May 16, 2013

Why didn't Romney... why didn't the Republicans... root out these Obama scandals before the last election?

Why wasn't the opposition party oppositional enough? Where was the supervision? Why did Romney crumple mid-attack in the second debate? Where was the vigilance? Where was the vigor? Where was the outrage? The American people were deprived of a fair election, and the Republicans — who presumably wanted to get the President's hands off the machinery of power — didn't see what was being done or they didn't want to talk about it or — to voice the last and paranoid-sounding option — they were complicit.

Here's a list — to be lengthened — of things that might have happened:

1. The President's machinations were so devious and brilliant and that it was just too hard for the Republicans to uncover them in time to enlighten the voters.

2. The Republicans had good reason to believe that the American people resisted thinking ill of the famously likeable President and so they pursued campaign strategies that allowed people to maintain this treasured belief. Their idea was: He's a nice guy but it would be good to switch to this other person who's also nice and will do an even better job. That's lame, we can see in retrospect, but it was the decision at the time.

3. The Democrats' theme was the meanness of Republicans, and muckracking and mudslinging would have risked reinforcing that theme. It seemed like a better bet to stay clean, especially once the scrappier candidates — Gingrich and Santorum — lost out to the gentlemanly Romney.

4. Obama's prime target was the Tea Party (which had crushed him in the 2010 midterms), and the establishment Republicans were at odds with the Tea Party movement. I'm not saying I believe this, but sober reflection tells us we need to redraw the line between paranoia and vigilance. The theory is that establishment Republicans appreciated the suppression of the Tea Party.

177 comments:

James said...

The 4th reason is quite plausible; note that Mitch McConnell is saying there's more to come and that he knew of some of the problems with the Tea Party and IRS long before the November elections.

MayBee said...

Many of them were brought up. They were ignored and/or mocked.

People like Althouse instead wanted Mitt Romney to do things like denounce people who overplayed the Obamaphone video. That and war on women took up the press' attention.

Matt Sablan said...

It is fairly simple: Romney, like John McCain, wanted to run a clean, fair election. Remember McCain paying for an ad to congratulate Obama on the night of Obama's acceptance of the nomination?

McCain, remember, took Jeremiah Wright off the table. Republicans tried to play clean, and got rewarded for it.

As for why the scandals didn't come out: There just was not a critical mass of them at a point where whistleblowers were coming out. This was just the dam finally bursting.

Freeman Hunt said...

If the press stonewall you and treat everything you say as absurd, it's rather difficult to bring anything to light.

All of this is only a big deal now because of what the government did to the AP. The news was attacked, so suddenly the news cares.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

3. Mudslinging. Like when a democrat hack accused Romney of giving his wife cancer?
Or perhaps it was Romney's war on women?


(Hey GOP - Perhaps you should showcase the Progressive Democrat war on live babies. Obama's gives 100% approval on Late Term Abortion.)
It would be accurate and truthful.

Q: Why is the GOP so afraid to fight?
A: Our pathetic in-the-tank pro-democrat hack media, that's why.

We also need to define Progressive over and over again.

Progressive: A Radical leftwing extremist who operates outside of the law.

damikesc said...

If they did mention them, nobody would believe it. Tea Partiers had mentioned their IRS issues and nobody believed them.

Bob Ellison said...

Matthew Sablan has it right. Romney happens to be an unusually honorable and charitable person; that was his biggest flaw as a candidate.

Freeman Hunt said...

If they did mention them, nobody would believe it. Tea Partiers had mentioned their IRS issues and nobody believed them.

Exactly. This was why I asked the other day if talking about politics actually changed anything. Legitimate concerns were treated as crackpot ideas. There was no getting through the press wall. They're only now taking it down.

Robert Cook said...

Does anyone really believe, even now, that Romney has ever been anything but a massive tool, a hollow man bereft of a single quality, or that he would have been anything but a shitty president?

Not that Obama is preferable or any less a massive tool or a hollow man. The truth is, we had no choice in the last election if we were choosing only between the two major parties. This is how they want it, this is how it has been for far too long. And this is how it will continue...until it gets worse.

Shanna said...

Legitimate concerns were treated as crackpot ideas.

And still are. I saw a Jon Stewart clip from a few days ago that STILL said the Bengazi concerns were crazy.

He complained about the IRS/AP stuff but it was in a 'dammnit, now we have to work even harder for people to believe govt is so awesome' vein.

We could say 5. the IRS chilling hampered some of the exact groups who might have brought this stuff to light.

Ann Althouse said...

"There just was not a critical mass of them at a point where whistleblowers were coming out. This was just the dam finally bursting."

How convenient for all the scandals to wait to burst forth!

When inanimate abstractions do favors for human beings, I assume human beings are responsible.

MayBee said...

I believe Romney is one of the best-suited men for the Presidency in my lifetime.

test said...

The American people were deprived of a fair election

I don't believe this. These scandals don't show anything more than we already knew about Obama.

The truth is the people who want the checks to keep coming are going to vote for the left no matter what. Many of this group believe they are moderates or persuadable. But in fact they will grasp at any excuse to justify their vote. And the function of the leftist media is not to persuade but merely to deliver that excuse.

LilyBart said...


Think about this - with Obamacare, the government is now in control of our healthcare.

I have been concerned since the beginning that they will politicize our healthcare: what gets funded, who gets treatment, etc. Nothing that has happened in the years since Obamacare was passed has made me less concerned - I feel more certain this will be the result.

The press has become the propaganda wing of big government. People who try to fill the gap they've left get taken down by the press and by the politicians.

Can this be stopped?

MayBee said...

The IRS lied to Congress when Congress asked about it.

Matt Sablan said...

Well, it kind of is human. The Benghazi whistleblowers finally had a forum to come through, right when the IRS decided to release its internal report on their problems, all while the AP caught wind of Justice's subpoenas. Any one of those in isolation could've been buried as a "distraction" from the recent "hard pivot" or "laser-like focus" on jobs, but all together?

Charlie Currie said...

The so called free press would have scoffed and laughed, all you would have heard was racist.

Who's really paying attention now.

Cheers

Robert Cook said...

"Progressive: A Radical leftwing extremist who operates outside of the law."

No. A "progressive" is a lackey to the Wall Street elites just as much as are the Republicans, but he whispers sweet words of seduction to the Democrats so they can feel less compromised voting for someone who will fuck them as badly as will the right-wing dickbags.

Henry said...

I think 2, 3, and 4 are all right on target.

I would add a 5th, more general point, that the evidence on Benghazi and the IRS corruption was muddy at best. The administration succeeded at stonewalling, which is hardly a surprise. Stonewalling generally works.

With the evidence muddy, both of these scandals were hard to press. To push hard on Benghazi would seem to exploit a tragedy. Exploiting tragedy turns out to not be such a great approach. To push hard on the IRS would be to admit weakness. No party ever gets sympathy votes for complaining about the press, or being outspent, and without hard facts, complaining about IRS shenanigans would look about the same.

Again: Stonewalling works. Until it doesn't.

Robert Cook said...

"I believe Romney is one of the best-suited men for the Presidency in my lifetime."

What are you, 10 years old...or younger?

test said...

Ann Althouse said...
"There just was not a critical mass of them at a point where whistleblowers were coming out. This was just the dam finally bursting."

How convenient for all the scandals to wait to burst forth!


Of course the press was protecting Obama. And now they're getting it out so when the next Democrat runs he's not tainted.

LilyBart said...

John Adams wrote,

"While the People are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their Virtue they will be ready to surrender their Liberties to the first external or internal Invader.... If Virtue & Knowledge are diffused among the People, they will never be enslavd [sic]."

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Cookie- No one cares about your anti-capitalist bullcrap.

Progressive: A radical leftwing extremist who operates outside of the law.

Hillary is a progressive.

Media Matters is a progressive organization.

Progressive: Radical leftwing extremist who operates outside of the law.

damikesc said...

When inanimate abstractions do favors for human beings, I assume human beings are responsible.

They are. The media wants to reclaim their mantle of being "objective" and since their idol no longer has to face the voters, attacking him NOW makes a ton of sense.

If this came out last September or October, they'd have ignored it --- just as they have done with Benghazi the entire time.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

What Freeman said.

Kind of like how I won't post anything political on Facebook, despite a strong desire to show some reality to my leftist bubble friends, unless it comes from the WaPo or NYT. Different perspectives, no matter how logical or well-researched they are, are automatically dismissed as wingnut moonbattery unless it comes from a source that lefties see as respectable. Of course their definition of respectable leaves a lot to be desired.

pm317 said...

