Month: September 2012

Just a word to say that David Brooks’ column is simply superb and to emphasize that both David Frum and Ramesh Ponnuru have made important points about why Romney is disgusting and wrong, respectively. Andrew Sprung has more. It gives me more hope that Romney’s embrace of the base right of the GOP, if it leads to a big loss, may finally force the party to return to sanity.

You probably recognize Hodgman from his appearances on The Daily Show and those ubiquitous Apple ads, but be sure to check out his book, That Is All, an audio and paperback version of which are being released October 2. You can buy The Complete World Knowledge box set here. Check out his podcast here. Previous videos of John here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. “Ask Anything” archive here.

"You can go on and on telling lies, and the most palpable lies at that, and even if they are not actually believed, there is no strong revulsion either. We are all drowning in filth. When I talk to anyone or read the writings of anyone who has an axe to grind, I feel the intellectual honesty and balanced judgment have simply disappeared from the face of the earth. Everyone's thought is forensic, everyone is simply putting a 'case' with deliberate suppression of his opponent's point of view, and, what is more, with complete insensitiveness to any sufferings except those of himself and his friends…. But is there no one who has both firm opinions and a balanced outlook? Actually there are plenty, but they are powerless. All power is in the hands of paranoiacs," – George Orwell.

Well, they’ve got it now. Sheldon Adelson didn’t even have to pay for this one:

A long, strange new-media trip. Congrats, David, by the way.

Conor Friedersdorf puts Romney's remarks in context:

This "47 percent" incident reflects a larger theme in Campaign 2012. The base of the conservative movement develops a message that plays well internally, and inexplicably thinks it'll be persuasive to the general electorate if only it is trumpeted. Mitt Romney slavishly conducts himself as the base wishes. And the talking points turn out to be as unpopular with swing voters as you'd expect. That's how it's gone on foreign policy; now that Romney has been caught making the verbal equivalent of a 53% Tumblr entry, that's how it's going on domestic policy too.

Tomasky has a similar thought:

In a way, it’s not even mostly Romney’s fault. It’s the fault of the party and movement that introduced and spread this toxic propaganda in the first place. When Romney is licking his wounds on Nov. 7, that party and movement will fire all its arrows at him. He’ll deserve a lot of them. But they will have buried him with the ignorance and rage they demanded he adopt. His chief crime will have been his weakness in failing to confront them.

Bill Kristol calls Romney's remarks "arrogant and stupid":

It's worth recalling that a good chunk of the 47 percent who don't pay income taxes are Romney supporters—especially of course seniors (who might well "believe they are entitled to heath care," a position Romney agrees with), as well as many lower-income Americans (including men and women serving in the military) who think conservative policies are better for the country even if they're not getting a tax cut under the Romney plan. So Romney seems to have contempt not just for the Democrats who oppose him, but for tens of millions who intend to vote for him.

Alex Klein defends Romney:

But Romney didn't claim that non-income tax payers lean toward the left, he said that the full 47 percent are Obama supporters. He called me a mooch. Many of you too. And I pay close to 50 percent on my earnings from writing, and he pays 13 percent, because of government policy.  As Cartman might say, that pisses me off. Andrew Gelman weighs in:

I agree that there’s a correlation between voting for Obama and being on government benefits, but the correlation is far from 100%. Also, lots of middle and upper-income people rely heavily on government programs and also pay taxes (consider, for example, the civilian and military employees of the federal government, or local public employees such as teachers and police officers, or even researchers such as myself who receive government funds); I’m not sure where they fit into Romney’s story.

Frum wonders why resentment towards the 47 percent resonates on the right. His guess:

When you ask white Americans to estimate the black population of the United States, the answer averages out at nearly 30%. Ask them to estimate the Hispanic population, and the answer averages out at 22%. So when a politician or a broadcaster talks about 47% in "dependency," the image that swims into many white voters' minds is not their mother in Florida, her Social Security untaxed, receiving Medicare benefits vastly greater than her lifetime tax contributions; it is not their uncle, laid off after 30 years and now too old to start over. No, the image that comes into mind is minorities on welfare.

Matt Welch also rejects Romney's rhetoric:

I should theoretically be the target audience for this stuff. I never took out a federally guaranteed student loan, never enjoyed the mortgage-interest deduction; I worry all the time about government spending and entitlements, and I am not unfamiliar with the looter/moocher formulation. But this kind of reductionism does not reflect individualism (as David Brooks charges), it rejects individualism, by insisting that income tax is destiny. It judges U.S. residents not as humans but as productive (or unproductive) units. (Though as long as people are thinking that way, is there any category of resident less taker-y than illegal immigrants with fake Social Security cards who file income taxes?) And it prematurely valorizes one class of government-gobbling Americans while prematurely writing off another.

