Sometimes the dishonesty of official discourse in this freedom-loving nation is too much for me, so I’m turning this post over to others. Steve M on the Reverend Wright attacks ads:
Here’s the official narrative of today, as Mitt Romney would like you to understand it: a rogue rich guy was planning to unleash a distasteful, racially tinged attack on Barack Obama. Mitt Romney and his campaign (a) were surprised and horrified to learn of this gutter-level independent effort or (b) were the folks who secretly told The New York Times what was going on. Result: gutter campaign nipped in the bud. The effort to defeat Obama will remain high-minded from now on.
Driftglass on a polite Ezra Klein takedown of Bobo:
At some level I believe a smart guy like Ezra Klein understands that it does not matter in the slightest how often or nakedly people like Our Mr. Brooks gets caught lying.
I wonder if this frustrates him and I wonder if Ezra will ever bust loose and write a column about how such people maintain their positions even after they are exposed over and over again as arrant frauds?
Probably not.
redshirt
I’m convinced the only solution to our current problems lies with media reform. Ensure a multitude of owners with no one having monopoly power, and something preventing large corporations from owning too many outlets.
Because with the media in pocket, the Repugs can do/say whatever they want, and down the rabbit hole we go. A true media would work to expose corruption and lies, and thus hold politicians accountable, and thus improve their behavior.
All other problems stem from this one.
Elizabelle
I thought NBC let Romney slide too much with the “I’m horrified” and that has no place in my campaign. Letting him take the higher ground, which is what these SuperPACs are designed to do.
Also Romney’s “let’s talk about the future” which I take as “please, we’ve got to stop talking about my [vulture capitalism] career at Bain.”
And Romney got in a bleat about “character assassination” too. Nothing like his lying every time he says anything about the Obama administration.
Way to go, NBC. TD Ameritrade sucker at the teat.
David Hunt
Unfortunately, I think it’s equally likely that we’ll get an article about how Brooks occasionally goes to the Central Park Zoo and bribes the attendants to let him molest howler monkey babies.
Now that would be an interesting article.
ETA: There should be a brief section about how Kaus had all the goats rented out already
Mike Furlan
From now till election day Romney will regularly denounce claims that Obama is a foreign, gay, socialist, drug using, adulterous traitor.
Daily if necessary.
Really, Obama isn’t a foreign, gay, socialist, drug using, adulterous traitor.
Got the message?
OK if you didn’t he’ll repeat it again tomorrow.
Stuck in the Funhouse
In a few months, the scratchings of Brooks and whatever else passes for right wing intelligentsia, will seem like tea with the freeking queen.
It will be reports of dead fetuses on pikes throughout the realm, with claims of rutting libtards in your public parks, and minutes discovered for Obama meetings with his Chicago enforcers , plotting to capture baby jeevus and feed it watermelon and fried chicken.
But first, we have to have displays of Romney obligatory troll protection for later denial he could have anything to do with such outside, (cough cough) depraved efforts against his opponents, defining Obama as the black anti christ come to suck white freedom juices dry as death valley.
Elizabelle
What redshirt said at 1.
Villago Delenda Est
Well, obviously one solution to this is a refit of the Rmoneytron with stronger internal ablating and superconductor plating so that the heat generated by flop sweat is less visually obvious to the casual observer.
Comrade Jake
If you didn’t click on the Driftglass link in this post, you should. The jpeg of Sully is priceless.
The Other Bob
I heard there was a secret plan by a left-wing SuperPAC to attack Romney for the post-death-baptism, magicunderwear-wearing, racist cult the belogs to. Obama should shoot that down too.
Frankensteinbeck
@Mike Furlan:
That would be true if Romney were any good at politics. Instead he will go out every day and, sweating badly, proclaim, ‘Me? I had nothing to do with it! You’ve got to believe me! Let’s talk about something else! Like how I can make almost as many jobs as Obama can! Okay, not quite as many, but… but… uh…’
Romney’s problem is not dishonesty. Dishonesty has been the meat and milk of the GOP at least since Reagan, more likely since Nixon. Romney’s problem is that he’s awkward, uncharismatic, and so wildly out of touch he can’t figure out what the public wants to hear even with experts explaining it to him every five minutes.
JR
I actually believe that Romney wants no part of Rev. Wright attacks, and while he probably won’t succeed, I’m guessing he’ll expend considerable effort trying to keep that whole business out of this race.
