Responding to his critics, Kevin Drum breaks out the shovel while standing in his hole and tunnels through a few more strata thick with false equivalence nonsense, looking for the exit.
If we’re at the point where both sides publicly hold that it’s defensible to simply make stuff up because the stakes are so high, we’ve abandoned all pretense of caring about the truth. Nor is the idea that it’s defensible to make up any charge as long as it’s somehow rebuttable much better.
Please note that Drum assumes Harry Reid must be lying, he must be making stuff up. There’s no way Harry Reid can possibly be telling the truth here, right? How does Drum know this? The one guy we know who has seen Romney’s tax returns, John McCain, isn’t saying a damn thing. Not only could Mitt Romney end this farce, John McCain could end this by saying “I’ve seen Mr. Romney’s tax returns when my team vetted him in 2008, and Harry Reid is a liar.” Instead, nothing. It looks like to me Kevin doesn’t care about the truth, but he sure does care about being “right” here.
I’m not even sure how to react to my critics anymore. When a bare minimal standard of decency (no flatly invented stories) is widely mocked as pearl clutching and fainting couch-y, there aren’t really any standards left aside from “whatever works.” All I know is that I want no part of that.
“Whatever works” is what Romney is doing, lying about the President weakening welfare-to-work rules. “Whatever works” and “making stuff up” is Michele Bachmann’s anti-Muslim witch hunt. “Whatever works” is the racism birther nonsense that continues years after the President put out his birth certificate, and then Republicans screaming IT’S FAKE. Comparing any of these to Harry Reid saying “Mitt Romney paid no federal income taxes for ten years” which is an eminently provable or disprovable thing is not only disingenuous, it’s obnoxiously lazy for a reporter of Drum’s bona fides.
By the way, it’s really not true that every candidate for the past 40 years has released all their relevant tax information. John McCain released only a couple of years of returns, and released none of his wife’s returns even though that’s where the vast majority of his family’s wealth lies. Likewise, John Kerry never released his wife’s returns, which accounted for the vast majority of his family’s wealth. I agree that Romney should release more of his tax returns, and I think it’s fine for Democrats to beat him up about it. But let’s keep our facts straight.
What facts? We have no facts because the people who have the fact refuse to release them. Kerry and McCain played these games. They didn’t end up winning for a number of reasons, but there you are. Meanwhile, we’re treating Harry Reid like he’s 100% the worst liar on Earth when A) we don’t have all the facts and B) Republicans actually do lie all the goddamn time.
I refuse to go after Reid over this, especially to satisfy Kevin Drum’s sense of centrist honor. If Romney proves him wrong then I will say “Harry Reid was full of crap and a liar.” But the “fact” that he’s a liar has yet to be established because Romney won’t release his returns.
Do we get this?
aimai
I’ve always detested Kevin Drum. Now I’m remembering why.
aimai
ponce
This debate is starting to sound very familiar:
“Our theme this evening is hotly disputed. I realize that my viewpoint is subjective. There is really little point to discussing propaganda. It is a matter of practice, not of theory. One cannot determine theoretically whether one propaganda is better than another. Rather, that propaganda is good that has the desired results, and that propaganda is bad that does not lead to the desired results. It does not matter how clever it is, for the task of propaganda is not to be clever, its task is to lead to success. I therefore avoid theoretical discussions about propaganda, for there is no point to it. Propaganda shows that it is good if over a certain period it can win over and fire up people for an idea. If it fails to do so, it is bad propaganda. ”
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/goeb54.htm
James K. Polk, Esq.
Also, Harry Reid didn’t make anything up.
He has an anonymous source.
Now, if the media writ large agrees that anonymous sources are off limits, well, we can start a conversation.
Until that point, bring on the smelling salts. I hope we end up needing a bulk discount for our Pundirati…
Tom65
This isn’t just a false equivalency, it’s a complete non-sequitor. Fuck you, Kevin.
shortstop
A friend of mine once said that becoming a Democrat was the sole rebellious act of Kevin Drum’s life. And he still hasn’t twigged that, for most people, changing party affiliation means also changing your mind about/positions on some things.
pragmatism
drum’s bucking to be a villager.
Linda Featheringill
Kevin Drum matters because . . . .
mk3872
Who the F cares what Kevin Drum has to say ??
As long as Obama and his Super PAC keep up the hard-hitting attacks against R-Money, it’s all good.
Let’s change our assumption about whether something is working or not to “If Mark Halperin AND Kevin Drum say it’s not good, then you know it’s working”.
BGinCHI
Does Drum think there is such a thing as a “pattern of behavior”? If not, he should report about something other than politics.
If so, he’d have to admit that Romney lies about almost everything, and when it comes to money, how he made it, and where it is, he has never told the truth. So where does that place the burden? Why don’t the NYT, WaPo, and WSJ have reporters working around the clock on the lead that Reid provided?
The standard Drum is protecting is not a standard.
shortstop
@BGinCHI: Not to mention that the public information we have about Romney’s taxpaying habits — with Marriott, Bain, etc. — far more strongly supports Reid’s story than Romney’s. But of course, without the returns in hand, we have no choice but to conclude Romney’s telling the truth and Reid’s out of line.
mclaren
Nobody else seems to want to go there, so it’s up to me, as usual.
Kevin Drum, you’re going to be the first one up against the wall come the revolution.
Comrades! Forward to the barricades!
JWL
If his recent history is any clue, Drum will get over it. Truth-telling certainly held no terror for him during the propaganda campaign that preceded the 2003 Iraq War. Leastwise, he endorsed the ginned-up treason of the Bush/Cheney administration, yet never seemed particularly irked afterwards that he had been lied to.
