The video life of Mitt ‘Doofenshimirtz’ Romney

by liberal japonicus

This title is inspired by this lede from the Guardian,

Mitt Romney's campaign came close to hitting the self-destruct button when he stood by a secret video recording suggesting that 47% of Americans are government-dependent "victims" who do not pay taxes.

I don't know if anyone is a fan of Phineas and Ferb, but the second story concerns the evil schemes of Doctor Heinz Doofenshmirtz, who creates some machine to rule the Tri-State area and always designs a self-destruct button into his evil creations. 

But Cartoon Network references aside, while everyone seems to have concentrated on the 'victims' crack from the first set of videos, the other video (here) from a 2nd article are, to my mind, even more jaw-dropping.

Romney is certain that there is no way to resolve the Israel and Palestine situation

One is the one which I've had for some time, which is that the Palestinians have no interest whatsoever in establishing peace, and that the pathway to peace is almost unthinkable to accomplish.

Romney talks about a former Sec of State who said

On the other hand, I got a call from a former secretary of state. I won't mention which one it was, but this individual said to me, you know, I think there's a prospect for a settlement between the Palestinians and the Israelis after the Palestinian elections. I said, "Really?" And, you know, his answer was, "Yes, I think there's some prospect." And I didn't delve into it.

One trope that was floated after the Egypt and Libya embassy attacks was that Obama was blowing off security briefings. Yet here is Romney, being told by presumably a Republican former Sec of State about differences between his world view and what may actually be out there, and he can't even take it on board.

If you haven't listened to the other videos, do. 

194 thoughts on “The video life of Mitt ‘Doofenshimirtz’ Romney”

  1. The Romneybot doesn’t have a self-destruct button!
    But if things get too hot, he might well disappear from the public eye, to spend more time with his money in the Cayman Islands.
    Why go through the expense and humiliation if you’re going to lose anyway, for Pete’s sake?

  2. I guess Mitt is going to test my theory that the American electorate (as a whole) cannot remember anything that happened more than 60 days before the election (certain traumatic events aside).

  3. I don’t know if the rebirth of Israel is important to the Church of Latter Day Saints, but it is certainly Very important to many of the fundamentalist Christians steering the GOP foreign policy platform. They do things like fund the reintroduction of a certain kind of red heifer in Israel, so that they can get things ready for the second coming.
    In this case, Romney may not be memory-challenged so much as playing to his base.

  4. (Let me change that to -attempting- to reintroduce the red heifer to Israel. The New Yorker had an article on it several years back, including the US Christian groups who were funding it.)
    (and, Ma = Marcellina. Somehow I cut my name off.)

  5. LJ, I think you have made a mistake and seriously underestimated Romney.
    He does not have a self-destruct button built in. He has an array of self-destruct buttons. And looks to be trying to hit all of them in turn.
    Whether this is a result of living his life in a bubble, or of pandering to his base so long that he no longer realizes how extreme that looks to the majority of the country, is left as an exercise to the reader. But he seems on course to gratuitiously offend a majority of those who agree with him on some issues, guaranteeing that he will loose some votes that were his for the taking. Can you win an election this way? Well, if he does, it will be a first.

  6. Ma(rcellina)
    “In this case, Romney may not be memory-challenged so much as playing to his base.”
    There’s a part of me (the former liberal, nominally Republican part from decades ago) that wants to continue to believe that.
    And to also believe these words from David Brooks this morning:
    “Personally, I think he’s a kind, decent man who says stupid things because he is pretending to be something he is not — some sort of cartoonish government-hater.”
    And also pretending Obama is an unAmerican, antiAmerican, Muslim, Kenyan, socialist member of the Goat-f*ckers Brotherhood.
    But the Republican “base” he’s trying to appeal to is a cloning experiment gone bad — the biggest, most dangerous apocalyptaconglomeration of gobshite, confederate, Ayn Randian, kardashian, gunrunning ratf*uckers assembled since Mrs. Lincoln decried the all-too-realistic special and sound effects at the Ford Theater.
    He’s like George Clooney in that zombie movie, “From Dusk Til Dawn”, except that instead of killing the zombies in the south-of-the-border all night zombie truckstop nightclub and bordello with shots to the head, the good-looking lead is trying to serve as the DJ spinning some zombie music and the bartender pouring zombie shots, all in the service of his ambition.
    But, the zombie ratf*ckers, never satisfied until they have their surfeit of blood and flesh, have him down on the floor and are chewing his flesh.
    If he and ratf$cker Ryan are elected, we’re going to need the new I-Phone with the Sturm Ruger, Smith and Wesson, and Kalashnikov apps.