Ann, your next bullet should be that the things that are coming to light are so egregious nobody thought that they would happen in AMERICA. A little corruption here and there but wholesale thuggery, nah.. So it was not the lack of vigilance but a belief that the government would not stoop to this level. This is robbery in broad daylight, under your very own nose.

Lot of people were pushed to silence because Chicago-style thuggery. Woodward crying foul about the WH guy threatening him takes on a new meaning now, doesn't it?

And where was the press to help the citizenry in being vigilant?

Cowering under fear (some, perhaps), footlicking, asswarming the president.

Bob Ellison said...

Henry said "the evidence on Benghazi and the IRS corruption was muddy at best."

That's true for the IRS corruption, certainly, and it's true for BenghaziGate for 90% of the electorate. But the Nakoula YouTube fiction was obvious from the get-go for many of us. What a ridiculous story! I remember checking right at the time Obama and Hillary started blaming the video, probably around September 17 or so, and finding that the video in question had about 10,000 hits on YouTube. A snail riding on a turtle's back could have ten times that many and still not go viral!

The press keeps saying the big scandal is IRSGate. Chuck Todd said on The Today Show this morning that it is clear that "campaign politics" were not involved in BenghaziGate, and that the only scandal that really matters is IRSGate, because it undermines faith in government. He of course received those talking points, quite literally, from the White House. That's how press releases work. Why does he, why do so many in the MSM, still report them so stupidly, with no sign of skepticism?

All of these scandals are big, but BenghaziGate is still huge. Obama won the election on a lie.

traditionalguy said...

Inanimate abstractions are sometimes called leadership charismas.

Some have it, and some do not. Obama had it and Romney did not.

These scandals were ignored because they made Obama look like an incompetent or an enemy of the people, and the Journalists loved the man from the bottom of their hearts.

But that love has turned on a dime. It makes me wonder if anything but an inanimate abstraction could suddenly changed the journalists' minds?

Cody Jarrett said...

Good friend of mine was trying to convince me of number 4 yesterday. I resisted, but weakly.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gahrie said...

The theory is that establishment Republicans appreciated the suppression of the Tea Party.

I find this easy to believe....

MayBee said...

Breitbart and Stranahan were excoriated for their Pigford investigation. Not many people are as brave as they are/were.

Anonymous said...

More likely 4, but it takes quite some time for actual evidence to come to light. You really need some media support for this to happen and encourage more people with stories to share.

Until recently the climate has been toxic for Obama critics. The accusation of racism is only milliseconds away.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Romney was a good man, is a good man, but he wasn't the right man to face the mob and the mob's water carriers.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Whoever has the balls to run against the queen liar Hillary! will need to understand fully that the progressive liars in the media will be out for blood.



MadisonMan said...

Aren't second terms almost always dragged down by scandal?

Matt Sablan said...

They usually are dragged down by scandals, but rarely, are they done so in such a magnificent trifecta: Foreign policy/national security, fundamental trust in government, and the First Amendment -- something for everyone to be upset over!

Tibore said...

"Why didn't Romney... why didn't the Republicans... root out these Obama scandals before the last election?"

Well, two things:

1. Too many believers would've just written it off to political mudslinging.

2. And really, who wants to win as "least worst"? Even knowing the corruption of the Chicago political machine, I'd still rather a candidate ran on what positives he brought. Part of the reason we respect Reagan was because he stood for ideals. And we'd rather have a President who could inspire instead of one who'd be the last man standing in a Washington bitchslap match. It's unfortunately the thing that got Obama elected - finding ideals appealing, even if they're illusionary - and says something bad about the voting populace when they're willing to discard reality for the appeal, but it's less distasteful than welcoming Machiavellianism. Again, Reagan: The idealism wasn't illusionary, nor was it a façade. It's possible to elect a genuinely inspiring politician who's not a mask over a plain-old politico, it's just that the liberal voters chose style over substance these last 2 elections. But I'd still rather vote for someone rather than against them, and lowering themselves to a mudslinging campaign would've lost me.

Now of course, the ideal would've been to both expose the corruption AND stand for ideals and positive vision. But let's be honest: That's not the way politics get played out nowadays. Something would've dragged the campaign down. While I hate that the election was lost and this administration was inflicted on us, at least it'll serve some good as a lesson to voters.

HA said...

The Republicans were complicit, Althouse? WTF? The GOP tried to raise these issues but the media protects (and is still protecting) Obama. The media was and still is complicit, not the GOP.

pm317 said...


Blogger MadisonMan said...

Aren't second terms almost always dragged down by scandal?
------------

Yeah, that is the lefty argument.. as if things are happening as predicted for no fault of Obama's. Heh, these things happen in the second term.. Obama is not responsible.

Henry said...

@Bob Ellison -- I agree with you that the talking notes were obvious garbage from the start. However the administration could still claim that it hadn't known better. Mistakes were made. Low level staffers. Blah blah blah.

It took getting to the emails and Hicks' testimony to put the the lie to that line of bullshit.

That's why stonewalling works in the short term. There are endless ways to confuse and prevaricate so long as you can keep at least some questions in dispute.

Cody Jarrett said...

Hillary won't run, AprilApple.

If she does she'll lose in the primaries. They're going to roll out a young dynamic guy, might even be a lily white guy with a pretty family (think JFK lite) with no ties to the current administration. Because they'll know how sick of it the country will be.

OTOH, I've seen many people make comments on other sites about how good a POTUS Biden will be--so wtf do I know.

Hagar said...

LilyBart,

I think you have it wrong; the problem really is that the Government has become the executive arm of the Press.

Mogget said...

If this does not generate the will and funds to buy a major newspaper or other suite of traditional media by some monied libertarians or conservatives, then they are well and truly clueless.

Anonymous said...

When do you think the press will stumble on to the fact that voter fraud actually occurs?

Just more right-wing paranoia.

Robert Cook said...

"Part of the reason we respect Reagan was because he stood for ideals."

Hahahaha!

Sainted Old Codger complicit in mass murder

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

CEO -
We shall see. Sometimes I think the dems will run Rahm Emanuel. His problem is that he looks like a mobster.

I think the dems want a Hillary!/ Chris Christie match-up. Christie will make the perfect foil.

Big Mike said...

The press was well on its way to burying Benghazi and the IRS scandals until this bit about warrantless seizure of the AP phone records, which happened in the spring of 2012. If that had come out in October I suspect it would have been a very different outcome to the election.

#4 is certainly true, though.

Paul said...

And so now Nixon looks good compared to Obama. Nixon, Carter, hell even would-be president Benedict Arnold.

At least Arnold betrayed his country for his old one (England.) Obama just betrays for his own gain.

Anonymous said...

Robert Cook said...
Does anyone really believe, even now, that Romney has ever been anything but a massive tool, a hollow man bereft of a single quality, or that he would have been anything but a shitty president?


Yeah, "our" tool was a bit squishee on various policies, but

At least "our" tool was an honest hard working American who loved God, his country and his family and would have brought a strong morale ethic to the WH

Colonel Angus said...

Does anyone really believe, even now, that Romney has ever been anything but a massive tool, a hollow man bereft of a single quality, or that he would have been anything but a shitty president?

I think he would have been head and shoulders above what is in there now and far better than your leftwing Jill Stein who would have only dragged the nation down further than Obama has done.

I'm certain your hatred of Romney is based solely on the size of his bank account and not actually based on any real character flaw. I think much of his personal history speaks to a much better person than you might hope to be.

Anonymous said...

AprilApple said...
Sometimes I think the dems will run Rahm Emanuel. His problem is that he looks like a mobster.


That would be preferable. I think Rahm is a competent mobster. Maybe like LBJ :)

At least I think he knows how the government and the Congress operate, likely understands economics, and isn't anti-American at his core...

Henry said...

Tibore wrote: 1. Too many believers would've just written it off to political mudslinging.

That seems to me to be an important observation.

Maybe scandals can't be pushed in an election season. The political messaging is so overwhelming that even professional reporters will be loath to champion what could be partisan accusations. No one wants to be the next Dan Rather (especially if it helps Republicans).

In the election-year environment of claim and counter-claim, of bald-faced deceit and fantastical exaggeration, voters will also be inclined toward skepticism.

Details of the Watergate break-in were being reported throughout the Summer and Fall of 1972 and had zero impact on Nixon's reelection.

jacksonjay said...


