon. But the documents show that he's lying now. Either way, he looks like a weasel and a liar. He can't escape that now.
Where in that string of events did Obama say anything untrue? I don't see it. The fuss seems to be "well, Romney personally didn't offshore the jobs." Like hell he didn't. He was the company's CEO, chairman and sole shareholder. If he disapproved of these ventures, he had not only the right, but the duty to say something, to stop it. He didn't. He owns it.
That's what is so delicious about this whole thing. Romney is throwing a hissy fit about having THE TRUTH shoved in his face. He's clearly not used to hearing things he doesn't want to – be they true, false, or other.
Well, sucks to be him. He's not in a board meeting full of sycophants anymore. He's going toe to toe with the president of the United States, who by all appearances is far is smarter than he is, and who employs the campaign team that beat first the Clinton team and then the GOP smear machine and elected a black guy with a funny Arab-sounding name to the presidency. They sure as hell aren't going to cower in fear of Mitt f'n Romney.
The Dish 