  7. From yahoo:

    Asked if he was worried that he had offended the 47 percent of people he mentioned in the statement, Romney did not back off his remarks.
    “It’s not elegantly stated, let me put it that way,” Romney said. “I’m speaking off the cuff in response to a question, and I’m sure I can state it more clearly in a more effective way than I did in a setting like that and so I’m sure I’ll point that out as time goes on.

    Does he realize he’s standing in front of a microphone, speaking to members of the press, and answering questions about what he said? Might that be a good time to restate what he meant more clearly? Is it that hard for him to say what he thinks when he’s not speaking off the cuff and knows going in what he’s going to be talking about?
    What a fncking smacked ass this guy is.

  8. The date of the filming, 17 May is interesting. Here is more about how it came to light, via Jimmy Carter’s grandson. If this had come out immediately, does anyone think that he would have lost in the Texas primary at the end of May?

  9. “”Personally, I think he’s a kind, decent man who says stupid things because he is pretending to be something he is not — some sort of cartoonish government-hater.”
    I read David Brooks this morning and thought his column was surprisingly good, maybe because there was no way to spin what Romney said. Then I got to the end where the above comment appeared and that, apparently, was the best Brooks could do.
    The Republicans might have embarrassed themselves less if they had nominated Clint Eastwood.

  10. Listen carefully to this old clip from Mitt Romney’s mother, wherein she supports Mitt’s father, George’s … the former WELFARE RECIPIENT … desire to govern.
    http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/09/romney-unplugged-ctd.html
    Mitt Romney had fine parents. Good human beings. True Americans.
    I expect now, were Mom Romney alive and could go back in time to before Mitt was born, she’d rush down to Planned Parenthood and have her womb filled with salt and sewn shut with silver anti-zombie thread.
    This has got to set traditional child-rearing theories on their ear.
    I mean, Mitt was raised in a good God-fearing family with resources. He never smoked pot and even beat up the long-haired faggots, like any red-blooded American boy.
    What happened?
    Then you have the pot-smoking Muslim, Kenyan orphan with two commie Dads and the socialist slut mother and who, despite some all-too-human frailties, like hypocrisy and extra skin pigmentation, seems to have turned out OK.
    I mean, look, I don’t think Obama deserves the credit he claims for killing Osama (those names alone are confusing to your typical Republican delegate).
    No, Bush killed Osama by ignoring memos from those career bureaucrat elitists in the enemy government about colossal terrorist attacks on American soil, because he KNEW, to save Obama’s a&s, that Osama would eventually be lured to a window in a house in Pakistan directly in the path of a U.S. Navy Seal’s bullet, lamma, lamma, osama, obama, bing bong.
    Bush got his man.
    Here’s the deal.
    The only lesson the 27% Erick Erickson/Moe Lane base is going to learn from Mitt Romney’s embarrassing imitation of a credible Presidential candidate is that they should have nominated Paul Ryan, or Newt Gingrich, or Michelle Bachmann, or Hermann Cain, or Ron Paul, or Rick Santorum (“smart people will never be on our side”), or Rick Perry, or, for holy effing crap, Sarah Death Palin as their Presidential candidate.
    I’m sure Jeb Bush is thinking about it, which is not good news either.

  11. “or if they had nominated the chair”
    Well, I understand the chair contained Invisible Obama , so that would be a problem for Republicans. But still, you’re right, the chair would have been better than what they got, no matter who wasn’t sitting in it.

  12. hairshirt:
    Thanks.
    There are two Lincoln movies out too: Lincoln versus vampires and Lincoln versus zombies.
    Then there is the Daniel Day Lewis version due soon.
    Then there is a Martin Van Buren bi-opic due out soon which pits Van Buren against zombie NASCAR drivers.

  13. Considering Romney’s father role in fighting back extremists in the Republican Party during the early 1960’s, I thought Jr would avenge his father’s work.
    But then I think, of Bush and W. I really thought W would be an avenger of his father’s moderating influence…but then I realize, the Republican Party is just freaked up.

  14. “Game ain’t over, yet, boys.”
    Yup.
    There’s something …. complacent … about Rmoney’s behavior, like he knows about something that might happen before November.
    I’m guessing a fake Black Swan event in the financial markets, engineered by, gee, I wonder who?