What did Lisa Myers say yesterday?

"... they turned one of the President's most important constituencies, the press and the left against him ..."

The Professor doesn't mention the press as a reason. Hmmmm?

In all my years of watching ballplaying, it became obvious that a team was at a disadvantage when they had to defeat the opponent and the referees.

rhhardin said...

Romney didn't want to offend women, is why.

Women are idiots and what can you do.

retail lawyer said...

I blame Black Male Privilege. Its too dangerous to criticize a Black Male. Results in charges of racism. Especially if you are Mormon and your wife is blond. Duh.

exhelodrvr1 said...

"How convenient for all the scandals to wait to burst forth!"

Too bad, Ann, there was no possible way to anticipate any of this in Nov 2008.

Matt Sablan said...

"The political messaging is so overwhelming that even professional reporters will be loath to champion what could be partisan accusation."

-- Hey, remember that front page article about McCain's affair with the lobbyist that wasn't an affair?

Rocketeer said...

The theory is that establishment Republicans appreciated the suppression of the Tea Party.

Mitch McConnell is about as "establishment" as you can get, and he was pretty damned outspoken about what were then just allegations of IRS "special scrutiny" of conserative organizations back in 2011.

Shanna said...

Kind of like how I won't post anything political on Facebook

I resist politcs on facebook at well, even though one of my 'friends' posts the most ridiculous anti-capitalist comments on a daily basis and I really want to tell him exactly why he's an idiot but it seems impolite.

X said...

if the republicans had been more vigilant Obama wouldn't have been forced to break the law.

MadisonMan said...

@Matthew, something for everyone indeed! (laugh).

Or is it (cry).

Total agreement with whomever upthread said the next Democratic candidate will be non-DC. Everyone is sick of the DC cesspit now. Why would you nominate anyone who could even be considered an insider?

Of course, last time that happened, we got two Senators as a choice. Look how well that turned out. So the ability of the Major Parties to disappoint, majorly, is still in play.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Why did Romney crumple mid-attack in the second debate?

Do you have any idea how much a candidate needs to memorize in order to be prepared for a debate? In addition to all the world knowledge, Romney's supposed to have memorized the exact text of every utterance of President Obama?

Romney was not allowed to bring notes into the debate. Neither was President Obama. But Obama's co-debater was allowed to bring her notes, and use them to dishonestly counter Romney.

I think it's too much to expect Romney to have enough confidence in what he learned going into the debate to try to argue such a point with someone who has the transcript in their hand.

If we had an honest press then the big headline at the end of the debate would have been a denunciation of Candy Crowley and an explanation of how Romney was 100% correct on that point.

carrie said...

With the MSM 100% supporting Obama including in the debates, there was nothing the Republicans could have done that would have been resolved before the election.

X said...

I hope althouse didn't break any bones during her fall from the turnip truck. perhaps the new pond broke her fall. well, she's young, being born just yesterday and all.

James said...

>>That would be preferable. I think Rahm is a competent mobster<<

Rahm Emanuel is competent? I live near the Illinois border and listen to Chicago radio daily.

The scandal de jour is that he's closing 54 public schools and diverting the money to build a $300 million basketball arena for DePaul University at McCormick Place (that's off campus). There's massive corruption occurring; DePaul hasn't been relevant in basketball in 30 years but is probably the only local university they could get to attach their name to the project.

test said...

Tibore said...
"Why didn't Romney... why didn't the Republicans... root out these Obama scandals before the last election?"

Well, two things:

1. Too many believers would've just written it off to political mudslinging.


If you want to see how it works consider two of Althouse's pet trolls: garage and phx.

Garage distracts with irrelevancies to muddy the issue (such as claiming one leftist group denied status based on the rules somehow means the right was not targeted en masse because of their beliefs).

The phx's standard response is to point to any particular criticsim, such as garage's. If that criticism is debunked he simply refuses to engage ethe analysis proving it. There was a nice example after Newtown where he claimed the right heckled a parent while public speaking. This was untrue as video proved, but he simply refused to view the tape.

These combined practices could be summarized as 1) someone low on the credibility scale makes a counterclaim regardless of it's relationship to reality, followed by 2) others promote the claim acting as if all possibilities are equally likely, and 3) insist it's too messy to figure out if the claim is challenged.

There is literally nothing that cannot be attacked by people willing to use these tactics. We see this on a large scale from the press every day.

carrie said...

With the MSM 100% supporting Obama including in the debates, there was nothing the Republicans could have done that would have been resolved before the election.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The Drill SGT

That would be preferable. I think Rahm is a competent mobster. Maybe like LBJ :)

At least I think he knows how the government and the Congress operate, likely understands economics, and isn't anti-American at his core...


Please tell me you are joking! :)

The democrat party must clean house. They are off-the rails radical leftwing and no longer "liberal" or "democrat". They are mostly progressives.
Rahm is part of that machine and I don't trust it to pick up dog shit.

DADvocate said...

why didn't the press... root out these Obama scandals before the last election?

They were in the tank for Obama, lock, stock and barrel.

test said...

Matthew Sablan said...
"The political messaging is so overwhelming that even professional reporters will be loath to champion what could be partisan accusation."

-- Hey, remember that front page article about McCain's affair with the lobbyist that wasn't an affair?


And compare to the media intentionally sitting on the John Edwards affair story.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

OK Althouse, why didn't Watergate become an issue in the 1972 election?

SteveR said...

#3

Shanna said...

Romney was not allowed to bring notes into the debate. Neither was President Obama. But Obama's co-debater was allowed to bring her notes, and use them to dishonestly counter Romney.

Damn straight. In the face of the 'moderator' telling Romney he was wrong on the facts, he did back off.

The Press should definately have been an answer. Is it just so incredibly obvious you refused to include it?

I told my boss that Obama is a chicago poll back in 2008. It couldn't have been more obvious even then.

Unknown said...

Watching that election tempted me to the paranoid end of the spectrum. Not for the first time.

It's not really paranoid to believe that the two parties operate as two wings of the same party. That's factual and is the consequence of a winner take all electoral system. It's not paranoid to believe that the kingmakers don't care who wins as long as they control who runs. The only obvious difference between this last pair of bungholes was their complexion.

To posit actual, secret complicity in the outcome might be paranoid but it's only a small step from what any objective viewer can see is most likely true - that opposition in American politics is mostly fake and exaggerated at election time. Likely they didn't secretly decide who would win before hand. Certainly it wouldn't have mattered if they had done.

The real fix begins way before the nominees are selected, just like a stage magic show where the performer has arranged things so that it doesn't matter which choice his volunteer from the audience makes. Penn Jillette uses a term for this that I can't remember.

Real excitement in American politics always happens when someone gets traction by threatening to step outside the prearranged arena and actually oppose the established order. This has always turned out to be just posturing for effect up to this point. If a serious candidate in actual opposition to the establishment appeared about to win and was assassinated the paranoids would turn out to be the realists.

Cody Jarrett said...


"That would be preferable. I think Rahm is a competent mobster. Maybe like LBJ :)

At least I think he knows how the government and the Congress operate, likely understands economics, and isn't anti-American at his core..."


Haven't read a lot of news out of Chicago lately, have you?

Balfegor said...

I think they just found it difficult to believe the Obama Administration was so comprehensively corrupt. The IRS thing is just breathtaking in its audacity, in this day and age. I'd heard about it before, but my initial reaction was to dismiss it as the usual victimisation fantasies. But it turns out they were 100% right that the IRS was deliberately persecuting them, targeting them systematically, for years.

Anthony said...

Largely because the vast majority of Republicans in power are more similar to Democrats in power than they are different. It's not really liberals v. conservatives or Republicans v. Democrats, it's the ruling elites v. the rest of us. Those in government and those in the media are all part and parcel of the former.

"Establishment" Republicans aren't all that uncomfortable with Obama since his policies expand government and give them more power, which is their primary motivating force. They'll blah-blah-blah a bit, but they're not interested in shrinking government. It'd be like asking NFL quarterbacks to support elimination of the forward pass.

Robert Cook said...

"The democrat party must clean house. They are off-the rails radical leftwing and no longer 'liberal' or 'democrat'. They are mostly progressives."

Hahahahaha!

As if....

If only...!

They're lapdogs for the 1%...just like the Republicans.

pm317 said...

How about this for connecting the dots and being vigilant: IRS is going to run Obamacare .. what could go wrong?

Colonel Angus said...

