Let it be known that John Brown is not a fan of Mitt Romney. That being said, I find John McCain's crock of shit misrepresentations of Romney's position on the war in Iraq a perfect example of all that is wrong about American political discourse and campaigning.
I recently explained my distaste for McCain's pre-Florida efforts to paint Romney as a "cutter and runner" who favored timetables for troop pullbacks. McCain, who loves to claim he's all about "straight talk" twisted words like pretzels in order to lock down a victory in the sunshine state. It was a repulsive bit of politicking that did absolutely nothing to explain, clarify, amplify or improve the Republican nomination process or the country. It was disgusting.
The Republican debate at the Reagan Library featured a prolonged exchange between Romney and McCain over the "timetable" argument.
Romney bitch-slapped McCain. Romney clarified his position, explained the context of the comments made over a year ago and even called McCain on the right-before-Florida timing of the attacks.
McCain's responses were weak and desperate. He refused to yield an inch and continued to repeat his accusations. Mitt Romney called his bullshit and lit into McCain, asking how Johnny Boy became the expert on Mitt's own positions.
I originally thought that this detour into nonsense on the part of the Straight Talk Express might come back to bite McCain's ass in a general election. Based on my viewing of the debate, his gamble with outright dishonesty is already haunting him. McCain looked silly. That silliness was exacerbated by his lack of grace, his non-sequitir comments about Romney's money and his unwillingness to back away from his own misstatements.
Way to squander your momentum, McCain.
Wrapping up the debate:
Winner: Romney Loser: McCain No change: Huckabee No significance: Paul
John McCain has decided that he must destroy his candidacy in order to save it... Trading straight talk for a forked tongue may be beneath him. It may be insulting to the intelligence of the considerate voter. It may be the wrong way to conduct politics. However, when one considers the short memory of the electorate, it may be a smart strategic move.
Once upon a time, Mitt Romney said that he thought it would probably make sense if Iraqi and US leaders discussed various objectives and set timetables for those goals. He seemed to think that was a good way of measuring the success of our military adventures in Iraq and believed that a goal-oriented approach involving both parties was logical.
He also mentioned that those discussions should be kept between the US and Iraq. He made it clear that kind of high-level planning wasn't something to share with the rest of the world.
If you revisit Romney's comments, it's not really 100% clear if he thought the goals established via consultation should serve as a litmus test for continued US involvement or not. One might infer that a complete inability on the part of the Iraq to meat objectives could lead to a US pullout, I suppose. In other words, you could argue that Romney was saying that there could be circumstances that might justify a US withdrawal under fairly extreme conditions.
That doesn't sound too crazy to me. "If things turn out to be an utter failure and we're dealing with complete incompetents, we might want to cut our losses" seems like a fairly reasonable argument. The idea of trying to set mutual goals and a schedule for them seems less than zany, too.
The engineer of the Straight Talk Express says, "Bullshit".
Romney used the word "timetable". Thus, according to John McCain, he is clearly of one mind with those on the left who would've started pulling out troops right as GWB and Patreus initiated the surge. The idea of having a schedule and the possibility of a troop withdrawal, regardless of circumstances, is tantamount to abandoning our troops. The very idea of ANYTHING leading the US to walk away from Iraq emboldens our enemies.
According to McCain, Mitt Romney is--and remember, this is the ultimate insult in R-Primaryland--LIBERAL.
A few observations...
John McCain is completely full of shit. Romney may have stopped short of McCain's apparent belief that US troops will forever wander the streets of Baghdad, but MR obviously hasn't embraced the position of those who really oppose the war. Even Rudy911 understood that Romney wasn't waving a white flag.
John McCain is lying about being a straight shooter. He's spinning Romney's comments as ferociously as possible in order to take care of business in Florida. It isn't straight talk, it's straight crap. What makes it worse? He knows it.
McCain is the closest thing the Republicans have to a "change" candidate. He's shown a willingness to cross party lines when he thinks it's the right thing to do, at least occasionally. He's carefully cultivated a "maverick" persona which helps him with independent voters. He's got that whole "straight talk" thing that creates an aura of honesty and integrity around him.
I disagree with McCain on many things, but I'm willing to admit he has his strong points. Much of the McCain attraction for many voters is his apparent willingness to be honest and direct--even when it isn't necessarily convenient. If he has an ace in the hole, that's it.
He pisses on that strength when he does things like this. He decreases his credibility among the people he's going to need in his corner if he should ever get to the general election.
McCain has decided that his Straight Talk Express must take a detour into the bullshit land of proving you've earned ultra-conservative stripes if you want to make it past primary season. He might be right. He might not stand a chance of being the R nominee if he doesn't tone down the "straight talk" in favor of a slightly more true-to-the-base tone. He probably feels as if he has to do something to combat the "liberal" albatross Romney's trying to hang on his neck.
