Subsequent to observing for the 6,570th time (to save you the math, that's three times a day, for six years) that Mitt Romney & Co. is a lying, slanderous hunk of the extravagant double-standard and swindling bugaboo, Greg Sargent somewhat more gently notes that
the Romney campaign continues to pose a test to the news media and our political system. What happens when one campaign has decided there is literally no set of boundaries that it needs to follow when it comes to the veracity of its assertions? The Romney campaign is betting that the press simply won’t be able to keep voters informed about the disputes that are central to the campaign, in the face of the sheer scope and volume of dishonesty it uncorks daily.
In this election, that's my problem with Dudley Do-Right correction squads. They're magnificently ineffective.
A poorly informed electorate manages to hear (on rare occasion, read) that there are raging disputes between the partisan sides but it can't make heads or tails of who's right and who's wrong so it settles the whole disputatious situation by re-tuning out and just staying home. One side says this, the other side says that, the first side corrects, the second side reasserts, the original party of the first part protests that the party of the second part is deliberating "misinterpreting" the first party's position and before long there's crap flying everywhere and no one's listening.
The electorate has experienced corrections galore, but who cares?
No, in this election the responsible news media would merely but consistently note that there hasn't been this much right-wing horsehshit thrown around since the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei "campaigned" for Reichstag seats in 1932.
I've noticed Howard Dean has taken to calling Romney-GOP tactics "Stalinist," which I guess Gov. Dean thinks is acceptable language in American political discourse, whereas "Goebbelsesque" is not. Dear Howard: I say why not go all the way and at least get it right? The uncontaminated German, European and American press (by the way I highly recommend the somewhat relevant Hitlerland, by Andrew Nagorski) spent a lot of column space uncovering Goebbels & Friends through factual corrections. It did no good. The press should have devoted its energies only to burying them as the vicious, grotesque liars they were.
I cannot emphasize this too strongly or authentically or even eccentrically: the GOP's fascistic tactics of the Big Lie must be smothered in their cradle, now, or they'll kill American democracy, later.
I learned many things while studying Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" as a sophomore in high school. Marc Antony's soliloquy taught me to let the other guy speak first - and to have a really good speach/speaker for the rebuttal. Barry Obama must have studied this also.
President Obama cannot defend himself at the convention without seeming defensive. So, he must enlist the help of a second to stand in for him. But who could ever meet the task of explaining complicated policies while smiling and gutting Romney?
Who? Who? ... WHO?
Maybe they could call in The Big Dawg from the bullpen to be the set-up relief pitcher. Bill Clinton will take three times as much time as anyone else would dare to go through the issues point by point and leave the Romney/Republican/Ryan platform (Big Lies) in tatters.
And you can bet your ass that everyone in the country will be tuned in - for one more night with Ole Bill.
The convention will close with Obama at his best describing the future as it can be with him and the Democrats in charge. Romney with have eight weeks to convince America he is not as big a lying asshole as Bill Clinton said he is.
Screw the press, we have Bill and Obama. :-)
Posted by: Robert Lipscomb | August 28, 2012 at 02:18 PM
I hope the debate moderators ask about the false welfare ads. It may be the best opportunity to refute them.
Posted by: You Don't Say | August 28, 2012 at 02:36 PM
Given the media's reluctance to risk offense to any viewer or reader lest they turn elsewhere for information this strategy makes sense from a Machiavellian point of view. Tell not only big lies but lots and lots of little lies. The journalist who dared to try to challenge them all can be instantly condemned for bias. The republicans can rely on the uninformed voter to not believe everything Romney says is a lie.
Posted by: Peter G | August 28, 2012 at 03:37 PM