Robert, I have come to the conclusion that you are an incredibly naieve person. Even in countries that adhere to your preferred socialist form of government, the ruling class serves the elites just as much as it does here and in an even more inequitable basis and with more adverse effect to the overall economy.

bagoh20 said...

This is what you get when you elect someone the press is in love with. It has the same effect as if you also voted to outlaw a free press at the same time. You Obama voters who imagine yourselves as independents, intelligent and above it all are so bereft of wisdom its embarrassing. You convinced yourselves you were being analytical and cruelly neutral and you were just being played like a fiddle. The thing is that it took your own ignoring of facts and internal development of false worse case scenarios about McCain to get there. McCain was just about the worst possible alternative for me, but I didn't imagine him becoming Cesar like some, or that the press would would be fair like others. That's was truly delusional.

MadisonMan said...

OK Althouse, why didn't Watergate become an issue in the 1972 election?

+1

As they say on the discussion boards.

edutcher said...

Somebody had to say something first.

People who know or suspected what was happening to the Jews in WWII kept quiet because they knew it could happen to them. Same here.

The media would have crucified anybody who made a charge without something to back it up.

Witness Candy Bigfoot lying through her teeth at the second debate to save Choom's scrawny ass.

Ann Althouse said...

There just was not a critical mass of them at a point where whistleblowers were coming out. This was just the dam finally bursting.

How convenient for all the scandals to wait to burst forth!


You accused me once of being purposely dense. Now I have to return the compliment.

Only after the first round of Benghazi whistleblowers came forward and testified did all this break loose.

C'mon, you know this.

You can't blame it on the Republicans or Romney. As MayBee noted, you were all wound up because they tried to use Obamaphone woman politically.

Bringing this up is political hardball and you were against it last fall.

bagoh20 said...

As I predicted last night, the new line of bullshit on the left is gonna be that the wrong people were in charge of the revolution again. Of Course that's Cook's go to everyday, but he's just wrong. The rest are opportunists, and truly despicable. The thing Cook misses is that it's the opportunist that always outnumber the believers and they will always take over. That's the fatal flaw in leftist thought. A stronger government is always going to be run by opportunists. They are always the ones who work the hardest at getting power. Power attracts power seekers, and among power seekers, the most ruthless win out.

DADvocate said...

They're lapdogs for the 1%...just like the Republicans.

Anthing to keep from talking about what the Democratic Party really is and what it, and its minions, have done and are doing. Facing the truth is so hard. Let's not talk about the Democrats, lets talk about the Republicans.

The truth, ethics, morality, the word of the law mean nothing to you. All you care about is bullshit partisanism.

Unknown said...

Completely absurd, although clearly a provocative post. Talk about stirring the pot with a meta conspiracy!

The question has no answer because the premise is totally false: Tea Party groups were already complaining about the IRS, Republicans were screaming about Benghazi, Woodward and others were calling out the administration about intimidating the press, and what happened?

The country heard all of it and decided instead to listen to Candy Crowley and Ann Althouse (why are meanie Republicans bringing up the Obamaphone?!). Our state-run media filled people's heads with binders full of women while any person who gave even half a shit was left jaw-dropped and outraged.

DADvocate said...

Robert, I have come to the conclusion that you are an incredibly naieve person.

Wrong conclusion. Not naive, but completely bias, partisan fool.

Leland said...

Count me with the number of previous commenters that noted the IRS targetting of Tea Party groups was brought up prior to the election. From HuffPo:

In February and March of 2012, the timeline in the appendix of the report by the treasury inspector general for tax administration notes that "numerous news articles began to be published with complaints from Tea Party organizations," which led to congressional interest.

But I suspect the Professor really means "root out" as in pull out the ground entirely. With that in mind, I think the answer is number 4. The TEA Party is 2010 was very much non-party affiliated. TEA came from Taxed Enough Already, and I believe many of the founders also supported the PorkBuster efforts during the Bush/Republican Congress era. The goal was to find politicans that didn't just talk, but actually walked their talk in terms of cutting spending. Now Senator Cruz was a perfect example of the threat of the TEA Party to long term party Republicans as well as Democrats.

Choices 1,2, and 3 could be rewritten in so many ways to simply state that the Republican Party felt the gains in pinning the IRS issue on Obama were marginal in effectiveness. In the meantime, the IRS targetting benefitted incumbents on both sides of the aisle.

What ever the case, none of the options excuses the behaviour of the IRS bureaucrats or the tax code that allows this type of abuse.

bagoh20 said...

"Bringing this up is political hardball and you were against it last fall."

Exactly. I was here. And that attitude was also the attitude of the GOP, and the Romney campaign, and every losing Republican campaign before it. We only want people who will keep the boat moving forward, and never people saying they will turn it. So forward we go right into ever thickening ice field.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

I'm agreeing with edutcher. Althouse was all about not being mean during the election because moderate voters like her didn't like mean Republicans.

Ahem.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

Robert Cook isn't partisan. Garage is partisan. There's a difference.

edutcher said...

Robert Cook said...

Does anyone really believe, even now, that Romney has ever been anything but a massive tool, a hollow man bereft of a single quality, or that he would have been anything but a shitty president?

If anyone knows about being a massive tool, a hollow man bereft of a single quality, Cook is it.

And I think the Romster would have been a better POTUS than anybody Cook could name.

bagoh20 said...

There is no way this would have gotten any traction before the election. Too much was at stake. It only came out now, because the press didn't see it costing the Dems an imminent election. The window is just slightly open right now, and the stink is so strong that it overwhelmed them once it got in.

This would have been seen as purely political before the election and would have been resisted by 100% of the MSM. There would not have been a single defection.

The mistake was made in 2008.

kcom said...

"Even in countries that adhere to your preferred socialist form of government, the ruling class serves the elites just as much as it does here and in an even more inequitable basis and with more adverse effect to the overall economy."

And with far fewer checks and balances. Which means even more massively corrupt.

Kelly said...

It's simple. The press was never going to play along no matter what evidence there was against this administration. They had one goal; the reelection of Barrack Obama. Come hell or high water they were in it to win it for the man.

Now, they'll partially do their job so as not to look to much like the partisan hacks that they are.

What I find laughable is I'm suppose to be outraged over the AP story when it's the AP that ignored the IRS story for two years.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

You want to know what I think made these scandals break loose?

The Justice Department went after the Associated Press.

Now it's institutional payback. The Press has its limits, and the feds crossed them.

RecChief said...

In my opinion, most Republicans CAN'T attack Big Government, because they lack conviction, and so come across as false. In my mind, they are fine with the concept, as long as they are running it. Also, having a press that is simply a water carrying institution limits the ability to objectively discuss what is wrong with that approach, let alone a partisan setting such as a political campaign.

bagoh20 said...

Yea Cook, who do you got that has created more jobs, and wealth, and who has personally given more to charity including personal investments of time, and who has a more substantial record of success in running organizations than Mitt Romney. Who has improved more lives that you would not call " a hollow man bereft of a single quality"

bagoh20 said...

"You want to know what I think made these scandals break loose?

The Justice Department went after the Associated Press."


Yep, and it's probably the most justified scandal. The Press is so debased that it wasn't until their own personal space got invaded that they gave a crap about any of it. Suddenly everyone was indignantly asking questions and not accepting what they got. If we could just convince them that they are not part of the government, we might have a real press.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I'm not saying I believe this, but sober reflection tells us we need to redraw the line between paranoia and vigilance.

The MSM that is supposed to be vigilant are not only getting it wrong... as Scott Paley admitted... they aren't getting it at all... they didn't uncover this rampant IRS story.

test said...

John Lynch said...
Robert Cook isn't partisan. Garage is partisan. There's a difference.


That depends on whether you believe his schtick or not. His primary attacks are on Republicans. His proforma attacks on Obama's domestic policies seem to me a tactic to avoid having to explain or justify the negative aspects of leftist policies. If you never support an enacted policy it's real world failure can never taint your position.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

How about this for connecting the dots and being vigilant: IRS is going to run Obamacare .. what could go wrong?

Obamacare needs to be scrapped yesterday.

Colonel Angus said...

Who has improved more lives that you would not call " a hollow man bereft of a single quality"

Cook like most hardcore leftists hate Romney simply because of his wealth. Much like the Occupy movement with their Eat the Rich banners, those who possess wealth are despised. Personally I don't care. There are wealthy people born into it ans those who accumulate through hard work and perseverance.