MoeLarryAndJesus
Repiglicans are trying to block millions of people from voting and quivering centrist shitheads like Kessler and Drum are soiling themselves over Harry Reid’s comments? Really? Fuck Drum, fuck Kessler, and fuck Willard Romney and his fucking tax returns. These centrists might as well be giving the Koch brothers prostate massages all day long. They’re worse than the Repiglicans themselves because they should know better. Gutless intellectual quislings.
mechwarrior online
http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/08/romneystandingonthings/romney_03.jpg
Best picture I’ve seen all day.
shortstop
@mclaren: Forget it. We’d die of boredom while executing him. No one could finish because we’d all be nodding off.
Brachiator
This has nothing to do with “centrism.”
Reid is playing political hardball, hitting at one of Romney’s many vulnerable points. I am enjoying the shit out of this.
And this is just stupid, sloppy punditry. In one of his political campaigns, Romney insisted that his opponent have her spouse release his tax returns, while still refusing to release his own.
Any journalist or pundit with an ounce of competence should be slapping Mittens around over his stubborness, his inconsistency, and his stupidity.
The rest is commentary.
shortstop
@JWL: To become annoyed would be to wallow in the “fever swamps of the left.” And that would be so much worse than a falsely predicated war that killed hundreds of thousands.
Linda Featheringill
People are so upset over Harry Reid.
From the Republican standpoint, I think the “Understands” ad, and hopefully 20 more very like it, are much, much more dangerous.
I’d be very happy if that PAC could find a bunch of people to say this or that happened to me and/or my family/friends because of loss of a job. Bain helped introduce so many people to unemployment, they can probably find several people with stories to tell.
Harry Reid? Harry can take care of himself.
And really, how many voters even read what the Villagers write?
Edited.
feebog
In the meantime, Romney releases a clearly false ad about Obama ending the Welfare to Work program. The ad is a lie, and it has already been completely debunked by the MSM. And we hear what from Kevin Drum, crickets?
dr. bloor
I don’t know that Drum is obviously bucking to be a Villager. The limitations in his capacity to apply consistent logic and critical thinking to any particular situation have always been there. I stopped paying attention to him when he was at WM.
srv
I don’t know who this Kevin guy is, but what is Sully saying?
I wouldn’t be surprised if McCain was Reid real source. McCain is that vicious.
mechwarrior online
@Linda Featheringill:
The Village does matter, not because voters read what they write or even listen to talking heads, but because the village shapes the game. What the village says gets repeated in the non stop ad campaigns that flood the TV and is used by politicians in speechs to make a point.
So while they might not read an article, you can be damn sure something in it will be turned into word slurry and thrown into a TV commercial that they will see.
Jade Jordan
Calpundit (Kevin Drum when he was a human) when kidnapped by RedState and turned into a pod person.
Poster Boy for “Money and Fame changes you.
BGinCHI
Headline over at TPM:
McCotter Ex-Staffers Charged With Forging Ballot Petitions
And it’s voters we are supposed to be worried about??
jrg
I propose that we get Bill Clinton to ejaculate on Romney’s tax returns to get the village on board.
rikyrah
Steve Benen does a weekly column about Willard’s LIES
not ‘ exaggerations’
but LIES
does Drum do the same?
NO.
SO, he and the other whiny ass titty babies of the Professional Left can go somewhere, sit down
and S-T-F-U
I don’t believe Harry Reid Lied.
Hell, I think they sat down with a list of shyt on those tax returns, and Harry said -‘ I’ll take this angle’.
Rob in CT
Kevin Drum has apparently committed heresy. Burn him! Burn him!
I understand the arguments against his position. I don’t really get the “fuck Kevin Drum!” stuff.
iLarynx
Exactly and to the point.
Will Jon Stewart and this Drum person whoever he is apologize to Reid if Reid is proven right?
Two individuals have made contradictory claims. One is true and the other is false. HOWEVER, only one individual has the power to settle the issue once and for all but refuses to do so. WHY? The better question though, is WHY should we believe one over the other? Why is one being doubted more strongly than the other. One is running for president, is car-elevator rich, and is breaking protocol and tradition established by his own father. Public statements made by Romney as well as sworn statements signed by him also contradict the records from the company he ran, so through his own actions he has raised questions as to the validity of claims he is making now versus claims he made in the past. He can also easily settle the issue but refuses to do so. CLEARLY the onus is on Romney to prove his right. Why is such deference being paid to him on this issue?
jl
Mildly funny dithering over nothing from Drum.
Romney, who has repeatedly lied, says trust me that there is nothing relevant to my campaign in my tax returns, and I don’t need to release them as every other candidate for the last thirty years as done. Even though Romney if the fishiest financial fish of a candidate to run in decades.
Reid says trust me that somebody in the know told me that Mitt paid no taxes for ten years.
And Reid is the bad guy? Drum is a fool.
pragmatism
apparently, libruls have some higher duty to tell the truth or be civil. i have no idea where this comes from. this crap post by a glibtard douche who got fired by ESPN for telling people not to donate to haiti lays it out: http://www.flipcollective.com/2012/02/08/hypoliberals-by-paul-shirley/
matt
Kevin Drum is a bigger liar than Harry Reid as it stands. By his own standard that assertions without proof are lies.
Culture of Truth
The initial observation by Zandar is the most telling. Drum appears to assume Reid is lying, and his conclusions flow from there. If Reid is lying, that is terrible, and if he turns our to be incorrect, that is also pretty bad, though more defensible.
But that is an assumption. One could also assume Mitt is lying and that Reid is 100% correct, and that Mitt knows this. If this is the case, then’s Mitt’s behavior is even more appalling and shameful, and Drum’s, while defensible, would be nothing to be proud of. If Mitt is lying.
I have no idea and reserve judgment.
Linda Featheringill
@srv:
I’ve seen that suggested. I like the idea.
I don’t know, do McCain and Romney not like each other?
matt
“Love Me, I’m a Liberal” is Kevin Drum’s theme song.
Steve
The stakes are extremely high in this election. I’m pretty sure we all agree that the policies of Mitt Romney and the GOP, left unchecked, would result in widespread harm and misery.
