Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Where is Sarah When We Need Her?

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by

Peter Galuszka
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By Peter Galuszka

It seems so underwhelming. There was the hurricane that went elsewhere. A retrograde platform. A vice presidential candidate in search of a fact checker. A lame speech by POTUS-to-be. Even Clint Eastwood couldn’t make our day.

Flash back four years. John McCain stunned the nation with Sarah Palin, the tough hockey mom from Alaska  who seemed so downright fresh and sexy even if she didn’t know even the basics about foreign or domestic policy.

This week,  by contrast, we got a lot of milquetoast nice-guy platitudes about Mitt Romney, Mr. Excitement if there was one. If you got past the female speakers such Nikki Haley or Susana Martinez, you’d realize that the Republican platform would take things back to pre-1970s days, skewer women’s Constitutional rights and put homosexuals back in the closet. Speaking of the 1970s, they even want to take us back to the gold standard and undo Richard Nixon. How weird is that?

A smooth speaker, Haley served up non issues such as the big, bad labor unions that need to be kept in place and the crying need for new voter identification. I don’t know how things are in South Carolina, other than the Boeing flipple, but unions are much weaker than ever and Americans have a right to organize. Voter ID is a non issue. There is no evidence of widespread fraud but there is meat behind the complaint that the new campaign is designed to keep minorities and the poor from having their votes cast. Don’t believe me? Ask the U.S. District Court judges in Washington who shut down Texas’s voter ID law yesterday.

We had Paul Ryan blaming Barack Obama for shutting down a Wisconsin factory before he even took office. No big deal. I went to a New Kent County Tea Party rally two years ago and was intrigued to learn that Obama was to blame for the big bank bailout. The hard right — and our “Young Gun” — really need to check their facts. As for Romney himself, let’s just say I didn’t need to take an ambien Thursday night.

What about our Virginia boys? Zippo. Not only was Gov. Bob McDonnell left off the vice presidential list, he was nowhere to be found even though he gave a pretty good (at least substantive) speech that was not picked up by network TV. He was barely mentioned otherwise in the national media. Instead, we got Chris Christie whose ego is even larger than his abdominal girth. Did he mention Romney? I just can’t remember.

Four years ago, the Republicans gave us a lot of verve and excitement with McCain and Palin. She might have been a disaster but she sure was a fun disaster. Now we have The Book of Mormon.

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  1. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    what the GOP SHOULD have done – Rubio, followed by that very well done movie, followed by Romney.

    Instead they put Eastwood and “make my day” in the middle.

    of course, it’s easy to Monday Morning Quarterback on this stuff.

    but what concerns me to no end is that both Romney and Ryan are fearless in their lying.

    they are not just shading the truth… they are basically changing the history of things like when a GM plant actually closed – and when you call them on it – they look you straight in the eye and say “that’s how I see it”.

    And.. it’s working. There are apparently more and more people who really don’t care what the facts are – only what they want to believe.

    Ryan voted for two wars, Medicare Part D (and part C), tax cuts, the auto bailout, the bank bailout, and the stimulus – all of which ended up with a trillion dollar deficit – but it’s Obama’s fault…

    the truth is that the only thing that Obama actually added was the stimulus and it was a one-shot deal and did not add to the structural deficit but if you believe the GOP – Obama has added 5 trillion to the debt because he was President while the unchanged budget and deficit continued to add to the debt and he did not stop it.

  2. TMT Avatar
    TMT

    Way to go, Peter. You’re back in the “photo” business.

    Larry, Investors Business Daily just caught the WaPo’s “fact checker,” Glenn Kessler, and others lying. http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/083012-624188-so-called-fact-checks-disguise-media-liberal-agenda.htm?src=HPLNews The Post has good reporters, but the editorial staff is pure s%&(.

  3. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    re: fact checking

    I agree and one should always use more than one source – AND make sure the sources are not quoting each other!

    but I have yet to see the statement that Obama made and I’m betting he did caveat it because he knew that not every plant could be saved and that saving GM would require closing some plants.

    common sense would tell you this also but what was the purpose of Ryan bringing it up in the first place? I think what Ryan did was dishonest and done to deceive JUST like the Medicare deal.

    No Medicare recipient is losing ANY benefits at all and that’s the important bottom line that Romney and Ryan are deceptively portraying wrongly.

    look at their commercials where they have older people complaining about cuts to their benefits…

    The GOP is engaging in a deceptive lying campaign where they can come back and talk about technical word distinctions but the overall goal of their message is to plant fundamentally false concepts in people’s minds.

    they did this with the “promised” jobs from stimulus; they’re doing this with “you did not build that” .. and this is not some side talk – this is repeated over and over on prime time TV.

    and .. it’s working.. the GOP has learned that most people are simply too lazy to really look into the facts so they’ll believe something if it is said over and over and by different people, Ryan, Romney, Rubio, Gingrich, etc… they’re on a script and people are believing it.