I started a business 20 years ago and am moderately successful in that I'm financially secure, could probably retire comfortably if I sold my business but it took a lot of hard, literally backbreaking work to do it.

Then you gave a guy like Zuckerberg who stars a website in his dorm room and a few years later is a billionaire. Should I be angry and jealous that he's so much better off than me and did so with relative ease? I suppose I could if I was a shallow and insecure person but in actuality I applaud him for his insight and innovation.

edutcher said...

John Lynch said...

You want to know what I think made these scandals break loose?

The Justice Department went after the Associated Press.

Now it's institutional payback. The Press has its limits, and the feds crossed them.


Thread winner!

Now it's their ox.

The Choom Gang could come for the Jews, the Catholics, the Tea Partiers and send the lot off to Dachau-on-the-Brazos and nothing would be said.

But now it could happen to them!

In the immortal words of former US Marine B. Bunny, "Of course you know THIS means war!".

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

Marshal-

Ask Cook about drones. He's consistent. He was going on about them years before anyone else.

Also, when he gets mad about the abuse of power everyone suddenly agrees with him. I think his point is that the problem isn't the Democrats per se but our broken and power-hungry elite. The problem to him isn't a partisan issue. Parties don't matter when it's the class of people at the top of both parties that are the problem. I actually agree with this. So do a lot of Tea Party types.

Sure, he's going to go after Republicans because this is a conservative blog. He fights with people he disagrees with. Are there many Democrats for him to disagree with here?

I don't agree with RC about much of anything, but I always read his comments. He's not a hack the way garage is. Garage will always give you the party line, maybe with some creative filler. Cook is critical and consistent.

AllenS said...

If you click on my Facebook page, and where it says "About", you find this:

Political Views Right Wing Patriot

Do you hear that Holder? How about you Obama? You two lightweight little affirmative actioned bitches. Go ahead, tell the IRS. Bring it, motherfucker.

grackle said...

Where was the supervision? … the vigilance? … the vigor? … the outrage?

Good questions but asked of the wrong entity(Romney). These questions should be asked of the MSM – who locked up the election nice and tight for Obama. Romney didn't have a chance. Every move he made, every detail of his life was morphed into some sort of cause for MSM faux outrage. Romney was lucky the electorate didn't call for his indictment for tax evasion before the campaign was over.

test said...

John Lynch said...Ask Cook about drones. He's consistent.

I don't doubt his position against drones.

But to tear down the economic system the way Cook wants you have to replace it with something. And when asked about that his response is Smoot-Hawley II and perfect government bureaucrats [running production for the benefit of the people without abusing this power]. It's so unserious you have to suspect it's only for show.

Colonel Angus said...

The problem to him isn't a partisan issue. Parties don't matter when it's the class of people at the top of both parties that are the problem. I actually agree with this. So do a lot of Tea Party types.

Yet he thinks Tea Partiers are kooks and reactionaries. As I said, people like Robert are woefully naieve to think we can have an all powerful government that will address every social need yet will constrain that power to purely a benevolent social aspect. The treat Ford quote about a big government that's gives evetything you want can take it all away. Again its naieve to give the Government that kind of power and think it won't be abused. Naturally our form of government is the worst but its the best one we've found so far.

Robert is indeed consistent but with a idealistic, childlike outlook on the role of government.

Oso Negro said...

How about: 5) Romney was too much of a pussy/too much of a nice guy to get the job done. We need an end to these East Coast Establishment approved Republican candidates. Look ahead to 2016 and mark this down - if Peggy Noonan is not uncomfortable with the selection, figure electoral disaster on the horizon.

Robert Cook said...

"(Cook's) proforma attacks on Obama's domestic policies seem to me a tactic to avoid having to explain or justify the negative aspects of leftist policies."

Hardly. I don't consider Obama's policies "leftist" in the least. His policies, as were his predecessor's and as, most likely, will be his successor's are--rhetoric, smoke and mirrors aside--designed to benefit the 1%. They do nothing and are not intended to do anything to help the American middle or working classes or poor or unemployed.

That you consider his policies to be "leftist" shows you're still pulling the wool over your own eyes, (to quote the sainted Sub-Genius Bob Dobbs).

As for my attacks on Obama, I detest him and consider him as bad or a worse criminal than George Bush, and they should be sitting manacled in the dock together, facing charges for mass murder, torture, illegal imprisonment, and war crimes, as well as for facilitating the crimes of Wall Street and the big banks and mortgage lenders.

William said...

I wouldn't blame Ariel Castro if he came up with a story that the three kidnapped women were severe agoraphobics and he was providing them with food and shelter and help with their phobia. I wouldn't blame Castro if he came up with such a story, but if the press acccepted such a crock I would blame them......That's what happened with Benghazi. The Obama people presented a crock of shit to explain the happenings there, and the press accepted it at face value. If Romney had pressed the issue, the scandal would have been his politicization of the death of four brave Americans.....I am extremely distrustful of the press and the entertainment media to fairly report or dramatize any event that makes Democrats look bad.

William said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
grackle said...

There was no getting through the press wall. They're only now taking it down.

Actually, no. The wall is NOT going to be taken down. The MSM take on the scandals is this:

IRS targeting: over-zealous low-level employees. The IRS head was canned and Obama not involved. In fact, they claim Obama is actually showing leadership in doing so.

The AP call confiscation: Slight but understandable over-reach on the scope of an investigation. Obama not involved.

Benghazi: GOP witch-hunting, pure and simple. The MSM is saying that the released emails actually EXHONERATES Obama and that the CIA, on their own without ANY prompting from the administration, changed the talking points.

Summary: They will concede minor points on the IRS and AP scandals, because they believe Obama is shielded from any controversy in those scandals – but the Benghazi narration, because it is potentially very damaging to Obama, is simply that it is unfair GOP accusations. The fix is on, just like the election.

cubanbob said...

OK Althouse, why didn't Watergate become an issue in the 1972 election?


In 1972 the voters understood the disaster McGovern would be. It wasn't safe for the country to get rid off Nixon before the election. No one then thought Nixon was a saint the voters knew who Nixon was and chose the far better of the two evils.

edutcher said...

The media isn't controlling this any more.

I think that's the part some people don't get (or want to get; some seem to really revel in their whining about "decline"). This should have all died with Candy Bigfoot last fall, but it hasn't.

Guimo said...

Romney best qualified candidate ever for president? Give me a break. Until you've been knocked off a barstool, you're not qualified to be president.

Anonymous said...

Simple, the investigative reporters investigated Romney's investigators and ignored the unearthed Obama malfeasance.

In other words, the MSM provided cover for Obama until the covers are blown "after the election". Now the MSM scramble to gain some credibility in time to provide covers for other Democrats in 2014.

Henry said...

Matthew Sablan wrote: -- Hey, remember that front page article about McCain's affair with the lobbyist that wasn't an affair?

Touche. Though I would argue that this is the type of story that typifies an election season: lazy-ass reporting that focuses on the candidate's character.

Investigative reporting on a serious story with multiple actors and many threads of possible investigation is a different matter. And the former type of story tars the latter. Both end up being seen as election-year boilerplate.

I'll admit that in my original comment I used the word "professional", as in "professional reporter", half-ironically.

Amartel said...

Establishment Republicans assumed that the Tea Party people would turn out and vote no matter what, and that Romney would win. They looked the other way at the suppression of and civil rights violations against fellow Republicans and conservatives because why not let the opposition do their dirty work?

Kirk Parker said...

Ignorance,

"If we had an honest press then the big headline at the end of the debate would have been a denunciation of Candy Crowley and an explanation of how Romney was 100% correct on that point."

This!

The realization that the moderator was in collusion with one of the debaters should have broken things wide open.

William said...

They now say that the one hundred pages of released emails does not reveal a smoking gun. Actually the one hundred pages is a smoking gun. Why does it take one hundred pages to parse the right way to describe a fairly straightforward event. Did it take one hundred pages to describe the proper way to release details on the death of Bin Laden?

Methadras said...

Matthew Sablan said...

It is fairly simple: Romney, like John McCain, wanted to run a clean, fair election. Remember McCain paying for an ad to congratulate Obama on the night of Obama's acceptance of the nomination?

McCain, remember, took Jeremiah Wright off the table. Republicans tried to play clean, and got rewarded for it.

As for why the scandals didn't come out: There just was not a critical mass of them at a point where whistleblowers were coming out. This was just the dam finally bursting.