  15. I think he’s a kind, decent man who says stupid things because he is pretending to be something he is not — some sort of cartoonish government-hater
    Who knows what kind of guy Mitt is, way down deep in his heart?
    And, who cares?
    There’s nothing unusual in anything Romney said in the video. I’ve heard the same ideas, virtually the same words, from lots of other people.
    Some surprising people.
    One family member who is a retired union electrician, currently receiving a union pension along with his social security, who was able to retire rather than freaking die of a heart attack on the job because he qualified for a disability pension under union rules.
    Another who, after working ~40 years in the insurance industry, is going bankrupt.
    Belly up, y’all.
    Another who is retired NYFD and never misses an opportunity to crack wise about lazy, good for nothing government employees.
    A lot of folks are going to hear the Romney video, nod their heads sagely, and assume he’s talking about somebody other than them.
    Insert punch line here. Anybody laughing yet?
    I don’t think Romney mis-spoke, I think he stated, candidly, exactly what he thinks is true.
    I also don’t think that speaks particularly well of him, but that is not my problem. Somebody needs to tell David Brooks that ‘kind and decent’ is as ‘kind and decent’ does.
    ‘Decency’ is more than wearing a nice suit and using your inside voice.
    Bottom line, lots and lots and lots of folks believe that everything Mitt said in that video is nothing but the truth.

  16. what russell said.
    it’s a safe bet that a lot of the 47% don’t even know they’re in the 47% because, hey, they see income tax being taken out of their checks every week. they work and pay their taxes, goddammit!who are these people who don’t have to pay taxes every week?! must be the goddamn minorities using some Obama tax trick. probably on six kinds of welfare.
    and that big IRS check they get every spring, the one that refunds all the federal income tax they paid? why that’s their goddamn money, they earned it!

  17. “Bottom line, lots and lots and lots of folks believe that everything Mitt said in that video is nothing but the truth.”
    Within this Awful Awfulson post at Redrum …
    http://www.redstate.com/2012/09/18/conservatives-agree-romneys-right/
    …. the awful one includes this quote from Ben Domenech:
    ‘Sorry folks expecting a rant on this, but I actually don’t think this one’s a big deal. Here’s the thing: gaffes of this nature have to have real victims in order to be workable. What helps Romney in this situation is that no one thinks they’re in the 47%. Even if they are! No one who was thinking of voting for Romney yesterday is standing up today saying “he’s criticizing me!” SOURCE “Everyone thinks they’re a “maker,” not a “taker,” due to whatever little tax they pay, so when Mitt lays into freeloaders, even people who pay no income tax think he’s talking about someone else. It’s sort of the flip side of senior citizens saying that America needs small government while telling politicians “Hands off my Medicare.”’
    Russell’s right.
    I think there was one guy in the Jonestown crowd who thought to ask the fellow suicide next to him: “Does he mean WE should drink the Kool-Aid. That can’t be. He’s gotta mean THEY should drink the Kool-Aid, not US.”
    “Hmm, I love the grape flavor!”
    In the immortal words of Ugh (at various times), “we’re fncked”.

  18. Of the states with the lowest non-payment rates, only three–Wyoming, North Dakota, and Alaska–are clearly in Romney’s column. These are also the states with the lowest population. On the other hand, eight of the ten states with the highest non-payment rates are solidly Republican. The exceptions are New Mexico and Florida. In short, Romney’s geographic base is in states where large numbers of households pay no net federal income tax.
    From:
    Where Do the 47 Percent Live?

  19. Those three with the lowest non-payment rates are also high on jobs supported by the federal government. Otherwise, they’d be quite a bit higher on the list of non-payment rates.

  20. At least one of the three (AK) holds its mineral resources by constitutional edict as a commons, owned and operated by the state, runs the state on the rents it charges extractors, and distributes the balance to its citizens as a direct cash payment.
    Each of whom, of course, did it all themselves.

  21. “Those three with the lowest non-payment rates are also high on jobs supported by the federal government. Otherwise, they’d be quite a bit higher on the list of non-payment rates.”
    One (me) might consider that the people who do pay taxes in the states that have the highest nonpayment may be more inclined to notice or care about the phenomenon.
    It’s kind of like Massachusetts and the HC bill, they have no reason not to support it. Even before they did have universal HC, they had the lowest percentage of uninsured in the nation. It’s much easier to support entitlements when it ACTUALLY is a very few people getting them.

  22. It’s much easier to support entitlements when it ACTUALLY is a very few people getting them.
    Posted by: CCDG | September 18, 2012 at 05:13 PM
    Apparently, most of the moohcers are ACTUALLY Republicans.

  23. I thought they were Palestinians.
    I’m losing track.
    Just when you thought there were no other Others, they trot out yet another Other.
    My mother, the Medicare Alzheimers moocher, is a registered Republican, but she might be a Palestinian before long.
    But then she couldn’t vote in November, lacking citizenship.
    Or is that because we let her Pennsylvania driver’s license lapse?
    She’s a red-blooded Republican all-American moocher and electoral suspect.
    I don’t think she’d get it, even if she could.