John McCain has decided that he must destroy his candidacy in order to save it.
It might be working Florida. As I write this (results have just started rolling in), he has a 2% lead over Romney.
Trading straight talk for a forked tongue may be beneath him. It may be insulting to the intelligence of the considerate voter. It may be the wrong way to conduct politics. However, when one considers the short memory of the electorate, it may be a smart strategic move.
Tim Russert is a tool. Mike Huckabee seems like a nice fellow. Mitt Romney is not a robot. Republicans do have a Clinton obsession.
I watched the Republican debate last night (full transcript here), even though the odds on me voting for any of the R candidates is currently set at 1,993 : 1 at Mandalay Bay (surprisingly, Caesar's has me at only 1,100 : 1).
I'll spare you a recap of the 90 minute affair. Many of the arguments presented deserve discussion and a single debate can give a critical person like myself a few billion excuses to launch into a rant. I'm going to pass on that, though. Instead, I'm just going to share Four Things I Noticed. Not all of them are new developments or groundbreaking insights, but all were clearly illustrated during the Boca Raton talkfest.
ONE. TIM RUSSERT IS A TOOL. I'm sure that co-moderating a debate with Brian Williams is a Herculean challenge, so I don't want to be too critical. However, Tim Russert is a piece of shit in that role. Period. Did you hear his questions of the candidates? Sweet baby Jesus on a fixed income, they were pathetic.
"Do you trust Candidate X to be a tax cutter?" He tossed that one out to every candidate. Why would anyone ask that question? The answer is utterly predictable. The respondent will either ignore it completely before talking about his own position vis-a-vis taxation or the respondent will graciously commend his competitor for wanting to keep taxes down before launching into his own "I'm gonna cut 'em" speech. It's elementary. I suppose someone COULD say, "No, I think the guy is an untrustworthy POS", but the odds of that happening are probably hovering near the odds of me voting for Rudy911. Slim to fuckin' none.
Oh, and Russert also had the "Here's a long list of things that sucked during periods of Republican governance. Why should anyone trust a Republican and will you run on this record of abysmal failure?" thing. Look, I'm as anti-GOP as the bastard child of Keith Olberman and Cynthia McKinney. I think it might actually be sort of fun to beat Sean Hannity around the head and shoulders with the severed leg of Rush Limbaugh. Yet even I recognize that the Russert questions were too editorial and far too loaded.
Another great Russert moment: "I want each of you to take 30 seconds. Will you go to the country... and say the war was a good idea worth the price in blood and treasure, and we will stay?"
Thirty seconds. Was the war a good idea? Was it worth it? Will we stay in Iraq? Thirty seconds. The clock is ticking. Don't try to make any distinctions between the value of the objectives underlying the war and its actual execution. Don't bother discussing the difference between shorter terms costs and potential long term costs and benefits. Don't even try to figure out what the hell "will we stay" means in a nuts and bolts kind of way. You started with thirty seconds. Tick tock. You are out of time. The lights are blinking. Boy, aren't you flustered!
Tim Russert is a tool.
TWO: MIKE HUCKABEE SEEMS LIKE A NICE FELLOW. Hey, I'm not going to vote for Huckabee. I don't give a shit if Chuck Norris summons the ghosts of Bruce Lee and Charles Bronson and then comes to my house ready to "persuade me", but he seems like a genuinely nice guy.
I'd guess that I wouldn't feel comfortable with about 99.9% of Baptist preacher dudes who used to cook up squirrel in popcorn poppers. Huckabee, though, might be an exception. He'd be an okay neighbor.
He has a certain earnestness about him and he at least attempts to have a sense of humor about things. The whole deal about giving Romney's kids a better world and a larger inheritance with a Huckabee vote was over the top, but it was still funnier than Rudy911's attempt at humor (note: if you have to explain that you were joking, you are not funny).
I currently have a list of 369 reasons NOT to vote for Huckabee. Personality, however, is not among them.
THREE: MITT ROMNEY IS NOT A ROBOT. Much is being made about the magic whisper of "he raised taxes" that was audible just in time to help Mitt with an answer to a question about Ronnie Reagan's behavior in 1983. In case you missed it, Tim "the Tool" Russert mentioned that Romney (like every other Republican) had mentioned a love of the Gipper. He wondered if Romney would follow in His 1983 footsteps.
That was a sneaky little Russert trick because '83 was the year Reagan hopped up a few taxes in an effort to keep Social Security rolling along.
A voice out of nowhere appeared to help Romney, just in the nick of time. "He raised taxes", the magic voice uttered. Romney ran with the hint, giving a "I won't raise taxes" answer.