Now bear with me for just a moment. As an intellectual exercise, is there any line you would not cross to ensure that the good guys (or the not-as-bad guys, if you like) win this election? Would you rig the vote, if you knew you could get away with it? Would you put arsenic in Mitt Romney’s club soda?
I think most of us would say no, there are some things we simply would not consider doing, even though the election is very, very important.
I don’t believe that we have no problem with Harry Reid because we are all moral monsters who would sacrifice any and all values simply to win an election. I believe we have no problem with Harry Reid because we don’t think he’s even come close to the line. Not only could he very well be telling the truth, but compared to all the lies and smears that are out there every day, this is simply nothing.
Am I wrong about this? Even if your position is “there are some lines I will not cross to win an election” – which I think most of us would agree with – this is a really lame line for Drum to draw.
ABL
@Tom65: and it’s not even fucking true!
He is spewing Romney talking points. How embarrassing.
shortstop
@jl:
Even more, Romney openly lied about the contents of his state tax returns while running for governor of Massachusetts and while pulling the same “You’re just going to have to trust me” routine. There is plenty of proof that he’s a chronic liar. There is plenty of evidence that he skates close to the wind in taxpaying. And THERE IS PROOF THAT HE’S ALREADY LIED ABOUT WHAT’S IN HIS TAX RETURNS.
But until we see more of his federal tax returns, we have no option but to assume Harry Reid’s a liar, or we’ve become the people we despise. (Bangs head on worktable.)
jl
@Culture of Truth:
Well, maybe Reid is lying. If there is no source, then Reid will catch hell, with some justification. Because if there is no source, then one of Reid’s staffers lied to a reporter who reported that there was a source, and she was told the source on national news.
Well, if Mitt is lying or misleading about his taxes, then Mitt is in trouble. Mitt has been making oddly oblique responses about whether he paid income taxes.
What Drum cannot see, or will not see, or is too chickenshit to confront is that the IOKIYAR assumption has been promoted by the GOP as a deliberate strategy. Anyone who cannot confront that is a chickenshit loser fool.
JGabriel
__
__
Kevin Drum:
Three things:
1) Really? Given what we know so far about Romney’s aggressive tax shelter strategies, it doesn’t seem at all implausible — in fact, I would say it’s totally plausible — that there would be years in the past decade and a half when he paid zero federal income taxes.
2) What’s implausible is that a man who has been running for president for the past 7 years won’t even release his returns from that period of time. It makes me think he took advantage of tax amnesty progams in 2009. C’mon, Romney, show us yer
titstaxes!3) Any journalist (this includes you, Drum) who fails to concede that Reid’s source might have good reasons to request anonymity is arguing in bad faith and discrediting every journalist who has ever relied upon an anonymous source.
.
raven
@Steve: “The stakes are extremely high in this election.” Compared to what?
JenJen
Bang the Drum slowly.
mechwarrior online
@Linda Featheringill:
It would be amazing if it was, I doubt it though. As long as we are going to play out “here is what I thinks” I’ve got my own…
Bragging about not paying taxes on something, write offs, ect are really common among people who have money. Your ability to keep Uncle Same “out of your wallet” is just as much a part of being a savvy business person or having your financial shit in order as your investments are. I could easily see Romney having bragged to his peers about “yeah I pretty much pay nothing in taxes, I write off so much stuff the government gives me a check” on the golf course or over dinner, that stuff is common place. Putting one over on the government is just as much a cause for celebration as scoring on the latest stock.
Someone overhead it and mentioned it to Reid, Reid ran with it.
Who knows what sort of validity there is to it, I’m sure some years he didn’t (like when the market crashed and the rich just wrote off all sorts of losses) but it might have just been bullshit bragging and dick waving.
I’m sure Reid isn’t lying in the sense that someone did tell him that Mitt doesn’t pay taxes, but that person might have just been relaying some sort of bragging talk from the golf course.
Mike E
G-O-O-O-O-O-A-L!
ETA What, no open thread for wimminz soccer?!
BGinCHI
The final error of logic. Suppose Reid us making it up. That would be bad for those of us who would like to see Dems be better than Republicans.
But is there any way the GOP could sink lower? Is there any conceivable form their politics could take after such a revelation that would lead them to be worse than they are now? Not a fucking chance.
kindness
Modern ‘culture’ here in the states holds the old adman adage of ‘All publicity is good publicity’ is Kevin’s pipe dream. Kevin has embraced the faux ‘reality tv’ format for blogging.
What Kevin really thinks I could care less. He isn’t furthering any arguments, only his own standing in the media. Dickhead. Let him play with his junk in private, I don’t want to see it.
jl
Some parts of the bullying game the GOP plays, that chickenshits cannot deal with:
“How dare you question my word”
“How dare you question the ground rules I set to fix the debate”
“How dare you question me”
“How dare you question a white man”
EditL “How dare you question a RICH white man”
Can’t confront that? You are a chickenshit coward, and loser.
Reid committed brilliant political theatre that did, through his acts, not only his words, directly question those assumptions that the GOP wants to implant deep inside everyone’s brain stem. And chickenshits cannot deal with it.
Keith
So he’s going to stop blogging about politics? Cool.
Lindershaw
Zandar, try to read before selectively quoting and misrepresenting. At the point your first quotation starts, Drum just finished quoting another blogger who thinks that even if Reid is making the whole thing up, it’s okay.
Preceding this quote, Drum had said, okay, if you don’t think Reid’s lying, go ahead and stand with him. But if you do think he’s lying and you still defend him, you’re wrong.
Now, about getting facts straight, that applies to the claims that every candidate has released all of his or her tax returns. You can debate the relevance of Theresa Heinz’s tax records, but if McCain only released two years, then “every candidate has released more than Romney” is false.
I’m not convinced Harry Reid is lying. But I support Kevin Drum’s refusal to condone strategic lying, as some on the left seem eager to do.