Think about it: the core of the Rev. Wright charges is that a parishoner in the pews is highly influenced by what is taught from the pulpit, therefore Wright’s sermons are fair game to use against Obama.
Now, ask if maybe, just maybe, the Romney campaign might be looking to avoid making this campaign about the religious views of the candidates, especially given the fact that Romney spent a hell of a lot of time in the pews prior to, oh, say, 1978?
Thus far this month, Joe Ricketts has managed to O’Donnell a cakewalk Senate race and bring religion back as an issue in the Presidential campaign. Are we sure he isn’t working for the Dems?
Villago Delenda Est
@Frankensteinbeck:
I think his major problem is that he has surrounded himself with yes-men, has no one who will sit him down and tell him in no uncertain terms that he’s fucking up. I don’t think he’s coachable, either…he’s too smug and arrogant.
He’s just an asshole.
Mark S.
Geez, I’m about to defend Bobo.
Brooks’ column was completely forgettable except for his theory of Obama’s “postfeminist ESPN masculinity”, which maybe he’ll do a book-length treatment on. Aside from that, I don’t see where he’s lying. By “fundamentals”, he basically means the economy, and the economy still isn’t doing that hot. Ezra says:
Okay, but not citing a poll question I think is important doesn’t exactly equal LYING! That’s why Ezra doesn’t accuse Bobo of lying.
Personally, I think the poll numbers are a reflection of over 80% of the country thinks one of the parties is insane and would never vote for them.
SteveM
I find myself going back and forth about whether Romney really wanted this out in order to put Wright in play. My first thought was “Of course”– but now even people who don’t like Romney, like Josh Marshall, think he sees it as toxic and counterproductive. That doesn’t mean Marshall is right, but it’s conceivable he is — maybe Romney really does think he has all the answers and this isn’t one of them. Or maybe not. Maybe he just wants others to do the wet work.
jrg
Rev Wright? Never heard of him. Sarah Palin? Never heard of her, either.
They’re only “turning their backs” on this blatantly racist bullshit after they tried it and failed. The only people dumb enough to believe Romney’s doing this out of principle were going to vote for him, anyway.
amk
@Elizabelle: +2. The third rate fourth estate are the fifth columnists here.
jon
I kinda like the metrosexual Abe Lincoln, but he doesn’t look black.
Frankensteinbeck
@Villago Delenda Est:
I lump that into ‘out of touch’, but I completely agree. It is a beautiful thing. It was a major reason Palin sank McCain (well, further than he was sinking himself). Treated the help like crap, refused to take direction from experts. It leads to lots of gaffes that your campaign is too inert to recover from.
Ben Franklin
The American Public shares the blame for the current state of the Meedia.
They (media) only give the public what they want; entertainment. It’s a Bizness, and the business of business is; Bizness. Ad rates are driven by readership/viewership.
Journalistic integrity and principles don’t make the big bucks.
wiscomom
@Villago Delenda Est: I agree but would go a step further. I think he might actually be a bit lazy. You would think he would be handed early a.m. yesterday a summary of the article from the Times (along with a lot of other latest news/info) and possible ways to address the situation to nip it in the bud. He then goes all day, and comes out with this word salad? Really? I am beginning to think he might not be good at this politics thing.
The ticking tally behind him is also sort of stupid looking (I think it’s “debt” or something that’s all Obama’s fault, of course). I actually think it could be parodied to indicate how quickly the number of lies he spews add up. His optics are just awful.
Oh, and his people are all over the tv this morning saying he shouldn’t be responsible for all the nutty rich guys making Super Pac commercials…yeah, sort of like Obama shouldn’t be responsible for the nutty things his preacher said years ago?
Cacti
@JR:
I’m inclined to agree. Team Romneybot has been scrupulously careful to avoid any conversation that might lead to a thorough examination of his Mormon faith.
If he was really saying “I condemn this, wink, wink” that would mean he was okay with throwing the door wide open on his own religious beliefs.
Hill Dweller
@jrg:
Exactly. Willard used the Rev. Wright attack earlier this year. Once that was pointed out at his little press avail, it undermined any attempt to look like they were taking the high road.
Villago Delenda Est
@wiscomom:
I do believe that your boilerplate IOKIYAR applies here.