  24. One (me) might consider that the people who do pay taxes
    To be strictly correct, in the context of the graph (and, of Romney’s comments): the people who are net payers of federal income tax.
    A nit, but one that seems to be forgotten whenever this comes up.
    It’s much easier to support entitlements when it ACTUALLY is a very few people getting them.
    I take your point in general, but I’m not sure if it applies when we’re talking about stuff at the federal level.
    It’s not like my income taxes only pay for stuff in my own state.

  25. I think this was my favorite quote from the video, in re Israel/Palestine:
    S]o what you do is, you say, you move things along the best way you can. You hope for some degree of stability, but you recognize that this is going to remain an unsolved problem…and we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve it.”
    Or, as Homer Simpson put it when he ran for trash commissioner, “Can’t Someone Else Do It?” That’s real leadership there, folks. That’s who you want picking up that phone at 3:00am.

  26. One (me) might consider that the people who do pay taxes in the states that have the highest nonpayment may be more inclined to notice or care about the phenomenon.
    I don’t understand why you quoted me before writing this. How does this relate to what I wrote, in particular? Which phenomenon are you referring to? Federally supported jobs in WY, ND and AK? Low rates of income tax payment?

  27. “I take your point in general, but I’m not sure if it applies when we’re talking about stuff at the federal level.”
    It applies in the sense that you might have a different view of the extent of it as a problem.
    And I really don’t think that, at this point, people don’t understand the difference between income and payroll taxes. Only 18% of people don’t pay either, and they pretty much are the very poor and elderly.

  28. But, since we are talking about taxes again, here are a couple interesting articles. I am not sure how popular the source will be but the graphs are CBO. I can’t copy them here due to lack of skills.
    One is income tax rates since 1979 by quintile, the other includes all federal taxes. If you can, feel free to copy them here.
    But from the ALL taxes link:
    From just this one graph, several observations can be drawn.

    • The most obvious observation is that the higher your income, the greater your federal tax rate is. Taxpayers in the top quintile paid about 25% of their income in federal taxes, while those in the bottom quintile paid about 5% in 2007.
    • The rate for the top quintile has been very steady for the last thirty years: about 25%. In fact, the rate since the Bush cuts went into full effect (2003-07) was about the same as twenty years before (1983-87).
    • The same cannot be said for the lower quintiles; they have trended downward, especially since the Bush cuts in 2003. For the lowest quintile in particular, the rate has drifted downward since 1984, from about 10% of income to about 4%. That is a cut in the tax rate of about 60% for the lowest quintile, versus no cut in rate for the top quintile.
    • Changes in these rates cannot be explained by changes in income. The rate is taxes paid divided by income. If your taxes went up only because your income went up, then your rate would not change.
    • Reagan’s tax cuts became fully effective in 1983. But look at the trend in average tax rate for the highest quintile of earners after that. It went up. That upward trend on the richest Americans went up for seventeen years after Reagan’s tax cuts.
    • The same cannot be said for the lower quintiles. Tax rates for the lower 80% of taxpayers remained virtually flat, or trended downward, from 1983 to 2000.
    • A cut on the capital gains tax rate became effective in 1997. Do you see any kind of accompanying dip in the average tax rate for the highest quintile in that year or shortly after? Nope. The rate is pretty flat from 1993 to 2000.
    • The Bush tax cuts did cut tax rates — for all income groups. The cut was about 2%-3% of income for all quintiles. But since the lower income groups were paying lower rates in the first place, the constant cut across income groups meant that tax rates were cut proportionally more for lower income groups. For example: the top quintile was cut from about 27% to about 24%, which is a cut in the rate of 11%. But the bottom quintile was cut from about 7% to about 4%, a cut in the rate of over 40%.

  29. It would be interesting to see who benefits (or derives benefits) from local, state and federal governments, in relation to what they contribute.

  30. Changes in these rates cannot be explained by changes in income. The rate is taxes paid divided by income. If your taxes went up only because your income went up, then your rate would not change.
    This makes no sense. You might not have income in as high of a bracket if your income went down. As income goes up, the rate paid on the taxable portion will asymptotically approach the highest rate (for a given class of income – earned, capital gains, dividend).

