Today has been one of the most depressing days I can remember since starting this blog, and I really am just gobsmacked by the foolishness and mendacity of “nonpartisan” hacks like Glenn Kessler. I suppose I shouldn’t be, because Kthug nailed this twelve years ago:
The big lesson of this year’s campaign — a lesson that we can be sure politicians will take to heart — is that a candidate can get away with saying things that are demonstrably untrue, as long as the untruths involve big numbers.
George W. Bush has repeatedly declared, among other things, that he intends to spend about a trillion dollars on new programs; his budget actually earmarks less than half that much. But his repetition of this claim has not led the public to question his credibility.
Mr. Bush has also promised to use a trillion dollars of Social Security money for two conflicting purposes: putting it into private accounts for young workers, while still using it to pay benefits to older workers. And his favorite argument for privatization involves similar double dipping. When he compares the rate of return people can get on their money with the implied rate of return on Social Security contributions, he seems to have misunderstood why Social Security offers lower returns: it has to set young workers’ contributions aside, or it will run out of money before today’s middle-aged workers have retired.
***How has he gotten away with it? One answer is that voters can’t relate to big numbers. But it’s also true that the media haven’t helped them make sense of these numbers.
Partly this is a matter of marketing — insider gossip makes better TV than budget arithmetic. But there has also been a political aspect: the mainstream media are fanatically determined to seem evenhanded. One of the great jokes of American politics is the insistence by conservatives that the media have a liberal bias. The truth is that reporters have failed to call Mr. Bush to account on even the most outrageous misstatements, presumably for fear that they might be accused of partisanship. If a presidential candidate were to declare that the earth is flat, you would be sure to see a news analysis under the headline ”Shape of the Planet: Both Sides Have a Point.” After all, the earth isn’t perfectly spherical.
Kessler would probably give Krugman a couple pinnochio’s for being shrill.
I know there are those of you who think we need to ignore the fact-checkers, and just paying attention to them gives them credibility. I disagree. Folks like Kessler have proven themselves incapable of logic or reason, and bow down to the altar of some sort of fictional balance. We can’t ignore these charlatans and protectors of the lazy media status quo. Their credibility, however unearned, must be destroyed. Every time this idiot opens his mouth and spews nonsense, you have got to fight back, and I’m not going to rest until this jackass gets his act together or is as much a laughingstock as Bill O’Reilly. A smart guy I kind of like a couple of years ago exhorted that we should “argue with them and get in their face!” I agree.
Our media is failing us, and sitting back and ignoring that isn’t going to make things better. Things will not change until nonpartisan clowns like Kessler are knocked off their perch and relegated to teaching “journalism” at some backwater community college in Alabama. I feel bad for those kids going to school in Alabama, but they are taking one for team America.
(Kthug link from a commenter earlier today but I can’t find it right now.)
Evolving Deep Southerner
Privatizing Social Security and plowing it into the stock market. Shit, it all makes sense to me now. That’s what Mitt’s about. That’s he and his buddies’ idea of “everybody in America having skin in the game.”
What does anyone want to make a bet that if he’s elected, he’ll make that move within the first 100 days? Shit, if he actually manages to get elected, the first 60 days?
And that will just be one of many things he’ll do.
PeakVT
I agree that Kessler is infuriating, but the underlying story is good news for… no, not the usual guy. Obama. Really good news.
ETA: Link was from me.
James Hare
When Krugman wrote that folks like Kessler could be stupid without ordinary folks having a recourse. Now he’s forced to give nonsensical answers on Twitter. It’s a small step, but it’s something.
He’s been awful quiet after the last tweet in response to you. Perhaps he _is_ capable of shame.
patroclus
The SEC filings clearly contradict Mr. Kessler and the claims of the Romney campaign – he was the CEO, President, chairman and sole owner of Bain up until 2002; and, at the very least, attended meetings and signed formal (penalty of perjury) documents at the holding company level and in the formation of affiliates. He is therefore responsible for what happened at Bain up until his actual formal departure. There is no denying this.
If Mr. Kessler had a shred of credibility, he would admit the obvious facts. Either Romney has been lying to the SEC or publically lying for campaign purposes. One or the other.
Ash Can
But how do we destroy their credibility? The “ignore them” response is based on the belief that ignoring them takes them “off the air” — they’re not getting the hits/page views = they’re not selling the ads = they get replaced by someone (even worse?) who gets eyeballs. I for one don’t know the best answer.
jharp
“I know there are those of you who think we need to ignore the fact-checkers, and just paying attention to them gives them credibility. I disagree.”
And I agree that ignoring the liars is a huge mistake.
Never again for me. I call them out on every single lie. And yes, I have lost friends over it.
Punchy
Tomorrow will grace us with an endless, vociferous, and multi-pronged demands from every possible R-based pundit and polly that Obama apologize, shine Mitt’s shoes, and pledge not to drink from Whitey’s drinking fountain for the baseless and ridiculous smears on Mitt’s employment status.
Just you watch. The only out of this for Mitt is to launch the world’s largest and most coordinated attack. Defense is no longer an option. Almost certainly the first to drive this train will be the Today show. Just you watch.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Halperin unwittingly blundered into summing up
modern political journalismBroderism. If only it were an epitaph.CarolinaDave
1000 thumbs up Cole!
General Stuck
Not for me. Been one of the most hopeful days I can remember on politics. The incompetent Romney campaign is doing more to expose the media and all around rot of our national pol dialogue than anything I recall.
It is all we can hope for that republican entitlement, greed, and all around mendacity in service to wealth and privilege comes out into the open. The second part is how the general public processes that info. And is largely out of our hands, other than pointing to it day in and out.
It took decades to fuck things up to where they are. And there is no reason to think it won’t take an equal amount of time to unfuck them. The only catch is if we survive as a nation that long. The jury is out on that one. Long as we maintain mostly free and fair elections, there is a hope of revival. We cannot afford to let the wingers monkey wrench the one man one vote doctrine that provides an escape hatch from all this madness.
I am General Stuck and approved this message.
Now I’m going to bed and get some beauty sleep.
Hunter Gathers
Kessler isn’t nonpartisan. He’s an old money conservative running cover for his fellow plutocrats. Just because somebody claims to be nonpartisan doesn’t make it so. Calling my dog a cat doesn’t make her a cat. Besides, nonpartisan is one of the all time great oxymorons, like Microsoft Works or Compassionate Conservative.
The MSM can whine all day and night about this. It isn’t going to stop Obama from beating the shit out of Romney with the cudgel known as Bain Capitol every day from now until election day. Sure, the MSM will drag Romney’s ass across the finish line the same way they did with McCain, but it won’t matter since Obama will have gotten there first and had 3 beers and 4 cigarettes while waiting for Mittens to show up.
Old Dan and Little Ann
I posted that Romney/Baine Globe article on FB and my only response was from my Uncle writing “Read it and weep” with a FactCheck link. What I shoved back in his face isn’t going to change his mind any but at least I’ll sleep better.
angler
John, you bastard. Here I had thought I was out and you bring me back in.
Yes, hammer the fact checkers. Well done on Kessler. There will never be a level playing field but if the Washington Post gets too far into the partisan box, it can’t operate. There’s already Fox and the Wash Times. Their brand is the NYT on the Potomac. We can impact this particular piece of the puzzle.
Tonal Crow
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: He might as well have said, “My job is to keep you titillated with crap, not to give you the facts”. It’s now become almost impossible to tell the difference between what our failed media write and outrageous satire.
Don Henley nailed it
scav
Ignoring them is about as useful as banning all mention of possible sea-level rise from SC planning documents. The tricky bit is managing to have a life outside of smiting them upside the head with a two-by-four.
cocktailhag
Ah, would that Kthug had gotten to you a few years earlier.
reflectionephemeral
A strange thing, with conservatism dead & replaced by tribalism, that the ideological fanatics threatening America are adherents of… centrism.
There’s nothing that hasn’t been said about this– notably from Mann & Ornstein– but it’s damn depressing that even the folks ostensibly here to tell us the news have abandoned accuracy for some negative stereotype of postmodernism, validating perspectives instead of ascertaining facts.
Cacti
The lying courtiers need to be called out for what they are.
They use the phrase “fact check” like Fox News uses “fair and balanced”…as a cover for accomplishing the exact opposite.
GregB
I can’t believe we are wasting time on this trivial matter when we haven’t even gotten to the bottom of the White Water scandal.
amk
Time to bring out my own meme
One bitter fact is two bit hacks populate the third rate fourth estate who are truly the fifth columnists.
satanicpanic
Good work taking the complaint straight to him. You rock Cole!
Cacti
@GregB:
And Obama still hasn’t released his long form 3rd grade report card.
Dork
@General Stuck: that ought to be O’s campaign theme: “Here To Unfuck Things”.
pseudonymous in nc
Yeah, I think we’re in a better place now than we were back then: bullshit floats to the top very quickly.
That Camp Rmoney had to go to Matt fucking Drudge to create a distraction is pretty telling. It’s not 1997 any more.
Cacti
I’ve also noticed that the courtiers are now trying to split hairs and say R-money wasn’t “actively” managing Bain.
Like that makes goat-damned bit of difference for the fact that he was 100% legally liable for the actions of his subordinates as the CEO, President, Chairman of the Board, and sole owner.
owlbear1
Has anybody asked Ron Paul what he thinks of Rmoney’s conflicting statements?
Tonal Crow
@Cacti:
In which case he was committing securities fraud by (indirectly) telling investors he was President, CEO, etc., when other people were really performing those tasks. Also too it was almost certainly a “materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation” to the SEC, per 18 USC 1001. That’s a felony.
Tag: Romney lied about Bain.
Hill Dweller
@Cacti: The hacks can keep trying to unfuck that chicken, but new evidence keeps popping up every couple of hours.
I also doubt the Obama campaign would go this hard on Bain if they didn’t have more in reserve. As I was saying earlier today, this has the feel of a staggered roll out of damning opposition research.
satanicpanic
@Cacti: There’s a distinction I don’t think people are going to care about. Up there with, well Obamacare is OK at the state level, but at the national level it sucks. Good luck with that Rombot.
Elizabelle
Kessler doesn’t have a leg to stand on, factually. Good on JC for calling him out.
From NYTimes, on the LIBOR scandal but touches on the total institutional rot and fail we are seeing. And which Kessler and other fact-checkers and “journalists” are trying to sweep under the rug.
The Spreading Scourge of Corporate Corruption
Interesting essay. The reader comments are well worth the time. (You might want to sort them by “reader picks” to drop out any Kochwhores’ posting.)
Let’s not leave out the presence of a corrupted and lazy press, either. One that values eyeballs and revenue over accurate reporting. One that values its own compensation more than its purported mission.
danielx
@reflectionephemeral:
Facts? We don’t need no steenkin’ facts!
I can’t say I’m depressed by today’s proceedings.
“Globe should have gotten a GOP commish”
That line from a supposedly nonpartisan “fact checker” did more to expose the essential hypocrisy of the ‘nonpartisan press’ than years of blogospheric wanking – okay, some of it extremely well written wanking. However, it does bear repeating that for a lot of our idiot fellow Americans the source of information does make a difference in the perceived accuracy and/or importance of the information. “Both sides do it”, so Romney’s outright documented lies are lessened in importance if reported by a Democratic former commissioner.
Also, too – if the Globe had “gotten a GOP commish”, that person’s comments would have instantly received the standard treatment for GOP apostates who actually believe that up is up, down is down, facts are facts and facts are nonpartisan. Fly, my monkeys, fly!
All evidence to the contrary, this is still good news for John McCain.
And Another Thing…
So do yourself a favor, go to CSPAN.com & watch Joe Biden’s speech to the NAACP.. It’s a minor masterpiece of political campaign speechifying. And he was having a great time doing it.
And Cole, thumbs up for pushing back on Kessler. When I was at WaPo earlier this evening, in the opinion section, 4 of the 5 most popular articles were about Bain. This is not a minor problem for Romney.
jl
I hope this stays in the news too.
Headline on my yahoo news
Cheney: Romney ‘only’ man for foreign policy
By KASIE HUNT
‘ Former Vice President Dick Cheney says Romney is “the kind of individual I want in the Oval Office.” ‘
news.yahoo.com/cheney-romney-only-man-foreign-policy-012836628.html
Now, is there a way we can agitate and get this story fact checked? They will screw it up, and we can keep it in the news cycle longer.
So color me ‘doubtful’ on this story.
mdblanche
For his claim that they were magical, Glenn Kessler gives the man who traded him a pile of beans for his cow one Pinocchio.
Original Lee
It was a depressing day for me, too, John.
Today, I was tasked with developing a couple of numbers to be used in an opinion piece about government waste. I was given a link to a poster about how it costs $30M+ a day to operate Congress, and I was supposed to research how close to reality that number was. Then, I was supposed to use whatever number I came up with to calculate how much it cost to pass a bill into law, using the number of public laws that have been enacted so far in FY2012.
Some of this information was easy to find, and depressing as hell. For instance, just the total salaries of every Congresscritter (including the VP) cost us $255,000 a day. (I’m rounding a bit.) If you assume each Congresscritter (except the VP) has ONE paid staffer, then those salaries cost us $150,000-$200,000 a day. (The House salaries, if you use average salary information that’s available, are about $95,000 of that number. I started making WAGs for the Senate, because you can find out what each Senator paid in staff salaries as a whole pretty easily, but coming up with an average staff salary was turning into a nightmare.)
So since I was already depressed, I thought I’d try to figure out how much in taxes Rmoney would have paid over the last 10 years if he had kept his offshore money in the U.S.. I stopped after a whiie, though, because using scientific notation on an individual person’s tax bill began to be masochistic.
amk
@Cacti: egg.sack.lee. Fucking fronts for partisan hacks.
Woody
1. Glenn Kessler has assumed Drudge Level for lazy “journalists” more interested in promoting Queen Bee bullshit so as to make the host’s table than actually give a fig about the public they purport to “inform”
Let’s make a simple analogy: Kessler’s “ratings” are like the Test Scores that totally prove how good a public school is (I’d add all schools, but charter-school-lovin’ governors don’t truck with test-score requirements for charters, ‘specially Christian charters). They allow a “journalist” to check up on a “score”, then reach for another delish canapé – they’re so tasty at Cokie’s parties!
2. “Ignoring” is a completely stupid tactic in the age of FOX/RNC. They don’t just amplify, they serve to ignore as well.
Could you imagine what would have happened if John Kerry – or Obama, or any Democratic politician – were exposed like Mitt Romney has been over his SEC listing/claims to his audiences? FOX/RNC would have gone carpet-chewin’ crazy over this – and the NYT/WP/LAT/CNN/MSNBC poodles would have trotted towards their treats like the meekly fixed Pomeranians that they have become.
To wit: when’s the last time you read anything in an American publication that has continued the Murdoch phone-hacking investigation? Do you believe this was only done on the east side of the Atlantic? What would have happened if Viacom (owners of CBS) would have been busted doing the same? FOX/RNC would have dropped the story, then?
Odie Hugh Manatee
John, you punch them in the neck so we don’t have to. :)
Sometimes I get depressed by the sheer numbers of people in this country who are easily misled by our ‘leaders’. That there are so many states and localities where people are suffering being ‘led’ by people who want to make others suffer, all in the name of whatever they can find to justify it. How you were ever a Republican is beyond me but thank goodness that you aren’t one any more.
You give a shit John, and that makes you an excellent person in my book.
Thank you.
Elizabelle
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Lily was in there punching too.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Elizabelle:
Naah, Lily is too cute and nice, John is the neck puncher.
Lily is the neck licker. ;)
Rome Again
I’d like to say that since FactCheck.org took the same stance as the WAPO factchecker did, that The University of Pennsylvania (Annenberg Public Policy Center) has breached it’s responsibility to the truth. Anyone who can argue that Romney receiving a 100k+ salary for being CEO, President and Chairman of the Board of a company for which he was Sole Shareholder and not being actually involved in his company while doing so is delving with fantasy.
Congratulations University of Pennsylvania, in one fell swoop you managed to make your diplomas WORTHLESS.
danimal
It’s really a shame. As we saw with Politifact, the appearance of balance is valued more by fact-checkers than the simple truth. Kessler could have saved his reputation by humbly agreeing to reevaluate his judgement as new information surfaced. There is no justifiable reason why a fact-checker needs to double down in an attempt to spin the story away. Fact-checking requires a certain type of humility and openness to change as the facts change. Kessler clearly lost sight of this, and his precious reputation is now in tatters.
But I’m not at all depressed about today’s events. Romney has suffered a punch to the gut; it will take a lot of effort to change the narrative. If the truth continues to get out before election day, there is no way the GOP avoids a rout.
DFH no.6
No, man, don’t be depressed by this.
Glenn Kessler is a mendacious hack, a stooge for the right who pretends to be “non-partisan”.
He has plenty of company on that score, obviously.
We know the media is mostly in the bag for the right, but that just proves they’re on the side of the fascists and 21st century aristocrats. Which means they are bad people, period, who must be fought.
So we just keep fighting them, as you did with your righteous takedown of this asshole on Twitter.
What you’ve created here with Balloon Juice helps me keep up that good fight, too, in my own little section of the trenches when the canvassing and phone banking and the other tedious but necessary shit threatens to drag me down.
Seriously, it’s good to know I’m not alone. And you’re not alone either. Far from it.
In fact, you’ve got a megaphone that’s a hundred thousand times bigger than anything I’ll ever have (like, for instance, Glenn Kessler and his ilk would never in a million years deign to engage with me) and I’m thrilled that you do.
Watching you come over to the side of the angels in ’05 made me happy, even though we don’t know each other from Adam. Still feel that way to this day.
You took the red pill, and though it’s not as easy as “staying asleep” it was absolutely the right thing to do.
Rome Again
By the way, as a newspaper carrier, I don’t carry that rag The Washington Post (I do carry the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today, among others)… but my MAIN Paper, came out with the truth today:
azcentral.com/news/politics/articles/20120712mitt-romney-bain-documents.html
RadioOne
This was honestly one of the best days for Obama, in a week that was also pretty good for Obama. Nobody gives a shit about controversies at the Washington Post involving Kessler except Freepers and you.
cmorenc
@Punchy:
That was where David Gergen was indirectly headed tonight with his courtly-demeanored bullshit “analysis” of the Bain matter tonight on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper”. Gergen said he knew the fellows at Bain, and they’re fine, upstanding folks and Mitt’s alleged involvement post-1999 was limited to an insubstantial paper relationship that didn’t disappear until 2002 because these sorts of business ties take time to wind down the formalities. Gergen actually said that the burden of proof was on the Obama campaign to prove that there was any substance to the allegations, clearly indicating by his demeanor that he doubted they could. And besides, Cooper noted at the end, that the Obama campaign is employing really rough tactics here, being MEAN to the Mittster, with John King nodding approvingly.
What a bunch of complete tools Gergen and King are all the time, and sometimes Cooper as well.
Rome Again
@cmorenc:
That’s funny. Earlier today I saw a video of him stating he knew the fellows at Bohemian Grove too! :P
Imagine that!
FlipYrWhig
@cmorenc: John King has a face that cries out for a shovel in it. I still remember him flailing wildly while trying to fill airtime before the announcement of the raid that killed bin Laden. He just kept saying the same thing, that “bin Laden is dead” is a historic sentence, and imagine hearing it. Over and over he said that same stupid thing. I detest that fool.
Calouste
@cmorenc:
Anderson Cooper’s mum is Gloria Vanderbilt. Yes, the Gloria Vanderbilt from the Vanderbilt family. He as much a 1%er tool as anyone.
Frank
@cmorenc:
I burst out laughing when Gergen tut-tutted that Obama was playing rough politics, and in a pained voice asked “is this what Obama promised us in ’08?”
Oh fuck off, you pearl clutching cretin! You know your scoring points when this crowd starts the maudlin bullshit about mean ol’ Obama betraying his bi-partisan promises.
Walker
I just want to remind everyone, forall the crap we give to Kessler, we need to give just as much crap, if not more, to FactCheck.org. They have a patina of respectability that makes their postmodernism infinitely more damaging.
Patricia Kayden
@Hill Dweller: I think you’re absolutely right that the Obama campaign will just let drips and drops of anti-Romney information out of the bag week after week, right up to Election Day 2012.
Great strategy: Put Romney on the defensive for the next 4 months.
Mr. Longform
Balloon Juice is one of the few things that is keeping me sane these days. Not sure if it can pull me through until November. How much will the world suffer if I go Galt on my internet lurking activities?
hueyplong
When these pigs squeal, you know you’re on to something.
Bain should be 24/7 until the last poll closes. Everywhere. If this site has 5 consecutive threads without one of them being about Bain, someone needs to get in John Cole’s face.
terraformer
@reflectionephemeral:
It’s been said before, but this is happening because the people with all the money own all the news organizations, or at least the ones that feed the 30-minute daily national news shows that is all that most Americans see.
They planned this 30 years ago; we’re going to have to fight tooth and nail for many years to get back to some semblance of objectivity.
terraformer
@Walker:
Indeed. After the moneyboys bought the news organizations, and people began to see through that charade, they then set up and control “fact checkers” to help shore up things.
News organizations are the outer walls, and Fact checkers like this exist as the inner wall of the keep.
kindness
Media has changed. When there were only 3 major networks and everything went over the air media then took seriously their mandate as companies using public airwave spectrum. Print media also was different. They too felt an obligation to push for some vestige of honesty (varying by degree from one company to another).
No longer. Now the MSM is all cross owned and completely a bunch of corporate Hitler Youth zombies. The public be damned as far as media’s obligations and responsibilities to us are concerned by their minds. They prove that every day with each toss of poo in our direction as Glenn Kessler so vividly points out.
We do have one free and redeeming outlet left however and sadly it’s the net and the blogs. That is scary in and of itself as blogs and the net are a whole ‘nother level of herding cats but….I’ll take what I can as I have nothing else to fall back on.