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You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2012 / Thursday Morning Open Thread: The Good Fight

Thursday Morning Open Thread: The Good Fight

by Anne Laurie|  August 16, 20125:35 am| 13 Comments

This post is in: Election 2012, Excellent Links, Open Threads

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(Keith Knight via GoComics.com)
__
Professor Krugman is really getting tired of trying to reason with some people:

Several commenters have asked that I provide examples of Republicans making reasonable economic arguments; some of them seem to be saying that I’m proving my bias if I don’t provide such examples.

But it doesn’t work that way: if all Republicans are saying unreasonable things, then it’s a distortion — indeed, a form of bias — to insist that there must be reasonable Republicans…

It’s kind of the “treason never prospers” argument (“for if it prospers, none dare call it treason”); if someone declares that tax cuts don’t pay for themselves, or that printing money when you’re in a liquidity trap isn’t deeply inflationary, or that fear of Obamacare isn’t holding the economy back, he ceases to be considered a member in good standing of the GOP. There are, therefore, no reasonable Republicans on these issues.

Timothy Egan at the NYTimes skewers “Romney the Unknowable“:

Ten days from now, some of the world’s best-paid magicians of image and narrative will unveil a reboot of a most unfathomable man, Willard Mitt Romney, a 2012 model with a shelf life of barely two months.

The Republican National Convention will mark the fourth time in 18 years, dating to a losing Senate race in 1994, that a Team Romney has tried to construct a Brand Romney. This problem of who he is, Romney acknowledged last year, has plagued him ever since he became a public figure.

In focus groups, he’s described as a tin man, a shell, an empty suit, vacuous, a multimillionaire in mom jeans. And that’s from supporters.

At the convention, you can expect to hear high praise for a virtuous, disciplined, loyal person of family and faith. You will surely hear the words “turnaround” and “no apology” — both titles of platitudinous and unread books by Romney — in defense of his business acumen and unshakable view of American exceptionalism.

But I doubt you will hear anything of the real Romney because he is afraid of his own past…

Amy Davidson, at the New Yorker, has a lovely short piece on “Paul Ryan’s Father, and Al Smith’s“:

… Reading and thinking about political theory—and deciding to go into politics—is, indeed, a real and valuable sort of self-reliance for a young person to develop; it is the sort of move to adulthood that should be available to all children, and not just the sons of lawyers. It is better to read long novels and be a camp counsellor and, as Ryan often did, go fishing, than to have to work the Fulton Fish Market to help your mother with the rent. (Smith made it out; but the attrition rate in such circumstances is a whole lot higher.) That is a blessing, and a freedom, of the America that emerged after gnawing its way through the Great Depression and two World Wars. The “supportive community” that Romney mentioned gathering around the Ryans can now, thankfully, mean something broader than the neighbors who chipped in to help Al Smith’s mother pay for her husband’s funeral.

It is also worth remembering that the transformation of this country from 1886 to now was neither accidental nor inevitable. The social safety net did not waft down from somewhere; roads and airports did not simply emerge from the earth; public universities did not simply coalesce. They were all built, and fought for, piece by piece, because we wanted a certain kind of country. (Franklin D. Roosevelt, the man who succeeded Smith as the governor of New York, played a role in that.) Maintaining them will be a fight, too. Which side will Paul Ryan be on?

And Dave Weigel at Slate has a final fillip at yesterday’s nontroversy, “The Biden-Giuliani Feud, and Who Won“:

… In the pre-caucus phase of the 2008 presidential primaries, Joe Biden was getting zero traction. Rudy Giuliani was steadily losing it. Biden was the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Giuliani traded, then borrowed, then mortgaged off of his reputation as America’s Mayor. So Biden liked to rib Giuliani about his ignorance….

Flash cut to four years later. Giuliani is a vastly diminished figure whose consulting/speaking business has only slowly recovered from his 2008 disaster. Biden is vice president. You can see why the former mayor would kick and scream a little.

(Original “noun and a verb and nine-eleven” clip at the link.)
***********
What’s on the agenda for the day?

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Reader Interactions

13Comments

  1. 1.

    raven

    August 16, 2012 at 5:47 am

    Much of the student editorial staff of the Red and Black, the University of Georgia student newspaper, walked out in protest of news policies yesterday. Should be interesting.

  2. 2.

    SRW1

    August 16, 2012 at 6:06 am

    Aren’t there rumors that Rudi’s got the MC job for Mitt’s three ring Lollapalooza in Tampa? Doesn’t that count for something?

  3. 3.

    Schlemizel

    August 16, 2012 at 6:13 am

    I keep hoping that others will join the big K and admit publicly that the GOP has no sane wing any longer, no reasonable faction. I thought for sure pundits who want to appear reasonable would at least hint at it. Certainly Bobo dropped a couple of hints a while back. I thought those hints might permit better people to say it out loud, but sadly, no.

