Pinnacle of Lies
That Went ... Well
"I don't know exactly what the 'f' stands for, there, but it's not good." (Rachel Maddow)
I noted yesterday that Maddow ripped into Mitt Romney for lying; apparently the volley did
not go unnoticed.
Ouch: The Huffington Post played up Maddow's spectacular indictment of Romney.
recounts:
Rachel Maddow unleashed a monster of an attack on Mitt Romney during her Wednesday show, calling him a liar over and over and over again.
Romney's senior adviser Eric Ferhnstrom got into trouble on Wednesday when he said that the campaign could reset itself during the general election, "like an Etch-a-Sketch." Romney's rivals pounced, saying that the remark was prime evidence of his serial flip-flopping.
Maddow used the gaffe to take a sledgehammer to Romney.
Using the term so much often draws criticism, but Maddow said that it was important to do in Romney's case.
"I'm not the sort of person who jumps on the gaffe of the moment, but this feels like a watershed sort of thing," she said. "... The degree to which Mr. Romney lies all the time about all sorts of stuff and doesn't care whether he gets caught is perhaps the most notable thing about his campaign."
The question of a watershed moment is perhaps a bit wishful. While it is true that Ferhnstrom broke a cardinal rule of American politics in telling the blunt truth about campaigning, it remains to be seen whether or not voters actually give a damn. As I suggested previously, nobody is
really shocked by what Ferhnstrom said.
But tonight Maddow
kept pressing the issue:
There is something different about Mitt Romney as a presidential candidate, as compared to every other modern, major party presidential candidate. There's a certain amount of lying, and stretching the truth, and spinning history that everybody expects, if not tolerates, at all levels of politics, and on both sides of the aisle. But there is something different about the Romney campaign.
It could be that there is, indeed, something different about the Romney campaign compared to other candidates in other years.
Periodically, influences come to peaks; I've often criticized my Republican and conservative neighbors about spin, saying that there is a difference between acknowledging human frailty and relying on it. While the crazy spin of information in our political atmosphere has an unquestionable blurring effect on certain ranges of fact, there is a difference between bending history to your needs and making it up according to your needs.
Politics is the major league of an American paradigm. We see similar devices in sales and jurisprudence because, as with politics,
persuasion is an integral component of the fundamental process. Persuasion in this context is the shaping of facts to accommodate a need. I might tell you that the car has the best gas mileage, but forget to mention criticism of the braking system. I might tell you that the accused fired in self-defense, but I'm not going to mention that he only had to defend himself because he deliberately put himself in danger.
This is the range that politicians traditionally play in. Periodically, notable exceptions arise, but even McCarthy had to play in that range in order to achieve the iconic insanity of his infamous anticommunist hearings.
Mitt Romney, though, is well beyond simply dabbling in a much more volatile formula. He's just making things up as he goes. We might rib and razz over some stories he's told about his past that, circumstantially, actually preclude his participation, but more unsettling are the completely unnecessary lies. Like the time he explained that he left politics and returned to the private sector, in order to peel away some of his professional politician veneer. He left politics, at best, for about a month, and that is if we presume that he showed up at his first presidential campaign meeting without having given politics a thought over the period.
And come on, what was the point of that lie? More than the professional politician, it is his image as a clueless rich guy that really hurts him. He couldn't manage to turn the point on a sentiment about "public service"?
It might sound like a small thing to make an issue of, but
that's the point. It's a
small thing. There's no useful return on that kind of bet. What is the upside? I understand politicians lying about certain things. I did not have sex with that woman. Hookers? Diapers? What? But, really?
This?
The idea is that people don't pay attention to history, so you can say whatever you want, and the news cycle will give it play°.
Republicans have been doing this for over a decade; even longer if you look down the ladder at the rise of right wing media and the Republican Revolution in the 1990s. The Bush administration, though, was an extraordinary period in which facts seemed irrelevant to politics.
Perhaps this, as with other neurotic discords in the conservative outlook, is jumping valences. Mitt Romney might well be the epitome of conservative cynicism in political theory. He's not trying to bend history, but invent it. Even George W. Bush wasn't this clumsy, though he had Karl Rove in his corner. Then again, Rove, like Romney, is having a little bit of trouble with the truth.
Rove's invention is of a device Romney has used. The former Massachusetts governor released an early campaign advert that blasted Obama for saying, "If we talk about the economy, we're going to lose." Of course, the actual source for that reveals that the statement is a direct and acknowledged quote of John McCain; the Romney campaign just cut out the part identifying it as a quote of John McCain in order to manipulate the implications of the remainder.
Rove, likewise, did the same thing today, except the
Wall Street Journal has corrected the quote and noted the fact that they have edited the online version. See if you can spot the difference:
As for the killing of Osama bin Laden, Mr. Obama did what virtually any commander in chief would have done in the same situation. Even President Bill Clinton says in the film "that's the call I would have made." For this to be portrayed as the epic achievement of the first term tells you how bare the White House cupboards are.
(Original form)
• • •
As for the killing of Osama bin Laden, Mr. Obama did what virtually any commander in chief would have done in the same situation. Even President Bill Clinton says in the film "I hope that's the call I would have made." For this to be portrayed as the epic achievement of the first term tells you how bare the White House cupboards are.
(Corrected version)
The idea of inventing history has long been popular among Republicans. They really are banking on people being awfully stupid. It's just particularly naked this cycle. And it could be that the reason Mitt Romney can't stop hitting himself. He might well be the pinnacle of this neurotic evolution.
____________________
Notes:
say whatever you want, and the news cycle will give it play — We'll see what comes. NPR just revised its reporting guidelines, but it will take some time to see if the organization can actually get anywhere tinkering with "he said, she said" reporting.
Works Cited:
Maddow, Rachel. The Rachel Maddow Show. MSNBC, New York. March 22, 2012. MSNBC.MSN.com. March 22, 2012. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#46829675
The Huffington Post. "Rachel Maddow: Mitt Romney 'Lies All The Time'". March 22, 2012. HuffingtonPost.com. March 2, 2012. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/22/rachel-maddow-mitt-romney-lies_n_1372408.html
Fleischer, Matthew. "NPR Officially Abandons 'He Said, She Said' Journalism: Jay Rosen Is Pleased". MediaBistro. February 28, 2012. MediaBistro.com. http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowl...e-said-journalism-jay-rosen-is-pleased_b54676