Matt, I think you are forgetting that when you have the 4th estate in your back pocket, you as a marxist president can employ them as the human shield they are willingly want to do for you. And they played their parts well. Urkel could never have pulled any of this off without them playing screen for him.

Republicans are to busy trying to engender a public persona that they are the playing nice, clean party, while democrats are shit flinging monkeys that simply do not care who they smear and how they smear them. The marxist/leftist lexicon of diatribes and epithets is there for a reason and it is used effectively.

Urkel has the Clintons to thank for this tactic since they used it quite effectively.

Steven said...

5. Romney was an out-of-touch Establishment tool.

This is the guy who, after the election, said he lost because Obamacare was just too popular. He wouldn't notice a salient issue if it came up and bit him on the ass.

Known Unknown said...

Sainted Old Codger complicit in mass murder

I'd love to take this seriously Cook, but the idiots at that site can't even KERN their damn masthead.

Known Unknown said...

Romney just wanted to ride rollercoasters.

Mitch H. said...

Robert Cook has absolutely nothing useful to say about either politics or policy. He holds a fantasy ideology without exemplars, one which no actual organization, politician, or movement could possibly embody without instant self-negation. His ideas require oceans of blood and universal impoverishment to be expressed in actual real-world terms, but he can tell himself that he's an enemy of poverty, violence and war *because* his murderous and impoverishing ideas are unmoored to any possible program. If they were, by some horrible mischance, actually put in place (think Republican Spain in the Thirties, or Russia during the Civil War), he would immediately denounce the enactors of his fantasy as fascist betrayers of the Revolution. Because he *has* to, to maintain his self-image as a Pure Man of the Left.

I used to have a friend just like him. I haven't talked to that guy in five years, because it's just not worth talking to such people. They are just not worth dealing with, because they are fundamentally and incurably delusional.

Seeing Red said...

Report: IRS denied tax-exempt status to pro-lifers on behalf of Planned Parenthood


Via Drudge.

Robert Cook said...

I'd love to take this seriously Cook, but the idiots at that site can't even KERN their damn masthead."

Ah, yes...you have detected the fatal flaw in their reporting...no kerning!

Crunchy Frog said...

Romney is a good man, but he's not a wartime consigliore.

Robert Cook said...

Mitch H., why do you wrongly assume my prescription would be programs along the lines of Republican Spain in the 30s or Russia during the Civil War.

I think we could go a long way toward achieving a more equitable and humane society simply by applying existing laws (including reviving laws enacted in the wake of the Great Depression but weakened, ignored, or repealed in the past dozen or so years) to the entities who are presently the greatest criminals and enemies of America: Wall Street, the big banks, the present and preceding POTUS (and their confederates)...in short, the Military/Intelligence/Corporate/Financial Complex.

I don't expect or assume a perfect world, but I hope we have the capacity to roll back the lawlessness that we see in the government and on Wall Street today, that we can implement policies that might help foster the creation and/or return of well-paying jobs to America. This latter issue is the crucial and overriding circumstance that must be addressed if we are ever to have a thriving economy again. It doesn't matter how high Wall Street goes or how much richer the already rich get, without plenty of well-paying jobs for all Americans who want them, we are fucked.

Nathan Alexander said...

"Why didn't Romney... why didn't the Republicans... root out these Obama scandals before the last election?"

Wrong question.

- IRS targets conservative groups
- HHS Secretary Sebelius violates Hatch Act and campaigns for Obama in Dept conference
- Candy Crowley helps Obama out of a tight spot in the debates
- Press repeats White House line on War On Women issues, Benghazi, Green investment failures, Sequestration, Fast & Furious, debt limit battles, the general deficit situation, the cause of the financial crisis, the 47% comment, the "You didn't build that" line, etc, ad nauseum

It is becoming clear that Obama energized the entire press and much of the US govt to support his re-election. They refused to give any Republican points any oxygen, and flooded the airwaves with Democrat talking points developed by media-Democrat-govt official collaboration.

How could Romney overcome such a concerted effort to get Obama re-elected? Could anyone have overcome such a concerted effort to get Obama re-elected?

Those are the correct questions.

The salient question, however is: can the Republic recover from such an all-encompassing, partisan unethical, and often illegal attempt to re-elect the press' and Leftist Bureaucrat's favorite candidate?

I think it can. But it won't be easy.

Because I agree that even now, the Press is covering for President Obama as much as they can.

It is a rear-guard action, not a retreat, and certainly not a rout.

Nathan Alexander said...

Why did this happen now?

I think the thanks go to Kirsten Powers. She gave oxygen to the notion that the press was ignoring the Gosnell trial for partisan political motivations. Once it firmly stuck that the news media was clearly and obviously acting as a partisan tool, they had no choice but to start doing their job a little bit.

Still reluctant, but at least a start.

The next big result was that the IG managed to complete an investigation of the IRS, and knowing what it was going to reveal, the partisan officials tried to minimize the damage by admitting to far lesser crimes.

But even the far lesser crimes were enough to capture the imagination of even low information voters.

The AP thing isn't really that significant in and of itself.

ken in tx said...

Romney is an honorable man. He might have been a shitty president, I don't know. Carter was an honorable man but a shitty president—the last Democrat I ever voted for. Now we have a shitty man who is a shitty president—and I knew it before the last two elections.

Steve Koch said...

Mitt was too nice to run the nasty campaign that he should have run. He wanted to focus strictly on the economy, which is Mitt's strong point. Plus the gop powers that be don't like the tea party.

mariner said...

traditionalguy,
But that love has turned on a dime. It makes me wonder if anything but an inanimate abstraction could suddenly changed the journalists' minds?

Whoever is really pulling the strings has what they wanted from Obama, and he is no further use to them.

Time for them to trash him and start building up somebody else.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Robert Cook said...

...I hope ... we can implement policies that might help foster the creation and/or return of well-paying jobs to America.

Well, we could certainly try what worked in the 50s. Start by bombing most of the rest of the world's industrial capacity out of existance. Next, roll back OSHA, EPA, EEOC. etc.

If you're not willing to take those sorts of steps, then you will always have a trade off between having enough jobs, and having those jobs being well-paying.

Robert Cook said...

Ignorance is Bliss, if your prescriptions are the only means to return well-paying jobs to America then we must frankly admit that American citizens from now on must face either sporadic or chronic joblessness, or employment primarily only in menial jobs at menial pay. Along with that will come poverty, homelessness, debt and hunger for ever more of our population, eventually afflicting a majority of us.

In other words, if there is no other means to generate well-paying jobs domestically than what you prescribe...we are fucked.

I'm inclined to think we're thoroughly fucked.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

Robert Cook-

The funny thing is that the Right is starting to sound like the Left. Both are now agreed that we have a corrupt elite, that jobs are hard to get, that wages are going down, and so on.

In other words, things that the Right denied completely until about 2009. Hmm.

What they don't agree on is what to do about it. I think that the Right/Libertarian solution of deregulation and cheaper labor would produce more jobs. Working where I do, I see hours cut and more part time employees as a result of increasingly labor costs without increased demand for product. It's happening, I see it, and I work less per week because of it. The taxation/redistribution model isn't working for people who want to move up to the middle class. Instead, it keeps them down by restricting the one thing they have to sell, which is labor.

However, lower taxes and deregulation and so on, while producing growth, will accelerate the trend toward income inequality. There's no question that in an information economy some people can make a lot more money from their brains than ever before. That's happening. The fact that we're seeing the cognitive elite forming their own world separated from the toiling masses (ie me) should give us pause. Once you have an elite, they are very hard to dislodge. This one, since it's chosen on the basis of smarts and productivity, could be very, very hard to dislodge.

Steve Koch said...

Robert Cook,

If you want to optimize creating jobs, then we have to make it as easy as possible for the job creators to do their thing, i.e. we have to get out of their way, we have to minimize government regulations, paper work, fees, taxes, regulations, etc so the job creators can run their businesses and create jobs in the process.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Robert Cook said...

In other words, if there is no other means to generate well-paying jobs domestically than what you prescribe...we are fucked.

I'm actually fairly optimistic. I think what I prescribe is the only way to have jobs that you would consider well-paying.

I think what we really need at the moment is a bunch of poor-paying jobs where teen-agers with limited skills can earn some spending money while learning the habits of going to work, plus some more jobs that pay enough to support a no-frills family of four.

I have nothing against well-paying jobs, but they will only exist over the long term if the employee is productive enough to justify their pay.

Steve Koch said...