Culture of Truth
Suppose someone came out and said, “I heard Obama got all F s in college” Now, Obama could say, “believe what you like” because no one transfers to Columbia or goes to HLS with all Fs. But if the drumbeat got loud enough, sure he could release them and shut people up.
Either way, it would be no big deal. Drum is confusing a matter of principle with a matter of tactics. Perhaps in prinicple Reid is not acting in a gentlemanly way. But Romney is not acting on principle. He is hiding information, and as a voter, I want to know what it is. And so should Kevin Drum.
Bob In Portland
Real simple to prove Reid is lying. And I like the theory that McCain is the guy who leaked it. He can be vicious that way. Wouldn’t that be a hoot?
Brachiator
@Lindershaw:
Yawn. All Romney has to do is release his damn tax returns. Otherwise he is just a punk and a coward, with the stench of the oligarch around him.
Well, actually he will still be all that even if he releases his tax returns.
But still. Also, too.
Culture of Truth
@Lindershaw: You make good points, especially regarding endorsement of wholesale lying, which I agree with, but I would observe that we’ve only gotten one return from Mitt with the promise of another.
Felanius Kootea
@Lindershaw: I thought Romney only released one year so far. Maybe I missed the second year of returns he released.
Dr. Squid
Did someone mention “Love Me, I’m A Liberal”?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOXOkqVORxw
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I hope Drum’s friends are putting him on suicide watch and someone is regularly changing Durm’s tear stained pillow. He is just to good for the cruel and cold world.
Downpuppy
@Lindershaw: Nice that somebody clicked through & pointed out that Drum is talking about Jonathan Zasloff, not Harry Reid.
Which of course makes the whole thing all the more pointless. Who the FUCK cares what Kevin Drum says about Jonathan Zasloff?!
Cooties on both of them.
General Stuck
I like bad barack better.
Short Bus Bully
Harry Reid is finally bringing a gun to a gun fight.
Keep doing what you’re doing you Mormon nerdling from Nevada, this is the kind of shit the campaign needs desperately.
MikeBoyScout
So, would it be a smart financial move to take some of the profits from my popcorn investments and put some money into fainting couches & clutching pearls? And if I do, how do i transfer those monies into a Cayman banked IRA?
Catsy
I posted this in an unrelated thread where the subject came up, but it got buried, so:
There are three possibilities in the whole Reid dustup: 1) Reid is lying, 2) Reid is telling the truth but Reid’s source is lying to him, or 3) Reid’s source is telling the truth.
The first of those three is the only one in which the question of whether it’s okay to make shit up even applies to Reid at all. And on that point, assuming arguendo that Reid is bullshitting, I have yet to see anyone tackle the most critical difference between Reid’s lie and the relentless dishonesty of wingnuts: the objective of doing so. What are they trying to make happen?
When wingnuts lie, they are trying to make voters believe something that is not true. They are spreading deliberate misinformation intended to deceive. Whether or not it can be disproved is beside the point, because they don’t care what the truth really is–they just want people to believe the lie. The lie itself, and making the public believe that lie, is the entire point.
What Reid would be doing is different in a very important way. The lie isn’t the point—it’s a rhetorical tactic being used as leverage to force Romney to tell the truth. Romney refuses to release his tax returns, so the gambit here is to make a statement that Romney can only disprove by doing so. Far from being indifferent to the truth or wanting the public to be misinformed, the entire goal is to put pressure on Romney to tell the country the truth. If Romney releases evidence that disproves the lie, that isn’t an inconvenience to be shouted down or ignored–it’s the whole purpose of the exercise.
These are very, very different things with very different ethical weights, and the nontrivial differences between them matter. Equating them is just lazy faux-centrism–something at which that Drum, unfortunately, excels these days.
MikeBoyScout
So, would it be a smart financial move to take some of the profits from my popcorn investments and put some money into fainting couches & clutching pearls? And if I do, how do I transfer those monies into a Cayman banked IRA?
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
The funniest thing that I have to note is that…the dreaded ‘L’ word seems to never ever ever ever get applied to blatant GOP malfeasance. But no one is shying away from calling Reid a big fat dirty fucking liar.
Our Media: Fair and balanced, until you have a D by your name.
raven
Another hell of a soccer game going on!
Sentient Puddle
@Rob in CT:
If there’s a disagreement, the appropriate response around here is to go nuclear. Because of course it is.
Or more specifically, I think a lot of people seem to be under the impression that “Fuck person X!” counts as snark.
mechwarrior online
@Short Bus Bully:
Reid was a former boxer and Nevada gaming commissioner. He’s known for trying to strangle someone in a federal sting who was trying to bribe him and later… having a bomb put on his car.
I don’t think Reid is a nerd or scared of a fight.
hueyplong
It is the decades-long, acknowledged practice for candidates for the highest office to release their tax returns. They do so in order to show that their stated positions are not grotesqely hypocritical or made in pure self-interest.
Romney refuses. Reid assumes that we may assume the worst from that refusal. Everyone should see it that way.
Reid goes further, however, and says he’s got hearsay that not only assumes the worst, but confirms the worst. He up-front, expressly concedes the hearsay nature of what he’s saying.
You’ve got to stetch and/or be a whore to say this is more about Reid than it is about Romney. This is where Drum answers the casting call. Not the worst thing ever done by a pundit. Not very good, either. It’s as though he’s never viewed a single one of the daily “some say” speculation of the moment produced by FoxNews. Drum might have complained about that once or twice, 8 or 10 years ago. But now he simply lives with it, without complaint. It truly is OK only if you’re a Republican.
Lindershaw
@Culture of Truth: Ah, you’re right, Romney’s second year of tax returns is still pending as far as I know. I suppose he’ll wait until 11 PM on election eve.
scav
The Mittster goes to the Doctor.
