The GOP's apostle from Hell

Frank Luntz, in an interview with the Daily Beast's Daniel Stone:

[I]n the end, Mr. President, you can try to change the subject, but you can’t change reality.

I admit I'm biased; I can't really comment on Frank Luntz with the cold, steely objectivity required of any thoughtful analysis, but that's only because Frank Luntz is an unspeakably repugnant, ethically satanic homunculus who in a just world would be forced to suffer the consequences of his verbal perversions and political depravity.  

President Obama can't change reality, Frank? Of course he can: tomorrow's realities, assuming the hydraheaded malignancy that you, Frank, help to install in assorted high offices multiplies no further. But we get it. You mean to say he can't change today's realities or those of yesterday--because, Frank, that's the territorial hocus-pocus reserved exclusively for you.

Yes, you and you alone, Frank, or so you believe, are morally free to inflict immeasurable harm on the innocent or ignorant, what with your reality-altering assaults on clarity: "death taxes," a "government takeover" of healthcare, any Obama bill as a "job-killing" bill, and so on. As a result, might many go without work, go without medical care--just plain go without? Of course they might.

But what do you care, Frank? You've got yours, you devious little prick.

Comments

[Turgidson]

Couldn't say it better myself.

The actual, real effects of policy don't matter to an asshole like Luntz, except to the extent policy can be rigged to enrich the "right" people. Otherwise it's abstract. Spending is just an amorphous blob to be condemned because their ideology tells them to, up until the moment they are in control anyway.

Politics is a game to people like Luntz.

And if reality (not "reality" as Luntz would have it) was properly explained to, and understood by, the electorate, Obama would be winning 70-30. His early Keynesian policies, though too small for the crisis at hand, worked as intended, stopped the bleeding. But it wasn't enough to create a strong bounce back, and the Dems lost their will to keep trying in the face of nonstop filibustering and disinformation campaigns about spending binges. Then this country in its infinite wisdom elected a bunch of raving lunatics to the House and any hope of constructive policy was dashed. Instead, we're stuck with the insipid narrative that Obama's economic policies failed. Which is the only reason this election isn't a blowout of historical proportions. That, and hate/racism/xenophobia.

Aid it's assholes like Luntz who have quite successfully managed to replace reality with "reality." There's a new wing of hell being built for the likes of Luntz and Rove, IMO.

[majii]

All Luntz cares about is that he got paid big bucks for helping republicans lie to Americans. He's frustrated with PBO because, imo, he underestimated him. He made the fatal flaw of believing his own BS, and he's angry because PBO decided to fight for re-election. Luntz specializes in creating bumper sticker slogans based on lies that republicans can use. PBO flanked the GOP this time around and took the lead in setting the agenda. I can imagine Luntz hates this. I have to agree with Michael Tomasky on this one. Romney and the GOPers are whiny boys.

[Peter G]

I quite admire Luntz. In the same way that I admire many of the other Darwinian creations that evolution has brought us. To be honest I can't think of any person who has been more successful at shaping the discourse of American politics through language. The fact that he has used his manifest gifts in the service of evil is beside the point. He is worthy of study in the same way that the Influenza virus is.

[Thrasymachus]

The moral and intellectual corrosion dissolving the bones of the Republican Party can have no more perfect exemplar than Frank Luntz.

In the reckless, sadistic, sociopathically venal arc of his "public career" we see the Movement Conservative vision of a new America, rebuilt in Luntz's image as a penal colony of schizophrenic lepers violently engaged in a mindless, sprawling, Pay-Per-View diaper fetish snuff film.

The one small mercy to be found in his whole career is this: however much he may distort the truth, Mr. Luntz is ironically unable to prevent *himself* from appearing exactly as he is.