Villago Delenda Est
Yeah, the thing is, the REAL reason for stopping the Rev. Wright angle is that it opens the door to Obama’s surrogates to start asking questions about Rmoney’s faith (aside from his Mammon worship, obviously) and provide a reminder to all the talibangicals that he’s a fellow Christian only in the broadest possible sense, one that they don’t buy into, I might add. If Catholics are a bizarre cult, LDS is even farther out there.
rlrr
@Villago Delenda Est:
Exactly: One has to dig pretty hard to find Wright’s so called offensive speech. On the other had, right wing evangelicals spew vile hate almost daily. Republican Presidential candidates never have to answer for actively seeking support from these hate mongers.
Cacti
Speaking of nutty things said by religious leaders:
Joseph Fielding Smith, Jr.
10th Mormon Prophet (1970-1972)
Villago Delenda Est
@rlrr:
For me, the “offensive” speech of Wright is only offensive if you think “American Exceptionalism” is a one way street, and there’s no work at being exceptional involved.
Wright’s comments vis a vis 9/11 were to me right on target, unlike the sputterings of Robertson and Falwell who, predictably, blamed it on their greatest bugaboo, sexual freedom.
Elizabelle
@rlrr:
Thank you.
I am wondering: were the Reverend Wright sermons THAT incendiary?
I am thinking he probably went overboard on a few occasions, but that a lot of his statements were honesty from a man who does not live in the white privilege world, and who deals daily with pain from people who live in the Trayvon Martin “you’re dangerous if you’re in a hoodie” world.
Asking because NBC dismissed Wright’s sermons with a shudder, and I am thinking that a lot of Wright’s sermons probably sound reasonable to those of us who don’t worship mammon and the Republican power structure.
Saw a little clip of Wright’s chickens coming home to roost post-9-11 sermon in last night’s NBC story on Ricketts. (The one that refused to utter “TD Ameritrade.”)
Haven’t we been saying for a while that a lot of the craziness in the Republican party is its own festering ugliness and craziness and cravenness coming home to roost?
redshirt
I question whether Team RMoney is truly worried about a Mormon backlash. In the category of “If the liberals are against it…” wouldn’t it seem more likely the Wingnuts would embrace Mormonism, since it ostensibly stands against “LIBERALS”?
I mean, the Catholic Church has been brought into the Wingnut fold no problem, and that would have been unheard of 20 years ago. Why not Mormons too?
SatanicPanic
@Cacti: Obama gave a speech stating clearly what his beliefs are and he took pride in them. We’ll be waiting a long time before he hear a I’m a Proud Mormon speech from Romney.
Cacti
@redshirt:
How often have Catholics topped the GOP ticket?
The talibangelicals don’t mind forging alliances of convenience, as long as the “others” remember their role as supporting players.
Putting a Mormon at the top of the ticket has been a hard sale.
the fugitive uterus
people need to figure out that Brooks is not an opinion columnist, he’s a fiction writer
redshirt
@Cacti: Newt converted. Sure, he didn’t win, but he seems like a good indicator for Wingnut prevailing winds.
geg6
What, and lose his place at the kiddie table at those Georgetown soirees?
Get real, Doug and Driftglass.
...now I try to be amused
@Elizabelle:
I think a lot of white people’s discomfort with the Reverend Wright and Angry Black Men in general comes from the knowledge that if they were black they’d be thirsting not just for justice but for vengeance, and they assume black people do too.
Villago Delenda Est
@redshirt:
One of the problems the talibangicals have with Mormons is that the Mormon mainstream works very hard, and mostly succeeds, at being the clean cut, family centered, teetotalers that talibangicals claim to be, but fall far short of in reality.
You think they’d be natural allies against those damn sex crazed liberals who are polluting our precious bodily fluids, but, no.
Frankensteinbeck
@redshirt:
Tribal identity is the #1 motivator of the GOP voting block right now. Romney’s had trouble qualifying from day one. He doesn’t need any more doubts thrown in. He absolutely can’t afford for another percentage point or two of the lunatic base to stay home and not vote.
Elizabelle
Krugman had an interesting blogpost this morning:
Litlebritdifrnt
@Elizabelle:
The sad part about it, and what got lost in the craziness, is that Wright was quoting someone from Fox News who originally said the “chickens coming home to roost” comment.
Southern Beale
This is interesting, because I’m reading Paul Krugman’s book “The Conscience Of A Liberal” right now (I know, I’m behind on the liberal canon). And I just got to the part today where they talk about the National Review and how horribly racist and distasteful and fascist they were back when they first started. It took them a while to figure out that they needed to speak in dog whistles. That’s what Reagan figured out: to speak in a code that played to people’s racism and other biases without actually appearing that way himself.