Mitt: “Doctor! Doctor! I’m suffering from crushing, unendurable, never-before-experienced CRUSHING pains and I can’t get my job-creation up! I need to Fix What’s Wrong!”
Doctor: “Oh dear, Let’s see what I can do for you. Take your shirt off and let’s have a listen.”
Mittster: “HANDS OFF! You can’t see that! I don’t have to show You People that. I have Crushing Pains — Shut Up and hand me the keys to your drug cupboard.”
General Stuck
Then this ought to send Mr. Drum straight to the fainting couch.
You know how to treat the wolf? You hunt them, politically .
The Other Chuck
Drum’s all over the twitternets saying Reid’s claim is “unfalsifiable”. He’s already getting raked pretty hard over that confusion of ideas. How is this guy considered an intellectual?
Just tweeted these two myself:
Turgidson
@jl:
Is he? He’s lied flagrantly, and demonstrably, thus far and hasn’t gotten in nearly as much trouble as I think he deserves. The villagers just shrug, then find reasons to accuse Obama or his surrogates of being the real monsters.
shortstop
@Sentient Puddle: Here’s an alternative explanation: A lot of us have been reading Kevin Drum for years and think he’s a wildly untalented, not to mention exceptionally lazy, writer. The widely held low opinion of him wasn’t born in this thread.
Mike E
@raven: I know, right? Watchin gold medal matches (womens water polo too)with Miss E on her 17th birfday…
jl
@shortstop: Missed your response. I agree with you. Thanks for pointing out more evidence Mitt Romney is known liar, and specifically wrt to taxes.
Of course, Mitt has already broken a couple of promises to deliver info on his taxes just this summer.
Yet, some chickenshit coward losers decide to purity troll by assuming Reid is lying and then piling on him. It’s idiotic and craven BS.
A big part of the GOP game is to use bullying tactics to manipulate informal debating BS terms like ‘benefit of the doubt’ and ‘burden of proof’ and other very fancy and logical sounding stuff that is really slimy BS weaseling to fix the terms of their lying BS debating and propaganda tactics. Chickenshits cannot deal with confronting that. And therefore they always lose.
KSE
I just have this to say: Harry Reid don’t bluff.
JGabriel
__
__
Culture of Truth:
Suppose someone came out and said something really crazy like, “I heard Obama was born in a foreign country and is lying about being a US citizen …”
.
Redshift
@James K. Polk, Esq.: Yes. Reid’s statement is exactly the same as saying “a source close to Romney’s business told me that there were ten years when Romney paid no income taxes.” All of this tut-tutting and bogus “fact-checking” is nothing more than journalists whining that Reid’s not a journalist so he shouldn’t be allowed to use their special journalist powers.
raven
@Mike E: They just mentioned the largest crowd ever for a women’s soccer game was here in Athens for the 96 gold medal game. I went to every game, men and women’s that year except that one! I gave my ticket to my wife’s friend so they could go.
James E. Powell
I disagree with Kevin Drum on this because he discounts any possibility that Reid is accurately reporting what he was told, or that Reid is close enough to the truth so that it doesn’t matter. Reid has no history of simply making shit up for political purposes. Romney and the Republicans do this almost every day.
But I see no reason to get the pitchforks and torches. Drum took a position that you disagree with. So what?
I don’t think his adamant resistance to argument on this is because he’s crazy or bad or secretly Republican. It is just that he is a pundit and once a pundit takes a stand he never backs down or changes his mind. That would call into question the whole basis for the existence of pundits.
wrb
Drum is just wrong. Romney has come very close to confirming that Reid is telling the truth by the form of his non denial-denial.
The burden is on Romney.
Romney has only claimed that he paid taxes every year, fot that he’s paid US Federal Income Taxes, which is what the accusation is about.
He could deny the accusation unambiguously: “I have paid more than $1,000,000 in US Federal Income Tax every year for the last 15” would work.
But he hasn’t and he could, easily. Which lends a lot of support to Reid’s claim.
Drumm should be going after Romney to clarify this weasely, deceptive and misleading response, not Reid.
Even if the accusation is false that does not mean that Reid is lying, because he is only reporting what someone told him. That person has an important question, and one to which Romney should respond, especially as he wants to further reduce the tax burden on people like himseld.
Drum is embarrassing himself badly.
hueyplong
“There are three possibilities in the whole Reid dustup: 1) Reid is lying, 2) Reid is telling the truth but Reid’s source is lying to him, or 3) Reid’s source is telling the truth.”
Unless we think the “source” is Romney’s accountant who did and filed Romney’s tax returns, it’s hearsay no matter what. Why would a Bain partner know what Romney’s tax returns say? At best he might know a lot about Romney’s compensation from Bain. But he’d only “know” other things about Romney indirectly at best.
This is or should be about the fact that we’re allowed to assume the worst from Romney’s refusal to release his tax returns.
As a fan rooting for our (Obama) team, I “like” this Reid stuff only because the issue of Romney’s tax returns would die unless there were a way to keep it alive as an issue about whether some Democrat is doing something wrong.
shortstop
@raven: Quit yer whining. You got to see the Mets have an 11-run, double-grand-slam inning against the Cubs, didn’t you?
Ha! Me so funny. Heading to Wrigley to watch Reds-administered carnage this eve.
The Other Chuck
@Culture of Truth: How many candidates have their college transcripts demanded of them? How about birth certificates for that matter?
Now which one is actively stonewalling a legitimate inquiry again?
LanceThruster
@Tom65:
I am truly amazed at how often I find that this is an appropriate response to such pathetic hand wringing.
Though I enjoy the surgical eviscerations of such sophistry, it’s clearly not like he deserves anything beyond that.
If it’s the course language that gets you in such a tizzy, just substitute, tsk, tsk..or Dude!
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@James E. Powell:
The whole point being Drum tends to pull this chronic centrism, ‘tut-tut, you know better than to copy the GOP’ BS as a matter of habit and is rarely so adamant about it when the GOP actually does it themselves in spades.
raven
There is HOPE!
shortstop
@James E. Powell:
That’s not a quality readers find admirable, particularly when it belongs to someone fond of lecturing his audience.