Reihan thinks the percentage of Americans who pay income taxes is a distraction:

The version of conservative tax policy I favor might actually further reduce the share of tax units that pay federal income taxes, yet it would strengthen the work ethic, increase labor force participation, and discourage the kind of dependency that concerns Mitt Romney.

Jonathan Alter adds his two cents:

There’s been a lot of talk in recent years about liberals waging “class warfare.” But what could be more warlike on the battlefield of class than dividing the country into “makers” and “takers”? If Romney wins, we’re in for a nasty form of class politics that we haven’t seen in this country since the late 19th Century. But even if he loses, the 2012 election will be long remembered as the year when the divisive and often cruel dimensions of a cramped political philosophy were laid bare for all the world to see.

Andrew Sprung's view:

This is the mother of all 'what you really think' gaffes — or perhaps just 'what you really want your core supporters to think you think' gaffes.

(Photo: GOP Presidential candidate Governor Mitt Romney wipes the sweat away during a rally held at Van Dyck Park in Fairfax, Virginia on Thursday, September 13, 2012. By Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Chait sees Romney's comments on Israel and Palestine as a pander to conservative "Jewish donors have very right-wing views on Middle East policy":

Romney is aware of the dangers of moving toward a two-state solution, which are real enough, but he seems blithe about the dangers of the status quo. It’s certainly true that lots of Palestinians want to destroy Israel (though it’s not true that “the Palestinians” as a whole want this, as Romney’s formulation implies), and this complicates the prospects for a negotiated settlement.

But there’s not a whole lot of evidence that continuing the occupation is making them hate Israel any less. And if you lack any plausible mechanism for delay to improve conditions, then a short-term focus on immediate security becomes, by default, a long-term plan for a one-state solution. That is the Netanyahu “strategy,” and Romney appears comfortable identifying himself with it.

Robert Shrum wonders:

What else is left, another foreign crisis? First, that’s when Americans tend to rally around a president, especially one who’s demonstrated coolness, judgment, and a sure sense of command, which is exactly what Obama has done. He’s in an extraordinary position for a Democrat of holding a decided advantage on foreign policy, national security, and fighting terrorism. In contrast, Romney instinctively says the wrong thing, which frequently makes him look not only out of touch but out of his depth, unready for a job that demands the capacity to cope with unanticipated and potentially mortal dangers.

And Romney won’t make up lost ground by pursuing a makeover on daytime TV. Last week he told Kelly Ripa that he’s a “fan” of Snooki from Jersey Shore and likes to sleep wearing “as little as possible.” The latter elicits an image we didn’t need. The show was taped as the Middle East upheaval escalated. It wasn’t humanizing, but cringe-inducing. “Jersey Shore canceled—and Romney soon will be,” was the reaction of one Republican pro.

I’m concerned that Romney’s master strategy is literally to make us feel bad for him & that it’s working on me.

— rob delaney (@robdelaney) September 18, 2012

Comedian Rob Delaney, Romney’s “Twitter nemesis“, had a serious reaction to Mitt’s unplugged fundraiser comments, recognizing an unsettling similarity between his own alcoholism and the candidate’s apparent duplicity:

To drink the way that I did required dishonesty. I lied about where I was going. Who I was with. Why I wasn’t coming in for work. Whether or not I was hung over. Whether I was drunk at any given moment. I lied to myself about my fitness for getting behind the wheel of a car. Individual friends, family members and acquaintances knew pieces of the picture, but never the whole picture. If they had, they’d have known I was in real trouble. So I told one thing to one audience and another to another audience. I’d recalibrate depending on where I was or who I was with. It was selfish. It was lying. So when I lay on the hospital gurney with two broken arms, looking down the barrel of a court date, jail time, surgeries without health insurance, rehab, fines and fees into the tens of thousands, and a reckoning with those who cared about me and those who didn’t, I felt RELIEF. I could tell them the truth: I’m a drunk, I’m responsible for all of this, and I don’t want to do it anymore. It felt really good, like sunlight. 

I was reminded of all of this today when a political candidate had a speech he’d meant for a small, select audience get heard by a much larger audience. It made my stomach turn. I remember that behavior well. It didn’t get me anywhere that I wanted to go.