And ya know, this whole Rev. Wright fiasco (and the Tea Party in general) has gone completely against that. This is why the Republican Party is about to lose another generation: they forgot they need to speak in dog whistles. Their nativist, racist, homophobic, misogynist tendencies have always been there but they’ve been in code. Now they’re out there for all the world to see and it’s biting them on the ass.
Bwaahaa.
SatanicPanic
@Cacti: Santorum almost did, but he lost to a Mormom. Newt came in 3rd. Since I don’t put much stock in the idea of these people having core beliefs that actually mean anything (beyond- follow me, give me power), I’m sure they’ll drop whatever aversion they have to working with Mormons if it’s convenient to do so.
Elizabelle
@Litlebritdifrnt:
And I believe the chickens roosting comment actually began with Malcolm X?
Here’s an interesting clip where Malcolm X says he meant “climate of hate” by “chickens coming home to roost” with the JFK assassination.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzuOOshpddM
I am going to be finding some Reverend Wright speeches and transcripts for review in the coming week.
Scary black men with scary messages.
*Shiver*
patrick II
Since superpacs are not coordinating with campaigns, how did the Romney campaign get an early, unpublished copy of the superpac proposal so they could ostensibly refute it?
handsmile
Like Mike Furlan (#4) and Stuck in the Funhouse (#5) above, I believe yesterday’s trial ballon of exhuming Reverend Wright was merely the first in what will become a fusillade of spurious attacks on Obama, all underwritten by Citizens United-sanctioned donors, and each one to be decried and disavowed by Willard and his retinue.
I disagree, however, with the claim that a negative advertising blitz featuring Wright consequently would put into play questions about Rmoney’s Mormon faith.
Jeremiah Wright was an individual minister at one Chicago church. Several “controversial” phrases from a few of his sermons became #1 with a bullet on the media Wurlitzer during the 2008 presidential campaign. The controversy was ginned up to make Obama, as a parishioner, responsible for the content of his pastor’s remarks. It focused upon Obama’s relationship with Wright, not his beliefs or practices as a member of the United Church of Christ.
Let me stipulate here that while fascinated by the history of the Church of Latter-Day Saints, I consider its theology to be utter lunacy. I acknowledge that may be disrespectful, but the discovery of divine golden tablets in the Age of Photography makes for a pretty fable not a faith.
That said, however, I think any effort by Democratic PACS or surrogates to expose the very peculiar tenets and activities of Mormonism will result in enormous negative blowback for the Obama reelection campaign. Not only will all the pearl-clutchers screech, but Obama himself will be denounced relentlessly for subverting “religious liberty” (and/or seeking to establish the caliphate here). This will serve to legitimize Mormonism but, more emphatically, will reinforce the hatred of the GOP base for the Black Man in the While House, an article of faith more deeply embedded in the lizard brain than any cognitive dissonance around Bishop Rmoney’s religion.
Clime Acts
Young Ezra Klein is already a Villager through and through, has been for years.
Why do you pay attention to him?
Clime Acts
Please.
Ezra Klein will never write that column, because he wants to BE Bobo someday.
Also, too, writing such a column would lead to awkward moments over the cocktail wienies at the next Village soiree.
Frankensteinbeck
@Southern Beale:
Reagan did a similar trick with describing the GOP’s plan to give the entire world to big business and screw the poor in ways that hid their actual intentions. This elaborate mask WAS the Reagan Revolution, and it’s falling off. I couldn’t be happier.
James E Powell
@Clime Acts:
Ezra Klein will never write that column, because he wants to BE Bobo someday
I disagree. He wants to be his generation’s Richard Cohen, the Villager who has some kind of left/liberal association that no one, especially him, seems to recall.
Gus
It kind of reminds me of Huckbee calling a press conference to unveil an ad that he wasn’t going to show. The content makes it out there while the candidate pretends to take the high road. Really fucking subtle.
Ohio Mom
@James E Powell: Yes, maybe Ezra could be the next Richard Cohen, because it’s long been completely obvious to me that Matt Y. has the Bobo position all sewn up.
I mean, Ezra actually studies some issues (thinking health care here); Matt adopts an opinion he thinks sounds cool and won’t let go of it no matter how much evidence against it is presented to him.
But then again, I stopped reading both of them years ago, so who knows.