It’s true, however, that it’s a little too common. Here at BJ, Cole’s just about (not quite, but just about) the only FPer who can back down from a bad position.
raven
@shortstop: Sure did! Actually I wasn’t whining. I got to see so many great games at that Olympics I have no complaints.
Redshift
@Catsy: That’s really good. I’m filing that away.
Mike E
@raven: Lucky dog! Thank gawd fer Hope Solo…going down to the wire
shortstop
@raven: I know you weren’t. I just think it’s hilarious that you were at that Cubs game.
Turgidson
@JGabriel:
Richard Cohen even rewrote the rules of journalism on the fly in order to call Reid a big poopyhead liar. He said that journalists name their sources. Sure, sometimes they do. But not when the source requests anonymity.
Like I said in a couple related rants yesterday, where was all this outrage and indignation when the Bush administration was stovepiping bullshit evidence through the Times and most other village outlets to lie us into Iraq? Were they presumed to be lying until they named every anonymous source? Fuck this shit.
wrb
@hueyplong:
Actually The Worst is far worse than anything that Reid has suggested.
I figure we should assume The Worst unless and until Romney releases them.
It is the only prudent thing to do considering the importance of the job he’s asking to be given.
raven
@shortstop: God it was hot!
raven
We shouldn’t give away the final on this game like FUCKING CNN’s website did about the track. Almost 2 weeks in and I still forget they will blast any result with a headline!
Zach
It’s odd that we’ve all forgotten that Republicans have spent years saying that 50% of people pay no Federal taxes when they pay payroll taxes at effective rates (including the employer contribution) that probably top Romney’s entire tax rate. If payroll taxes aren’t “income taxes,” then taxes on dividends and capital gains definitely aren’t. By the GOP definition, Mitt Romney did not pay any taxes if he structured his income to be in the form of tax-preferred investment income… it seems quite likely that he did just this.
Redshift
@wrb:
And considering that Romney seems to have no compunction about lying, it wouldn’t even have to be true. The fact that he’s weaseling in his denials about it is very curious.
I can think of two possibilities — either he still believes there is a possibility he will have to release his returns at some point, or he believes that his money is the one thing that’s too important to lie about.
Catsy
@The Other Chuck:
This is idiotic on its face, and reveals just how little Drum has thought this through.
The pearl-clutchers in this have been attacking Reid for making a false claim. But this is only meaningful if you take the (counterfactual) stance that Reid’s claim is that Romney paid no income taxes. If you assume that, then Reid’s claim is absolutely falsifiable–and the only person who can falsify it is Romney himself, by producing documents under his control which refute the claim.
But that’s not what Reid is claiming. Reid is claiming that a source he trusts told him X. That is arguably unfalsifiable, because it’s pretty close to impossible to prove that someone didn’t say that to Reid. But that also means that the question of whether Romney paid any income taxes or not has no bearing on whether or not Reid is telling the truth.
Drum can argue that Reid is making an unfalsifiable claim, or he can argue that Reid is lying about whether or not Romney paid income taxes. But he can’t credibly argue both, because they’re arguments based on mutually exclusive assumptions.
JGabriel
__
__
hueyplong:
Because Romney bragged about it?
I don’t know who would know about RMoney’s taxes or why. But the idea that RMoney would brag to friends about not paying taxes, and/or share with them his personal strategies for getting out of paying his taxes, seems perfectly plausible to me.
And that wouldn’t be hearsay if it came from a direct witness. Reid repeating it is of course hearsay, but no one is arguing otherwise.
.
Downpuppy
@hueyplong: There are a lot of reasons why a Bain person might have seen Romney’s returns. It may have been part of Romney’s separation agreement with Bain that he give them copies of his tax returns, or while he was there, so that they can see whether he’s using their old deals to make side profits. (Surely they knew better than to take him on faith!) Or maybe the company prepared his returns as a benefit.
Or maybe Reid changed the identity to protect his source.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@Lindershaw:
But here’s the thing: None of us knows shit about whether Reid is lying or not. Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Du rien. De nada.
See: Shit, Jack.
So the Truth Trolls aren’t even following their own Code here.
If you don’t care for Reid’s tactics here, then fine. But in that case, I demand an explanation from those people for the 20+ years of crickets given in response to examples of the same tactics when used by the GOP against Obama (and against Clinton, before him) in the past.
What you are NOT permitted to do is to assume Reid is lying. Because there is only one man who can settle the issue right now. That man’s name is ‘Willard’.
BTW, we’re saying ‘fuck Drum’ (and the rest of them) because of the …ahem… ‘selectivity’ of their moral outrage.
Mike E
@shortstop: Funny, saw my Fightins actually win a game vs dahh Cubs. Stoopid season…
Brandi Chastain bein’ all 2nd-guessing…It’s over! WE WIN!
ETA Japan played their hearts out, and a couple balls bounced the wrong way for them. Great gold medal match
Sentient Puddle
@shortstop:
Assuming I were to grant that I don’t find this ridiculous, I still note that I wasn’t referring to just Kevin Drum.
Redshift
@Lindershaw: Romney released his 2010 tax returns (after pressure in the GOP primaries) and a few documents about his 2011 returns, saying that he would release the 2011 returns when they were complete.
Then he filed for an extension on his 2011 returns, so they won’t have to be “complete” until October.
(I forget, is there a maneuver that he can use to delay that further? Because otherwise it seems to be another example of the incompetence of the Mittens campaign — setting a time bomb for himself that will go off at the height of the fall campaign.)
shortstop
@Sentient Puddle: You should write an essay about our incivility. A long, long essay. Be sure to lard it with expressions of deep regret, because we know you’re operating more in sorrow than in anger at what we’ve become.