Some have maintained that a Romney aide blurted out the clue. Others think it might have been one of the other candidates chatting into an open mic. I'm sure someone thinks the answer emanated from Romney's magic underwear. Here's a post about the whisper that has over 100 commenters offering opinions. I tend to believe that it was Brian Williams or someone else on the MSNBC production team.
Based on my not-so-careful review of the matter, it was a network hand who piped up with a little extra information in order to create a (hopefully) more meaningful Q&A. That makes a lot more sense than believing Romney had a midget aide hiding under the lectern.
John Brown concludes that the magic whisper to Romney is a non-issue. Romney may be many different lame things, but he is not a cheating robot debater.
FOUR: REPUBLICANS DO HAVE A CLINTON OBSESSION. Did you happen to notice how many times Hillary Clinton's name was invoked last night? Seemed like plenty. Susan Davis at the Wall Street Journal says that Hillary received a whopping 29 mentions. My favorite was the "General Hillary Clinton" crap Romney was slinging.
Meanwhile, there was little or no discussion of Barack Obama. The individual who counted 16 "Clintons" came up with ZERO "Obamas". What does that mean?
Personally, I think it demonstrates that the Republicans believe raising the specter of Hillary is the best way to get their base all riled up and active. It also shows me that the Republicans have been planning on facing Clinton for awhile and may not be as ready to take on Obama.
Both of those notions could be considered reasons for Dems to back Barack, from a strategic sense. John Brown believes in selecting candidates on the merits of their positions and skills, as opposed to doing so on the basis of "electability", but the Republican hate of all things Clinton is an interesting point to ponder.
Quiz question: What do Mitt Romney and Bill Clinton have in common?
Answer: They both get pissed off when reporters won't play along with their bullshit.
Yesterday was awesome. Mitt Romney lost his temper after a reporter had the audacity to interrupt him, questioning him on his "I don't have a lobbyist running my campaign" statement. Meanwhile, Bill Clinton got a little testy with someone who dared to ask about the failed lawsuit filed by Hillary backers designed to kill the casino caucuses in Nevada.
Why was that awesome? Because it shows that people on both sides of the aisle are less than comfortable when someone challenges their statements.
Before I get into both of these incidents with greater detail, here's the takeaway for this post: Politicians are so comfortable in their ability to bullshit the public by means of the press that they actually get angry when reporters don't play along. I think it's reasonable to conclude that if more reporters would speak up when handed steaming piles of BS, we might see a drop in the overall level of BS. Just an idea.
ROMNEY WANTS US TO LISTEN CAREFULLY WHILE THINKING SLOPPILY...
Mitt Romney was on a roll. He was talking about the evils of politics as usual while patting himself on running a campaign that was not reliant on the love and money of special interest groups. He showed his disgust over a politics tainted by lobbying. He then reminded the crowd that he didn't have a lobbyist running his campaign. He was about to say something else distancing his campaign from those evil lobbyists when Glen Johnson interrupted him.
Glen thought the whole "no lobbyists" thing was sort of silly and a little less than honest. After all, Romney's campaign features many lobbyists in very public, if not downright critical, roles. Johnson expressed his reservations about Romney's statement by asking about Ron Kauffman, one of the lobbyists who does advise Mitt's campaign.
Romney, in turn, got a little flustered and a wee bit pissed off. Kauffman, you see, doesn't run his campaign. Romney reminded the gathering and Johnson that he said he didn't have a lobbyist running his campaign.
They went back and forth a little bit. The whole deal ended with Romney commanding, "Listen to my words".
In Mitt's defense, he doesn't have a lobbyist running his campaign. However, the argument that he was making during that speech was that he was above the fray and disassociated from the world of lobbyists. Though his precise statement was true, Johnson's observations certainly cut against the credibility of the larger argument.
Romney probably isn't as beholden to the special interest crowds as other candidates might be. I'll give him that. Of course, that probably has more to do with having more money than God than it does with Mitt's principles. However, pretending like you're anti-lobbyisust rings hollow when you have a collection of big-time lobbyists helping you on your way to the White House. I'm not just talking about Ron Kauffman here, either.
Here are a handful of the people working on the Romney campaign, lobbyists all...
Vin Weber. Weber is Romney's policy chairman. He's also one of the original "super lobbyists". The Washingtonian has him listed at #5 on the list of DC's most powerful lobbyists.
Warren Tomkins. Tomkins is Romney's South Carolina adviser. He's been on Mitt's payroll for months and there are questions about links between Tompkins and some political dirty pool involving Fred Tompson. (Note: why would anyone bother spending a dime to monkeywrench Thompson's half-assed non-factor of a campaign?)
Barbara Comstock. She's Romney's communication consultant. Comstock has a long history as a party hack and an equally long list of clients ranging from Comcast to Chiquita bananas.