  4. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    there was no explicit promise:

    ” The Detroit News pointed out that Obama made no such promise in the February 13, 2008, speech, and indeed, we’ve seen no account suggesting that Obama did. Here is the quote at issue, according to an account kept by the Council on Foreign Relations:

    “I know that General Motors received some bad news yesterday, and I know how hard your governor has fought to keep jobs in this plant. But I also know how much progress you’ve made — how many hybrids and fuel-efficient vehicles you’re churning out,” Obama said. “And I believe that if our government is there to support you, and give you the assistance you need to re-tool and make this transition, that this plant will be here for another hundred years.””

    http://articles.cnn.com/2012-08-30/politics/politics_pol-fact-check-ryan-gm_1_gm-plant-president-obama-barack-obama

    this is similar to what any politician might say – like Bob McDonnell or Romney.

    The bigger question is why Ryan said what he said in the way he said it – it’s deceptive.

    AND – why do you folks believe Ryan without checking the original Obama statement?

  5. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    You know, there are indeed substantial issues worthy of honest debate and for Romney and Ryan to promote an alternative path – to lay their vision and show how it’s a better approach for the country.

    but what we are getting is, not only a war of “he said” words but they are basically fib… misrepresentations and just lies…

    and they are not just random asides in the speeches – they are repeated almost verbatim – over and over in campaign venues, in campaign ads and in the media – despite the fact that most are shown to be whoppers.

    Now, my question is, why would anyone want people who do this – to run the country?

    Why would anyone who purports to be a person of good character support these guys who have made lying a central theme of their campaign ?

    this is beyond me. I COULD and I HAVE voted for Republicans. Most of them, I admit are now classified as RINOs as I have never been an admirer of the hard right even before it got even more virulent and full of hate.

    I absolutely cringe when I hear the far left blather on about the purpose of govt but now days – the GOP’s fiscally conservative, socially moderate soul has been all but obliterated by the far right – and make no mistake about this – when you have a person with a socially moderate history – like Romney – ally himself with someone like Ryan and both of them repeat over and over – things that are clearly not the truth and at the same time are catnip to the right – we are in trouble .

    Would Jeb Bush or Chris Christie have picked Ryan or repeated lie after lie over and over?

    I bet not. I bet there still are some principled conservatives out there who don’t lie and he will compromise to move the country forward. But not Romney/Ryan who are basic zombies with the right wing operating them like ventriloquist dummies.

    If this is what people what to lead the country.. all I can say is that we are in trouble as a country.

  6. TMT Avatar
    TMT

    Interesting commentary from Steve Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2012/08/22/put-uncle-sam-on-weightwatchers-and-the-economy-will-expand/

  7. DJRippert Avatar
    DJRippert

    Great bumper sticker down here in Destin, FL:

    “In 2008 I voted for Obama to prove I’m not racist. In 2012 I’ll vote for Romney to prove I’m not stupid.”

    1. Richard Avatar
      Richard

      Destin may as well be in Alabama. Sounds like it.

  8. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    TMT – boom after WWII = GI Bill for education and housing.

    right?

    I’m almost agnostic when it comes to taxes and tax rates. They ought to be fair and not any more onerous than necessary but most important, they must be enough to pay for the spending you approved.

    That’s what is so bizarre about the folks like Ryan right now. He approved virtually all of the spending that now comprises our budget and deficit but now he has become a tax-cutting “believer” who decries the nations debt – as he should – but he ignores his own role in it AND he refuses to actually do something to pay for it other than attacking entitlements.

    re: Stupid Racism… Anyone who voted for Obama to prove they were not a racist – were idiots …who prove they vote for the WRONG reasons – which is what you’d do right now if you think Ryan is a true fiscal conservative. His record is clear. He got “religion” after the Tea Party came along and his balanced budget proposal is so bogus as to be hilarious.

    Cutting taxes BELOW what they were under Clinton AND Reagan at the same time you have a structural deficit and 16 trillion worth of debt is just plain irresponsible in my book.

    of the 16 trillion, Obama is directly responsible for about a trillion – the stimulus.

    All the rest of it was voted for BEFORE he became President by Congress INCLUDING Mr. Ryan, who, as I said, voted for every single thing that now comprises the deficit and debt.

    Voting for this guy as a tax-cutting fiscal conservative is what I’d called “stupid”. If you want to vote for him, go for it, but at least admit what you are voting for …. 🙂

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