There are an estimated 8 million illegal alien Mexicans working in the USA. Some of those people are mowing yards and cleaning houses but a lot are mechanics, carpenters, roofers, tilers, plumbers, AC repairers, painters, loggers, electricians, etc (in other words, working at good jobs).

Those are 8,000,000 jobs Americans could be doing.

Baron Zemo said...

The problem was that Mitt Romney was Mel Ott and not Billy Martin.

The reason why everyone remembers the LBJ Daisy ad and the Bush "Willie Horton" ad is because they worked.

Of course because the Jug Eared Jesus is part of a protected class even showing the typical Obama voter enthused by their "Obama" phone made people (like the Nutty Perfesser) cry racism. So you had to make a choice. You had to ignore the attacks by the racial fear merchants and attack as hard as you can.

The only way to do that today is with another minority. That is why it is logical to go with Rubio or Cruz. They will be slimed by the mainstream media and the journolists cabal but they can just wiggle their hands on their ears and claim "Racism" and just go on the attack.

Old white guys can't do that anymore.

Colonel Angus said...

If you want to bring in good paying jobs then that means focusing education on the tech, bio-tech and skilled positions that actually pay well versus useless liberal arts degrees. The days of $50k/year mfg jobs are gone, Robert. They're gone because we are in a global economy where those good paying but low/moderate skilled jobs are easily done elsewhere. Giving a free pass to 10-15 million uneducated illegals whose skill sets are hotel housekeeping and lawncare won't help either.

Perhaps jobs pay shit because shit skills get shit pay. Why do you think a software engineer makes more money than a journalist major? Or a biochemist makes more money than a history major managing a Starbucks? You want higher paying jobs, encourage corporations to invest here by providing the economic environment and skilled workforce they demand.

This isn't rocket science.

Hyphenated American said...

For Robert cook:

"Hardly. I don't consider Obama's policies "leftist" in the least. His policies, as were his predecessor's and as, most likely, will be his successor's are--rhetoric, smoke and mirrors aside--designed to benefit the 1%. They do nothing and are not intended to do anything to help the American middle or working classes or poor or unemployed."

You don't consider the I crease in federal budget by 1 trillion dollars, obamacare (which gives the government all the power to control health car), corrupt stimulus, and numerous government regulations as "leftist"? Or maybe you won't consider him a leftie until he hangs all the CEOs on thelamposts?
And as for the mythical 1%, just zo that you know, there are infinite number of groups which could be considered 1% percent. Everyone of us is a group which can be called 1% of something. Are you trying to claim that increased spending, nationalized healthcare and more regulations benefit all people in the top 1%? I belong to the top 1%, and I surel yep not benefit from higher taxes under Obama.
Bt then again, who can expect that an American leftie would put down the slogans, and engage in areal debate based on facts?

Known Unknown said...

There's no question that in an information economy some people can make a lot more money from their brains than ever before. That's happening. The fact that we're seeing the cognitive elite forming their own world separated from the toiling masses (ie me) should give us pause.

Why?

The fact that you use the term "toiling masses" gives me a clue.

Birches said...

Robert Cook should start reading Peter Schiff. Crony capitalism is not libertarian capitalism.

Robert Cook said...

"Robert Cook should start reading Peter Schiff. Crony capitalism is not libertarian capitalism."

Without even knowing what "libertarian capitalism" is, I can say that what we have now is predatory capitalism. Is that the same as crony capitalism?

What we need is a stringently regulated capitalism.

Robert Cook said...

"If you want to optimize creating jobs, then we have to make it as easy as possible for the job creators to do their thing, i.e. we have to get out of their way, we have to minimize government regulations, paper work, fees, taxes, regulations, etc so the job creators can run their businesses and create jobs in the process."

We essentially let them do their thing now and what they do is to find ways to drive down wages in every way possible. Giving them the run of the joint is not the way to stimulate the creation of well-paying jobs.

Deb said...

The AP is having an "and then they came for me" moment.

Gahrie said...

What we need is a stringently regulated capitalism.

..or in other words...Socialism.

Gahrie said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gahrie said...

Well, we could certainly try what worked in the 50s. Start by bombing most of the rest of the world's industrial capacity out of existance. Next, roll back OSHA, EPA, EEOC. etc.

I could dance to that tune.......but we aren't going to have to...the Muslims are going to destroy most of our competitors for us, and the rest are destroying themselves through demographics.....

Hyphenated American said...

"What we need is a stringently regulated capitalism."

That's just another slogan. Capitalism means freedom to trade goods and services. The argument that you need to stringently regulate people's rights to trade among each other simply means that you want to give away economic freedom to the government bureaucracy. It's a pretty chilling proposal, so I sunset that you explain why and how you want to regulate my freedom to control the fruits of my labor and to trade with other people.

Quaestor said...

Robert Cook wrote:
A "progressive" is a lackey to the Wall Street elites just as much as are the Republicans

Note the inverted comas around progressive.

Too funny, now that progressive is a dirty word the left wants us to believe the progressives were on the right all the time.

Quaestor said...

Robert Cook wrote:
What we need is a stringently regulated capitalism.

Too funny! Stringently regulated capitalism was a feature of Italian Fascism, one might say it was the defining feature which set it apart from Marxism. Doubt me? Then study the writings and career of Benito Mussolini.

Anonymous said...

Robert Cook wrote:
"What we need is a stringently regulated capitalism."

Regulated by whom? The IRS, of course.

The IRS will stringently update their enemies list.

The IRS will stringently go after those on the list.

The IRS will stringently send intimidating letters to warn those who try to get out of line.

The IRS will stringently warn them they are perjuring themselves if they refuse to provide the IRS a list of their friends and donors so the IRS can stringently regulate them too.

It's so sad that a so-called free American wants so much to be "regulated" by a bunch of bureaucrats.

Carl said...

Americans are optimistic. No one could bear to even entertain the belief that the First Black President would turn out to be a thuggish unimaginative shithead, a papier-mache pretend Prince, with all the cynicism and paranoia but none of the genius, a fool.

It is pretty damn disappointing, isn't it? Wouldn't it have been something to have helped elect the first black Jefferson? Heck, even the first black Truman? It would have been one of those stories you tell your great-grandchildren, should you live so long. I was there when...

And he sure seemed like he might be it. Good-looking, fit, manly baritone, excellent diction, moderate, a freaking former Chicago law professor! They don't come cut of finer cloth than that.

Or so it seemed at the time. So we got snookered. Well, not "we" in the sense of "including me" -- I didn't vote for the idiot -- but Althouse, say, and many many others who (had he been lily white from Andover) would never have taken such a chance.

And last year...too many people couldn't bear to think it was all a ghastly mistake. So they kept the blinders on, rationalized it, pulled the lever or just stayed home and hoped the chalice would pass, that someone else would settle the issue.

But that's all done with now. We elected him, and re-elected him. We're all a lot freer to discover his flaws now.

Besides which, the premise in Althouse's question is absurd. If you would vote Obama in or out of office based purely on Benghazi or the IRS 501(c)4 whatever charlie foxtrot, you're an idiot. These are by themselves relatively minor sins. Reagan was a great President, and he got 241 Marines blown up in Beirut for no good reason at all, and then cravenly turned tail and ran. Nixon was a good President, except for his stupid ideas on inflation, but he sicced the IRS on his enemies. FDR did even worse. You know how they say war is hell, and it's only won by sons of bitches? The same thing is necessarily true of leading a nation. Good Presidents are essentially all tough egoistical men who can be brutal and lawless when necessary, and (alas) sometimes when it isn't, just to satisfy the inner demon or two. You want an effective inspirational awesome leader who is also 100% moral lamb, a sweetheart, feels everyone's pain, takes everyone's sin on his back? Go to church and pray for the return of Jesus Christ. Romney was about the most moral and decent man to run for the office since Grant, and he's widely viewed now as a big pussy. Because he is. Being decent is being a bit of a pussy. You can't win without a healthy dollop of Evil Kirk that enjoys twisting the knife in your enemy's back.

The real problem is that Obama has nothing else. He has no serious accomplishments to his name, he doesn't make us feel good -- he is wearyingly self-centered and humorless, with zero sense of appreciation for the (once) great nation he leads -- and he makes the United States on the international stage look less like Clint Eastwood 500 feet tall (an image we may publically deplore but secretly enjoy) and more like some stupid cross between Mr. Magoo ("What nukes?") and Florence Henderson ("Now children, what have we learned from this accident...?") Blech.

If there was anything else to Obama, these scandals would not stick, and should not. But there isn't. He's just a vapid, vain, unimaginative stock classroom leftist from central casting. He was blessed with good looks and a good voice, and an eye for the main chance, and that's about it. The natural enormous disappointment that engenders in those who'd looked to be part of the Golden Spike moment of the 21st century is, I think, 50% of the fuel that burns around his feet right now.

Anonymous said...

Carl said... "Reagan was a great President, and he got 241 Marines blown up in Beirut for no good reason at all."

Good or not, the reason was: the Marines were not allowed to patrol with loaded guns. Ergo, when they saw the bombs coming, there wasn't a damn thing they could do. Sort of like the Fort Hood massacre where the soldiers were not allowed to carry guns. Politicians love to control other people, if they die, better luck next time. "What difference does it make?"

Some fools still long to be "regulated" by politicians.

AST said...

You're kidding, right? The press doesn't want to hear about a scandal on the Dem side during an election. Only afterwards, after they've put a Donk in office, do they get bored and start looking at all the stories they ignored or dismissed during the campaign. They're a bunch of hypocrites, but people still listen to them.

There's still a lot more to be reported on if they were interested: fund raising scandals, voter fraud, selling of offices, etc., etc.

Miss Emily said...

I see I'm signing in as my dead wife- so be it.

Tea Party member of both Island & Mainland chapters here. I have no use for The Stupid Party. I'll support people who are on my side. Whatever side they are on.

Ken W. Good said...

I think the R's did not push because of two reasons: (1) the public just did not buy that President Obama or his minions would do something this egregious especially since the IRS lied about it before Congress; and (2) pushing these facts in light of the denials probably did not poll well and made the R's look out of touch which is another reason why the D's did it in the first place. This all changed when the IRS admitted that they did it. All of a sudden, the press could not ignore the story and then it was pointed out that this was one of the articles of impeachment for Nixon and then the press was forced to report on it. Finally, when the AP subpoena story came out at the same time, the press' anger boiled over (even if the subpoena's were proper).

Tom Perkins said...

"People like Althouse instead wanted Mitt Romney to do things like denounce people who overplayed the Obamaphone video. That and war on women took up the press' attention."

Exactly. Alsthouse bought the Dems' line hook line and sinker. The Obamaphone video is exactly what spreading the wealth looks like.

Ritchie The Riveter said...

We essentially let them do their thing now and what they do is to find ways to drive down wages in every way possible.

Robert, if you take the PERSONAL initiative to maintain, enhance, and ENFORCE your ACTUAL value in the marketplace, your wages don't have to go down in a free market.

OTOH, if you expect to work the same job in the same way in the same place for a lifetime, while expecting others to coerce your employer into keeping you around and giving you raise after raise, don't be surprised when you get left behind.

Giving them the run of the joint is not the way to stimulate the creation of well-paying jobs.

Given that I have taken and kept well-paying jobs, created over the 30 years since we moved away from the 1970's attempts at the command economy that you want and back towards a truly free market, I beg to differ.

Lee said...

> Obama's prime target was the Tea Party (which had crushed him in the 2010 midterms), and the establishment Republicans were at odds with the Tea Party movement.

Give the lady a cigar.

We have two big-spending, big-govt parties in the U.S., but one of them has to pretend not to be every two years or so.

There is no conflict with the base when Democrats want to spend. But there is a big conflict with the Republican base when the GOP wants to do the same.

The GOP establishment would rather lose an election to Democrats than win an election with Tea Partiers. Democrats won't make them change their ways and actually throw them a scrap once in a while.



Ritchie The Riveter said...

Pretty much everything that has been brought up here - from the fear of challenging Obama's pop-culture popularity, to the desire of the entire professional/political complex, from Rove to Axelrod, to have the Tea Party movement suppressed - is plausible.

Unfortunately, it will take a highly-partisan effort to clean this up, because the partisans that support the status quo will resist all efforts to change what they have worked to establish for a century.

But the problem is beyond partisan ... the problem strikes at the heart of rights-respecting governance.

Don't expect the luxury of "civility" in this cleanup, either ... we have painfully learned that civility in response to such dishonesty is counterproductive to the defense of liberty.

However, many of us are not for a rush to impeachment, but instead want to patiently expose the rot that Progressive governance has wrought, in order to make sure everyone learns the lesson once-and-for all.

In the words of Leonidas' wife in 300 ...

this will not be over quickly ... you will not enjoy this

(And also, remember it was the cover-up that cost Nixon his job.)

Ritchie The Riveter said...

From Braveheart:

You're so concerned with squabbling for the scraps from Longshank's table that you've missed your God-given right to something better. There is a difference between us. You think the people of this country exist to provide you with position. I think your position exists to provide those people with freedom.

Lee ... does this not describe today's Republican Party, to a "T", if you just change "Longshanks" to "the Democrats" ???

Nathan Alexander said...

What we need is a stringently regulated capitalism.

@Robert Cook,

Stringently regulated by whom?

Any economy that is stringently regulated will breed graft and corruption.

When Congress controls regulation over buying and selling, the first thing bought is Congress.

Any time a person is in charge of making decisions that control the actions or freedom of others, there is an opportunity for that person to benefit himself (financially) or his ideology (politically).

That's what we see with the IRS. The problem was too much regulation that allowed the IRS to bully people due to ideology.

More regulation would NOT have helped.

Every time you write a law, you create a new opportunity for graft, corruption, and tyranny.

That's why the number of laws and regulations should be balanced at as few as possible to make things work.

Then people will have the opportunity to improve their lot in life based on their effort and commitment.

Some will always be poor. That is not inequality, that is reality. Not everyone is driven to work hard for financial gain.

But if everyone can improve their lot by working hard, then the quality of life of everyone improves.

That's why the top 1% in North Korea or Burma live at about the same level as lower middle class in the US.

That's why just living in the US puts you in the top 1% of the world in terms of comfort and wealth.

That's why the "poor" in the US often have big screen TVs, smart phones, multiple cars in the family, and tend to be obese.

If only the whole world could "fail" as badly as the US.

The problem is that when the socialism or communism you want is enacted, the people STARVE. And the elite dine in luxury.

The only reason for a person to want Socialism or Communism is if they plan on being the elite and want to enjoy the suffering of the masses.

LIAM HODDER said...

Romney, the guy who saved the Salt Lake City Olympics and put the us into wuss.

LIAM HODDER said...

Romney, the guy who saved the Salt Lake City Olympics and put the us into wuss.

Anonymous said...

"Bringing this up is political hardball and you were against it last fall."

Bingo, Romney and the others in the squish section were focused on 'not offending the swing voters.'

So I wouldn't say they some much 'appreciated' what was happening to the TEA parties, as they were indifferent to it.

hombre said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Steven said...

Once you have an elite, they are very hard to dislodge.

Yes, but the distinguishing feature of an elite isn't income disparity.

It didn't matter how rich Jewish moneylenders were in the Middle Ages; they never had power. And it didn't matter how bankrupt a noble was; he could always use his power to liquidate his debts by driving out the local Jews.

Money can only buy power in systems where power is so constrained by limits that power cannot simply seize wealth. And when power is so limited, it isn't a big deal if someone buys it.

I Callahan said...

That you consider his policies to be "leftist" shows you're still pulling the wool over your own eyes, (to quote the sainted Sub-Genius Bob Dobbs).

You've been called on this point 100 times, and asked for a definition of left and right. You haven't once made an attempt to define them.

As for my attacks on Obama, I detest him and consider him as bad or a worse criminal than George Bush, and they should be sitting manacled in the dock together, facing charges for mass murder, torture, illegal imprisonment, and war crimes, as well as for facilitating the crimes of Wall Street and the big banks and mortgage lenders.

This is some crazy, Democratic Underground conspiracy stuff right here. Because you disagree with someone's political views, it doesn't make them criminals. You haven't even named the crimes that were committed.

Weapons grade insanity, Bob.

I Callahan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
I Callahan said...

if your prescriptions are the only means to return well-paying jobs to America then we must frankly admit that American citizens from now on must face either sporadic or chronic joblessness, or employment primarily only in menial jobs at menial pay. Along with that will come poverty, homelessness, debt and hunger for ever more of our population, eventually afflicting a majority of us.

From Heinlein:

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as "bad luck."

The ironic thing Bob? Your ranting about Wall Street and big banking is EXACTLY what Heinlein was talking about.