    I’m not sure there is anything the GOP can do that will get the beltway boys to admit the truth that has been obvious for a decade.

    My week is dominated by job interviews – I interviewed people for positions in my current department BTW- ANY IT SECURITY IN THE TWIN CITES AREA – WE STILL REALLY NEED SCAN/PEN TEST PERSON ft-perm shout out in the thread & we can figure out a way to connect

    And tonight I interview for a different company, yes I am trying to hire into a job I want out of :) its explainable. But having not won the powerball last night it must be done

  4. 4.

    Jesse Ewiak

    August 16, 2012 at 7:07 am

    I’ll forgive 50 Joe Biden ‘gaffes’ because of, “a noun, a verb, and 9/11.”

  5. 5.

    amk

    August 16, 2012 at 7:15 am

    Unless the other msm teevee starts countering pox news & rw radio shock jock propaganda and exposes mitt, the myth and the tax dodger, I don’t see how the dead-wood media, however good their pundtwits may be, can influence and educate the voters.

  6. 6.

    kindness

    August 16, 2012 at 7:20 am

    I completely missed Mr. 9-11 spewing his nonsense yesterday. Oh, I heard Jon Stewart make a crack about it and figured Rudy wanted press time.

    When you look at public figures and how they operate vs how their ego’s operate you see a very clear picture of the person.

  7. 7.

    moonbat

    August 16, 2012 at 7:26 am

    I like how the Republicans are running to their fiercest economic critic and demanding that he give them credibility. Good for Krugman for simply saying, “No.” The disconnect here, it is strong.

    Not that Krugman needed any help in the fierce department, but doesn’t it feel like the Democratic worm has turned a bit? Obama’s refusal to walk back attacks that are absolutely true seems to be giving some journalists the courage to mention that Emperor Romney is wearing no clothes (or more precisely, only a tissue of lies). See: Chuck Todd’s attack of honesty yesterday. If Obama keeps this up, the MSM by election day might actually be committing journalism on a daily basis. (I know, I’m not holding my breath.)

  8. 8.

    Valdivia

    August 16, 2012 at 8:10 am

    @SRW1:
    I read somewhere in the last two weeks that his consulting has taken him to the worst places in the world–ei he had been taking money from the guys who think freedom and liberty are dirty words.

  9. 9.

    Scott

    August 16, 2012 at 8:40 am

    In other news, the crackpot Navy Seal dude trying to Swiftboat Obama has a paper trail.

    http://wethepeoplefree.com/corruption/navy-seal-letter-to-obama/

    Non-partisan, educational group, my ass.

  10. 10.

    WaterGirl

    August 16, 2012 at 9:12 am

    I love Joe Biden. I watched the “noun a verb and 9/11” clip again just for fun, but the top video at the link is also great. Biden’s look at the end of the video was just priceless.

    My hope is that the Justice Department will take action on Ohio and Pennsylvania voting issues if the courts don’t.

  11. 11.

    cjdavis

    August 16, 2012 at 11:04 am

    @Schlemizel: try the local hackerspace or 2600 groups in the area, we have plenty of security types in ours here.

  12. 12.

    1badbaba3

    August 16, 2012 at 11:26 am

    Thank you Anne for the wonderful breakfast fare you have gathered. Poor(?!?!) Mitt Romney. He keeps driving to the hole, only to have his weak shit smacked away time and again. It has been five months since he clinched the nomination,plenty of time to lay out plans, define oneself, and storm the castle. But when you can’t talk about yourself, or celebrate accomplishments, well you’re just Mitt out of luck. He will ever be on the defensive because he’s desperate to keep his creepy cult, corporate raiding, tax avoidance, and community killing off the table. Fuck him, Queen Ann, Flarg, Flern, Tang, or Tank, or whatever stupid names they’re called with a fleet of rusty pitchforks and salted dicks. Go Uncle Joe! You know if they’re calling for Hilary he’s scoring major hits. Also too, KRUG’THULU!!!!!!

  13. 13.

    Brachiator

    August 16, 2012 at 11:41 am

    Professor Krugman is really getting tired of trying to reason with some people

    And across the sea, the austerity conventional wisdom is being rejected by notable economists.

    George Osborne faces calls from leading economists for U-turn on austerity
    __
    Almost half of experts who backed chancellor in opposition now say Treasury should borrow to spend on infrastructure projects
    __
    In a blow to the chancellor, almost half the economists who strongly supported the Conservative party’s deficit-reduction proposals in the runup to the 2010 election said it was time for a rethink and urged the Treasury to take advantage of low borrowing costs to boost spending on infrastructure projects.

    And yet, over here, hack journalists and pundits will continue to insist that the GOP crafted Ryan plan of gutting the government and outrageously increasing deficits to funnel tax cuts to the rich somehow represents serious thinking about the economy.

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