Culture of Truth
(A) Harry Reid is lying
(B) Harry is telling the truth
Under which of these scenarios does Mitt Romney release his tax returns, like all candidates do, including his own father?
Scenario (A) or Scenario (B) ?
Catsy
@hueyplong:
So? That’s an argument based on guesses or assumptions about who would have direct knowledge of what’s in Romney’s returns. We aren’t in a position to know that.
And it’s entirely beside the point I was making, anyway.
shortstop
@Redshift: No, you can only have one extension, so he has to file by October 15. Note that spokeschmoe Andrea Saul is on record as saying that he will make that return public sometime before the election, i.e., between October 15 and November 6.
Sentient Puddle
@shortstop: Incivility doesn’t bother me. When the stock response to somebody slighting you is “Fuck him,” “Fuck her,” “Fuck you with a rusty pitchfork,” “Fuck that fucking fuck,” or whatever variation of “Fuck you” pops into your head, it’s just boring. That’s the issue. Is it too much to ask that people at least show a little creativity while being uncivil?
Bobby Thomson
@Lindershaw:
Wrong. Romney has released only one year. He’s said he will release another year in October, but he’s said he’ll do a lot of things and
flip floppednot done them.Bobby Thomson
@JGabriel:
You left out the biggest hole. What Drum is saying is that it is implausible that Reid has a credible source. Not that it’s implausible that Rmoney paid no taxes. Drum is accusing Reid of lying about having a source, and he has no basis for that.
shortstop
@Sentient Puddle: Okay, I’ll buy that. But there’s been a certain amount of F-bombless, detailed banging of the Drum in this thread.
Bobby Thomson
@Bob In Portland:
Actually, it’s impossible to prove Reid is lying. It’s easy to prove Reid’s source is either lying or mistaken.
Turgidson
And as others have pointed out, every day that goes by where Romney offers no evidence to refute Reid’s charge should increase suspicion on Romney and grant some benefit of the doubt to Reid.
Of course, the bedwetters are busily doing the opposite. Losers.
Redshift
@shortstop: That’s what I thought. The level of political malpractice in the Romney campaign is just stunning. Even if they’re thoroughly scrubbing the 2011 return, and paying extra to make him look more normal, it will still reignite the issue of tax returns when way more people are paying attention.
We wonder if the Dems are going to be able to keep this issue alive, and if they’re pushing it too early, and then Romney is setting up to give them an assist!
hueyplong
JGabriel, I said that very thing (Romney probably bragged to his partners) in a post last week. It’s the most likely scenario unless we assume Reid is lying.
Downpuppy, I don’t run in Romney’s circles, but I’d be surprised if any of those scenarios you laid out (about how Bain people were actually entitled to see his tax returns, including those for years we all agree were post-Bain) turned out to be the case. But if they are, it would shoot down my “Romney was bragging about it” dream, and cause me to have a sad.
Romney seems like the type to lord his money over people. It seems only right for there to be a downside to that.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Rob in CT: “I understand the arguments against his position. I don’t really get the “fuck Kevin Drum!” stuff.”
1. He made a stupid post, where he praised Politifact’s libelous accusation that Reid lied. He offered no evidence. His argument was essentially “Umm, it doesn’t seem possible to me, therefore Reid is a liar, and the only reason liberals believe X is because of Y – when in fact most liberals don’t believe X or Y”, and was called out by his readers.
2. He doubled down on it with a followup post, where he essentially argued that “Okay, maybe it’s true, but I still think he’s a liar, even though I’ve now willfully ignored corroboration by people such as Dana Bash” and he was called out by his readers.
3. He tripled down on it, and penned this latest monstrosity in which he essentially argues “Reid is a liar because I said so, plus STFU that’s why, and can’t we all be civil and serious?”, and is now being called out by his readers.
Are you noticing a fucking pattern yet?
Alistair
@Lindershaw: Romney hasn’t even released one full year of taxes. The 2010 return he released is missing the Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts form.
Bobby Thomson
@The Other Chuck:
He’s right. Which makes it pretty damn disgraceful for him to assume that Reid is lying.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Bobby Thomson: no shit right? Of course, in his fevered mind, politifact’s claim is somehow falsifiable.
On a positive note, at least he’s learning new words. Maybe one day he’ll even know what they mean.
shortstop
@Redshift: Normally I’d be worried about the early burnout factor, but Romney’s finances are so full of bombs that I see this taking us well into apple weather. I like what Team Dem is doing bringing things out a little at a time–tax returns in general, the size of Romney’s 401K, the offshore accounts, etc. Then yesterday we had the CNN story about Romney helping Marriott shadify its corporate taxes. Mitt is a banquet on which we feed.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@shortstop: I’m guessing they’ll withhold that dead hooker in Altoona until after the Tampa convention.
Uncle Ebeneezer
The idea that Romney would show or brag about his tax returns to another person is like saying there are guys out there who show naked pictures of their girlfriends/wives, to their buddies. In a word…
shortstop
@danah gaz (fka gaz): I predict the real bombshell there (or not) will be the revelation that Mitt lifted her wallet while she was lifeless on the floor.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@shortstop: hehehehe.
I could do this all night.
In fact, last night I did!
shortstop
@danah gaz (fka gaz): drum roll!
wrb
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
I read a nice one the other day. It was about how mebbe what Romney is concealing is
the payments he’s still making for the medical of the vegetable child he had in France with the wife he had to abandon because the vegetable child showed that she wasn’t good enough breeding stock for the scion. It was driving from the breakup with her that he ran into the Bishop’s car (who all these years he’s called a “drunken priest”) which accident resulted in the death of another of his young women.
It would be wrong not to.
Villago Delenda Est
@dr. bloor:
Why anyone would want to be a Villager, and therefore be guaranteed a ride on a tumbrel, eludes me.
I guess all those cocktail weenies in the short term are just too good to pass up.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@wrb: Cokie’s law is so much fun.