Romney wants everyone to "listen to his words". If we do so with precision, we can agree that he doesn't have a lobbyist running his campaign. Folks like Tomkins, Comstock and Weber aren't tied for El Numero Uno on the organizational chart. If we listen to his argument, however, and then start looking at the people who are rubbing shoulders with him on a regular basis... Well, it doesn't really look like a candidate with a fierce opposition to lobbyists and their influence, does it?
My only wish is that Johnson had waited another ten seconds to interrupt Romney. I have a feeling that he was about to say something that would've complicated matters for him even more. He said "I don't have lobbyists who are tied--" right before the fireworks started.
WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS BETTER HELP HILLARY...
Mitt Romney's incident wasn't the only mini-outburst of the day. President Bill Clinton, who lately seems enamored with the idea of making former fans dislike him, got a little surly, too. When a Bay area reporter starting quizzing him about the Hillary-friendly Nevada lawsuit that would have killed the at-large casino caucuses, Bill did a little of the ol' "he who doth protest too much" thing.
He claimed that even asking him about the suit was "accusatory" because Bill & Hillary had nothing to do with it. He said that he found out about the lawsuit in the newspapers, again distancing himself from the filing. He then launched into a nicely packaged defense of the lawsuit and its merits. He followed up by telling the reporter that all of the people who supported the Nevada caucus rules had done so without really knowing how skewed the whole thing was. He concluded by arguing that anyone who had questions about the lawsuit needed to admit to being a giant asshole on TV.
Okay, that last part is a little exaggerated. Not much, though. Clinton actually told the reporter that if he was going to take a position critical of the suit, he needed to go on television and tell everyone that he didn't care about the home mortgage crisis and that he believed some people should get unfair opportunities and that those same people's votes should count five times more than anyone else's. Basically, as noted, he said "if you argue with Bill, you must admit to being a giant asshole".
Aside from the obvious flaws in President Clinton's argument (it is possible to care about ARMs and the housing market while simultaneously wondering if Hillary's campaign had a hand in the lawsuit), there are other problems with his reaction.
First, asking a question isn't inherently accusatory.
Second, even if it is an accusatory question, that doesn't mean that it doesn't deserve an answer.
Third, it does seem more than a little odd that Clinton & Clinton wouldn't have even known about the lawsuit unless the Hillary campaign is operated by dummies who don't pay attention to what's going on in states hosting quick-approaching caucuses.
Fourth, it seems strange that Bill knew nothing about the whole damn thing but seemed to be an Instant Expert when it came to the attitudes and knowledge of those who originally supported the state party's plans and the way that delegates would allegedly be distributed.
Fifth, the group that filed the failed suit has leadership that has publicly endorsed Hillary's campaigns.
Sixth, you can't possibly blame a reporter for asking the question when a Clinton-friendly lawsuit appears a few days before an election, seemingly out of the blue. I think the list could get longer, but you get the idea.
There are legitimate reasons to ask questions. Whether there is justification to get pissed and patronizing is another matter....
A DIFFERENT APPROACH TO Q&A...
I'm not saying Hillary and/or Bill masterminded the lawsuit any more than I'm saying that Romney is in the pocket of powerful lobbyists. The truth is undoubtedly somewhere between their bullshit statements and outright conspiracy. What I am saying is that journalists have a right and a responsibility to challenge people on these statements and to attempt to find something approximating the truth. I am saying that politicians shouldn't act as if they are above being questioned and they certainly shouldn't get pissed off because when the press isn't willing to give them a bye on their stump material.
I'm reminded of Stephen Colbert's appearance at the White House correspondent's dinner a few years ago. He attacked the media by stating:
"Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration? You know, fiction!"
The media deserves plenty of criticism of this sort. Generally speaking, the news people are happy to accept the crap they're handed, working hard only when they have an opportunity to create silly horse race stories or to fan the flames of a red/blue war they're trying to promote. The proof of that tendency is illustrated in the Romney/Clinton reaction to harder-than-usual questioning. These guys are so used to controlling the agenda that they lash out when things don't go according to plan.
A note to Bill Clinton and Mitt Romney: You shouldn't wag your finger in the faces of those who aren't willing to accept whatever you say as secular gospel. You shouldn't expect to have everyone believe everything you say every time you say it. You shouldn't lecture the press on being accusatory. There's a better alternative: stop making weak statements designed to spin and disguise the truth.
Oh, and when people ask you questions... Answer them honestly and directly. Thank them for giving you an opportunity to clarify and to amplify instead of cursing them for recognizing the scent of bullshit. If you do enough of that, you might even see some elections working in your favor.
Let it be known that John Brown is not a fan of Mitt Romney. That being said, I find John McCain's crock of shit misrepresentations of Romney's position on the war in Iraq a perfect example of all that is wrong about American political discourse and campaigning.
Wrapping up the debate:
