P.M. Carpenter

He said what?

After countless encounters with the American media's vapid political journalism, it's fair to assume that ABC News' online coverage of last night's conjurings is about par for the monotonous course: 

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, famous for rarely mincing words, prescribed a dose of tough medicine tonight in his keynote speech at the Republican National Convention, telling party delegates and the nation that the solutions to the country's economic ills "will not be painless."

... he said his success in New Jersey was a blueprint for other Republicans.

So Christie gave it to us straight, as ABC's words and my italics make clear? Sure reads that way. What speech, then, was the NY Times editorial board listening to?

Christie ... angrily demanded that the American people learn the hard truths about the two parties, but ... he failed to supply any. He said his state needed his austere discipline of slashed budgets, canceled public projects and broken public unions, but did not mention that New Jersey now has a higher unemployment rate than when he took over, and never had the revenue boom he promised from tax cuts.

Granted, that was an editorialization of what ABC News "objectively" reported. But how is what ABC reported "objective" or balanced, when the network simply regurgitated what Christie one-sidedly vomited? How, that is, can a "straight news" source overlook or just plain miss the fact that a certain pol, famous for rarely mincing words, prescribed tough and painful medicine without charting the tough, physically painful results?

No reader or viewer expects a politician to confess all the hard truths. The politician's job is to inflate himself and his policies into a towering mass of unimpeachable virtue, and then, without anyone noticing the segue, to disgracefully puncture body and soul and essential integrity with half-truths, distortions and lies.

Gov. Christie does this better than most. At large, the GOP does it best. And political journalists? They're supposed to take note of these things.

The tittering GOP convention

I just caught one live minute of the Republican convention, which was enough to persuade me that further viewing would be unnecessarily menacing to my blood pressure. The minute was John Boehner's, who was riffing, tellingly enough, on excluding certain folks from a bar, which then culminated in a Boehner-belittlement with the "You didn't build that" line.

The crowd, of course, laughed and cheered.

They never tire of being naughty. They're like members of some sort of political daycare--snickering toddlers making merry, pointing and tittering, knowing they know better but just can't help themselves. They're being cute.

Later tonight will come the immense offensiveness of Chris Christie--I don't need that--and then will come the perky, labored "likability" of Ann Romney, which I need even less.

I'll permit them their giggles tonight, and for the next two nights. Have fun and good luck, boys and girls. You're going to need it beginning next week.

***

p.s.: It so happens that tonight I had planned anyway on reading more of Wallace's Infinite Jest. Coincidence? I think not.

Mitt Romney, already screwing his own

I guess Mitt Romney figures, What the hell, who knows, I might actually win this thing--but then what?--there's no way the grassroots are ever going to renominate me, so I'd better rig the rules now.

That's the condensed version. Here's the grassroots version.

This is classic Romney. He's rolling the base before they even hoist him on their shoulders.

Isaac: Obama mishandled all of it!

The difference between the "liberal media"'s critical coverage of President Bush's response to Katrina and the right-wing media's coming critical coverage of President Obama's response to Isaac is that the latter is being written pre-storm. 

Killing the Big Lies

Subsequent to observing for the 6,570th time (to save you the math, that's three times a day, for six years) that Mitt Romney & Co. is a lying, slanderous hunk of the extravagant double-standard and swindling bugaboo, Greg Sargent somewhat more gently notes that

the Romney campaign continues to pose a test to the news media and our political system. What happens when one campaign has decided there is literally no set of boundaries that it needs to follow when it comes to the veracity of its assertions? The Romney campaign is betting that the press simply won’t be able to keep voters informed about the disputes that are central to the campaign, in the face of the sheer scope and volume of dishonesty it uncorks daily.

In this election, that's my problem with Dudley Do-Right correction squads. They're magnificently ineffective.

A poorly informed electorate manages to hear (on rare occasion, read) that there are raging disputes between the partisan sides but it can't make heads or tails of who's right and who's wrong so it settles the whole disputatious situation by re-tuning out and just staying home. One side says this, the other side says that, the first side corrects, the second side reasserts, the original party of the first part protests that the party of the second part is deliberating "misinterpreting" the first party's position and before long there's crap flying everywhere and no one's listening.

The electorate has experienced corrections galore, but who cares?

No, in this election the responsible news media would merely but consistently note that there hasn't been this much right-wing horsehshit thrown around since the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei "campaigned" for Reichstag seats in 1932.

I've noticed Howard Dean has taken to calling Romney-GOP tactics "Stalinist," which I guess Gov. Dean thinks is acceptable language in American political discourse, whereas "Goebbelsesque" is not. Dear Howard: I say why not go all the way and at least get it right? The uncontaminated German, European and American press (by the way I highly recommend the somewhat relevant Hitlerland, by Andrew Nagorski) spent a lot of column space uncovering Goebbels & Friends through factual corrections. It did no good. The press should have devoted its energies only to burying them as the vicious, grotesque liars they were.

I cannot emphasize this too strongly or authentically or even eccentrically: the GOP's fascistic tactics of the Big Lie must be smothered in their cradle, now, or they'll kill American democracy, later. 

If only Brooks' satire were genuine

I would think David Brooks' satire hilarious if I didn't also know he'll soon be back in Mitt Romney's corner as a cutman.

Brooks just can't give it up; he can't quit the absurd idea that Republicanism is somehow related to conservatism. So he hangs on.

If Brooks really wished to shake things up, he'd announce that he is unequivocally through--through with the Republican Party and all of its unending incarnations of wackjob Palinism and nutso Cainism and demented Norquistism and radical Ryanism and vicious Foxism and on and on and on.

Brooks could purify himself by formally separating from the Great Ideological Whore. But this, of course, he won't do. He simply cannot take that Kierkegaardian leap of faith, which is indeed reserved, I gather, for only the authentically philosophical.

About that 10-year Romney Plan ...

Question: Not that the resident sorcerers at the Romney-Ryan coven could answer this (or would answer it honestly), but wouldn't 65-year-olds in 2013 (let's dismiss for now all that 55-and-older stuff) be subject to a President Romney's Medicare voucherization when they turn 75 in 2023?

The presiding fantasy harrumphed by the Romney camp is that nothing changes for current seniors. Everything stays the same, although, as the Center for American Progress points out, it doesn't. But let's assume that's true. Let's assume that seniors on Medicare continue enjoying Medicare precisely as it's configured today. What happens in 10 years, though, when Medicare is voucherized? Would not the 75-year-old, who once thought he or she had a remaining lifetime of pristinely preserved Medicare, be subject to the newcomers' voucherization?

I have read nothing, seen nothing, heard nothing from the Romney-Ryan campaign that suggests that seniors in 2013 would receive a privileged carve-out from Medicare's ghettoization 10 years later. As a result (although under a Romney administration there would be less odds of this) some seniors reaching the age of 75 in 2023 could be looking at another 10 or 20 years not of traditional Medicare but of voucherized and thus far costlier Medicare.

Right? Or am I wrong? Did I somehow miss Romney's promise of a carve-out? Would not long-living seniors be subject to more years under voucherization than under presently structured Medicare? Romney and Ryan promise current seniors that they can stay on "traditional Medicare" if they like; but in 10 years, wouldn't all "traditional Medicare" perforce be voucherized? I've read nothing about a two-tier Medicare program in 2023: one virtually guaranteed, as is, by government, and the other, voucherized.

In other words, today's 65-year-old who lives to 95 would spend roughly 10 years on traditional Medicare and 20 years on its increasingly costlier voucherized form. Right? I stand ready to be corrected. 

Another morning in America of corporate efficiency

Yep. Internet's been out again. This time, though, the p.r. geniuses at Mediacom got innovative. They plastered a message on their "customer service" line that said, in effect, Yeah yeah we know we have the crappiest service anywhere this side of the Andromeda star system, but we're not permitting you to remind us of that salient fact today--Call some other time, chump.

"Jennifer Rubin: Conservative Intellectual"

You've simply got to read Jennifer Rubin's piece in which she pretends to anguish that Mitt Romney's greatest challenge is choosing between "Ronald Reagan’s growth message that lifted him to victory in 1980" and Paul Ryan's " 'recent [obsession] about entitlement debt bombs and deficit reduction.' "

In Jennifer's Republican-perfected cosmos, there of course must have been some exculpatory method behind the angelic Ryan's madness. And aren't we all relieved to find that indeed there was: "Part of this was a proactive strike at the Democrats," observes the sleuthing Rubin, "whom they knew would play the Mediscare card against Romney-Ryan." (Insert hiss here.)

But not to worry. Jennifer dives into an orgy of name-dropping and comes up grasping consultations with and calls to and emails from "the quintessential pro-market, pro-growth Republican" Larry Kudlow and "fiscal conservative" Grover Norquist and the Club for Growth's Barney Keller and "conservative economist" Doug Holtz-Eakin, all of whom assure Ms. Rubin that "her fear is unfounded."

I'll abridge Ms. Rubin's relief: Mr. Ryan will postpone the national debt's extermination until Day Two, thus permitting Mr. Romney to achieve full employment on Day One.

However. Jennifer. Concludes. "The Republicans' economic message is not simplistic"--which is one of those Rubinesque proclamations intended to shamelessly dazzle so as to shortcircuit the neuro-impulse to drool. No, it is not "simplistic," intones Rubin, it is "necessary."

And there you have it, my weekly snapshot of "Jennifer Rubin: Conservative Intellectual," at work and at play.

Brokaw's insights

The taxidermied Tom Brokaw is slurring more nonsense about Mitt Romney as a traditional-kind-of-Republican-guy on Lawrence O'Donnell's show as I write. Tom isn't sure, for instance, that Romney meant to resurrect the birther issue last week. Ulterior motives? Mmmm. Could be. But Tom doubts it.

I remain confident about the ultimate outcome of this GOP-degraded presidential campaign, but I'm not sure I can successfully cope with two more months of such vapid Beltway "analysis." I feel the trigger-happy, television-blasting ghost of Elvis Presley upon me. And one more Brokaw appearance just might do it.

Please, Lawrence, I'm begging you, for everyone's sake and sanity. Keep that tedious bore of a Beltway banality off your show.

A depressing dichotomy

The latest CNN/Time/ORC poll can only be explained by the ineradicable correlation of age and racism in America. While Obama-Biden lead Romney-Ryan in Florida by 4 points among all likely voters and 9 points among registered voters,

among voters 50 years old and older ... Obama and Biden and Ryan and Romney are essentially tied, with the Republican presidential team leading 49 percent to 47 percent. But among Floridians under 50, Obama and Biden lead 54 percent to 41 percent.

There is no rational basis rooted in self-interest or coherent policy preferences to explain this generational dichotomy. Notwithstanding their protests of virtuous concern for the elderly, Romney-Ryan would hang Damocles' sword over Medicare from Day One, and their material assault on Medicaid--which is nearly as critical to seniors' welfare as Medicare--would be just as instantaneous, assuming a pliable Congress, which is easily assumable if one allows for an electorate so demented as to elect Romney-Ryan.

That, I do not assume. I only wished to note the irrationality embedded in Romney-Ryan's core age demographic, the 50+.

Whatever it takes, right back atcha

E.J. Dionne:

Through all his transformations since 1994 ... Romney has seemed more a politician who would do whatever it took to close a deal than a leader driven by conviction and commitment.

There's an excellent reason for this. Romney is a politician who will do whatever it takes.

That accusation, in politics, is usually a trope, a cliche, just more garden-variety spin. But in Mitt Romney's politics, it's the man himself--from his strained cadences of hemorrhaging insincerity to his thespian incredulity at the horrors of Obamaism to his imitation indignation at the latter's politics of "division and anger and hate."

Mitt Romney performing on the stump is like an animatronics designer's monstrous idea of a three-way cross between P.T. Barnum, Joseph Goebbels and Eddie Haskell. To watch it is sort of amusing, but simultaneously "disconcerting" and just downright sickening. Mostly sickening. And what sickens most is that Gov. Romney & Friends have brought American politics to its most squalid depths since ... oh hell, this may be unprecedented.

I'm sure Mr. Dionne would prefer to discuss the various reform angles of some major policy issue, or perhaps philosophically explore the fundamental tensions and agreements of Burkean conservatism and Rooseveltian liberalism. I know I would.

But we can no longer get there; we can only retaliate, a la Chris Matthews.

Several readers alerted me to this morning's Matthews-Priebus showdown, which I have since watched. I imagine MSNBC's staff is still mopping up Priebus' blood. Matthews' sustained, five-minute assault was a ferociously righteous crusade that would have once been labeled "shrill," but is now deemed only necessary.

There will be more of it, much more, and from many others. Why? Because it's increasingly clear that Mitt Romney & Friends are but demagogic thugs who are indeed willing to do whatever it takes to win.  But we've seen the newsreels. It can't, and won't, happen here.

Romney's stylemap to prosperity

The article's headline, "Mitt Romney outlines his governing plan to POLITICO," is grossly misleading, although what follows is more than just vaguely familiar.

In Politico's interview Romney outlines no "plan" at all; a style, maybe, a style universally imitated by freshly minted MBAs looking to impress the universal jadedness of Wall Street, but not a plan.

What's Romney's plan style? Are you ready for this David Mamet script--a federal government by Glengarry Glen Ross?

You asked for it:

Romney is who he is, he boldly proclaims, and he "pledged to bring corporate order to the West Wing" and he "sees life, business and governing as an exercise in problem-solving" and "He would take a hands-on, CEO approach to the job."

And there you have it. Herbert Hoover, white shirt, black tie, perfectly pressed trousers, at your door, peddling the practical wisdom of a very sincere confidence man.

That's it. That's the plan, or, at least, the stylistic roadmap. 

One drop, lights out

Once again Mediacom went down and stayed down. Last night it rained, you see.

The sky can thunder and fall and yet the incompetent mail still comes, the incompetent police and incompetent firefighters remain at the ready, incompetent teachers still teach, the incompetent Army and incompetent Navy plummet not into unpreparedness, and those incompetently socialistic security checks go out like clockwork.

But God forbid a cloud should pass over the private sector's glittering competence. A bit of moisture here, a few drops there, and it's over and out.

My little Leni Riefenstahl, converted

So I take my daughter to see "Sparkle," which doesn't, because of incongruities and unquestioned questionable ethics and plot holes you could lose a Buick in, but I didn't know that going in and the NY Times was able to live with it so I figured what the hell and anyway I'm the world's worst father who feeds his uncomplaining child a diet of hotdogs and cold cereal for dinner so I also figured I owe her at least this much. So I go.

But all that wasn't the real problem with, and happier resolution of, my Sunday matinee experience.

As we pulled into the theatre's parking lot we both were taken aback at the crowd. Cars everywhere, 1:30 in the afternoon. So what's the big release this weekend? I asked my daughter. Nothing she knew of, but I had my doubts that Middle America had been suddenly gripped by '68 Motown fever.

As we then advanced to the box office, I noticed one of the theatre's posters: profile of a sinister-looking Barack Obama, with the smaller print informing us that "2016: Obama's America"--"co-directed by conservative author [and certified cretin] Dinesh D'Souza!"--contains pretty much everything that the sinister Mr. Obama doesn't want us to know.

So we make it to the ticket-vending kid, and I start booming, "Ah, so this immense crowd is here for the Obama-hating hoedown, huh? What we have here is the Glenn Beck asylum on a Sunday outing?" This--and I ask for no forgiveness; it was as though we were in Nuremberg, ca. 1934--naturally embarrassed my 13-year-old daughter to no end, although the ticket kid grinned a bit and sympathetically nodded in gentle agreement.

Later, over cheeseburgers at O'Charley's, I tenderly explained to my daughter that those afternoon "theatre"-goers possessed every Constitutional right to fill their dense noggins with vile, lying, Riefenstahl propaganda if they wanted. But I too possessed a First Amendment right to lodge vocal disgust at voluntary imbeciles.  

In time she grudgingly seemed to find some merit in this argument. If so, then even if the afternoon didn't exactly sparkle, it was worth it.