Sorry for the absence. I was otherwise occupied over at MJ, eviscerating Kevin Drum.
#occupymotherjones
or something.
TK-421
I only vaguely skimmed the comments, but I’m surprised nobody has mentioned BooMan. Like John he was on this a few days ago, but he had a much more rational counterargument:
I’m starting to think Kevin Drum is not just a “centrist” nitwit, but also an asshole. I’m also starting to think that those characteristics are inextricably linked.
wrb
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
It has now been on two blogs so it must be at least partially true.
And the part about the Biship and the dead girls is everywhere and seems to have been verified http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/06/29/1104487/-Romney-the-GOP-Cult-of-Lying
so the other part of the story is likely true too.
It is well known within the Mormon community, I’m given to understand.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@wrb: awesome sauce
Joel
@pragmatism: Lays it out, indeed. What exactly does Paul Shirley want to accomplish in the world? Apparently a whole lot of nothing, which is why even his onetime fan Bill Simmons hasn’t given him a column in his pet project.
Just Some Fuckhead
@jrg:
Excellent.
Jennifer
No, apparently you don’t, anyway.
Harry Reid didn’t say “Mitt Romney paid no taxes for 10 years and I can prove it.” Harry Reid said, “Someone in a position to know told me that Mitt Romney didn’t pay taxes for 10 years.”
Romney could release those returns tomorrow, and if they showed that he had paid taxes for those 10 years, this still would not make Harry Reid a liar, if in fact someone told him that Romney didn’t pay taxes for those 10 years. What it would do is make the unnamed source of the allegation a liar.
The only thing that would make Harry Reid a liar in this instance is if, in fact, no one actually told him that Romney hadn’t paid taxes for 10 years and he just made it up.
Words have meanings, and “liar” has a very specific meaning, that of knowingly telling a falsehood. If someone told Harry Reid that Romney didn’t pay taxes for 10 years and he’s just saying “someone told me Romney didn’t pay taxes for 10 years,” then he is truthfully relating what someone else told him. By no reasonable definition of the word can that be stretched to make Harry Reid a liar. The word that fits is “gossip,” because he’s passing on something someone else told him, not vouching for its veracity.
Rome Again
@srv:
He is getting up there in years. Maybe he’s decided he’s not concerned about re-election the next time around.
NewHavenGuy
100% with Zandar here.
I greatly appreciate the efforts of Harry Reid over the last decade as Minority and Majority leader. Particularly in the fields of arm twisting, knife fighting and winning policy fights in that sewer that those Fuckers reduced his beloved Senate to. The guy didn’t grow teeth last month, his demeanor and image are all very quiet storm. A lot of holes in the desert (politically speaking!) occupied by players who wanted to fuck with him over the years.
To his credit also I think Reid just despises Mitt Romney, and I don’t mean that in a partisan sense but a visceral one. Harry’s got nothing to lose- what, run again at 77 to preside over a broken body?- and I think he’s holding some cards. Mittens has ten years worth of cards, but I don’t even need to see them: his Tells are that bad.
Best part is that Reid seems to be absolutely loving it. If this doesn’t somehow backfire ’tis a fine thing that Harry Reid did for his party and President here. Not to mention his country. I know Kevin Drum thinks different, but he’s profoundly wrong to frame it the way he did.
MoeLarryAndJesus
@Sentient Puddle:
How about if you show a little creativity while providing cover for Tralfaz Fucking Romney, chuckles?
Or would that be too fucking hard?
Meanwhile, fuck everyone I said should be fucked up above once again. Use a rusty pitchfork this time to make sure they stay fucked.
Keith G
I wish I lived in a world where Romney could be compelled to open his tax records (before his eventual loss to Obama).
I wish I lived in a world where political leaders would never construct insinuated charges against the opposition without clearly detailing the basis for their claims.
I wish I lived in a world where we could vigorously debate conflicting notions held by allies without school yard bravado and petulant name calling.
It’s funny. I began supporting Obama in ’07 with both money and time because I believed in his will to change the system. He has made some progress, he really has and I am so very fucking proud of him.
But this thread is garbage. This is not the Obama plan. This is not how he proposed we form a better politics. Some folks spend so much time pounding their chest as evidence of the purity of their support and then they act like nutters at Red State.
I think Reid pulled a neat (lawyerly) trick and its effect will be echoing around for a good bit. But, riddle me this:
If Harry Reid knows that there is information at hand that Romney behaved in a way (though legal) that disqualifies him from being a serious contender for the office of president, does he not for the sake of our country have an obligation to us all to set that info out on the table? If what Reid said is true (I hope that it is) and Romney continues to stonewall, when should Reid tell all he knows? If Reid keeps mum, what does that say about the Senator?
Although I have some nagging suspicions about this affair, I do not share Kevin Drum’s point of view. He and others like him argue for a higher standard to our discourse. So does one Barak Obama. None of them deserve to be called names.
MoeLarryAndJesus
@Keith G:
All Reid said was that a well-placed source told him Romney had good reason to hide his returns. If that information was given to Reid off the record, please explain exactly why he should throw his (presumed) friend under the bus in order to please your notions of obligation?
The immediate response by the Romney team would be to publicly eviscerate the source. His career would likely be ruined beyond repair.
Reid has spoken and the ball is now in Romney’s usually ball-free court. I can’t think of a single good reason why this is not a good thing.
fasteddie
I stopped reading Kevin Drum because of this stupidity. Centrism sucks – it just gives cover to the right.
Keith G
@MoeLarryAndJesus:
Your own words provide the answer to your question.
If Reid feels that his friend’s account is accurate and Romney has reason to hide info, then this information needs to be presented and needs to be vetted by the public. What is more important: Reid’s friend or our republic?
badbaba13
@Linda Featheringill: hanoi hilton – french mansion – hello!
MoeLarryAndJesus
@Keith G:
Our republic, which is best served by holding Romney’s feet to the fire.