  31. Below is how much you would have to make to be in the top quintile in constant 2011 dollars, top to bottom from 2011 to 1967. (You can see the effect of the financial crisis in 2008 thru 2011.)
    101,582
    103,184
    104,857
    104,710
    108,473
    108,239
    105,651
    104,784
    106,228
    105,036
    106,077
    106,790
    106,949
    103,348
    99,900
    97,085
    95,432
    94,304
    92,423
    91,107
    91,407
    92,092
    94,064
    92,427
    91,596
    90,029
    86,867
    85,317
    82,835
    81,456
    81,389
    81,808
    83,730
    83,170
    81,138
    79,322
    77,387
    79,523
    81,498
    79,330
    75,271
    75,783
    75,389
    71,884
    69,710
    The tax cuts mattered to the people in this quintile if their average rate hasn’t changed.

  32. One (me) might consider that the people who do pay taxes in the states that have the highest nonpayment may be more inclined to notice or care about the phenomenon.
    That doesn’t do one single thing to explain the voting patterns in Mississippi.
    The voting patterns in Mississippi aren’t determined by what tax bracket you are in. Which means what Romney said isn’t just stupid, incompetent and evil, but a stupid, incompetent and evil lie.

  33. There’s so much wrong with what Mitt said that it’s hard to know where to start. But I’ll start here: Hey, Mitt, whyare you hiding your tax returns? Didn’t pay any, didya? You moocher!
    But it gets worse. Those folks who don’t pay income tax pay plenty of other taxes: payroll, sales, state taxes.
    And the reason they don’t pay income tax is that they can’t afford it. And which party opposes every single intiative that might increase incomes and get those folks up into an incometax payig bracket? Which party engages in union busting? Which party doesn’t want to raise the minimum raise? Which party nominated a vulture capitalist who exports jobs> Yeah make people poor and then blame them for being poor!
    But it gets worse: Many of those moochers live on Social Security, Medicare vet’s benefits or Medicaid–all programs he wants to destroy one way or the other. I guess he’s expecting all those old, sick and/or disabled people to stagger down to the nearest temp agency and got to work. At low payinng jobs.
    Maybe he just wants us all to die since he can export jobs to China to that places like that factory he describes on the same video. He doesn’t need Americans any more, so why should he give a shit?

  34. Changes in these rates cannot be explained by changes in income. The rate is taxes paid divided by income. If your taxes went up only because your income went up, then your rate would not change.
    From the cited CBO report: “The share of taxes paid by the top fifth of the population grew sharply between 1979 and 2007. Almost all of that growth can be attributed to an increase in that group’s share of before-tax income.”
    As income is shifted upward and tax rates reduced, the “rate” paid by the top quintile could well remain somewhat constant. For those in the lower quintiles one would expect to see their both their “rate” and their “share” go down.
    This is what the graph appears to show.
    You might also check here for more analysis.

  35. From just this one graph, several observations can be drawn
    The observation the author neglected to include was that Mitt Romney has a really, really good tax attorney.
    13%, on a multi-million dollar income. Somebody’s earning their fee.
    The piece was interesting, but to be honest, 25% for the top quintile vs 5% for the lowest quintile, all in, seems fine to me.
    And it fails to explain all the dudes in the top quintile who pay way less than a 25% effective tax rate at the federal level.
    Maybe he’s failing to account for those loopholes we hear so much about.

  36. I guess it is because I’m overseas, but the tax stuff, while I understand why it is the focus, doesn’t really shock me. It’s the approach to the I-P situation. Marcellina’s comment about how he may be playing to the end-timers in the crowd is possible, but I’m not really sure there are going to be a lot of those folks at a fund-raiser held at this guy’s place, but I might have the wrong impression of folks in that crowd.
    There are supposed to be more video excerpts in the pipeline, and this comment concerning North Korea is astonishing.
    And it’s no wonder that people like Kim Jong Un, the new leader of North Korea, announces a new long-range missile test only a week after he said he wouldn’t. Because it’s like, what’s this president going to do about it?
    If you can’t act, don’t threaten.

    Not only does the last sentence contradict the previous paragraph, but it is such an idiotic view of how these things work that I do think the fact that we have a black man as president just overrides any impulse towards rational thought.

  37. “The piece was interesting, but to be honest, 25% for the top quintile vs 5% for the lowest quintile, all in, seems fine to me.”
    Me too, quite fair overall. I even find the breakdown within the top quintile to be ok, right up to 5 million. We should raise taxes on those guys.

  38. I think Romney’s I/P comment was just him channeling what the Israeli right thinks and sometimes says out loud. Netanyahu pays lip service to a 2SS, but he means something the Palestinians wouldn’t accept. Dayan, a settler leader, was profiled in the NYT a few weeks ago and he stated the 2SS is dead. Here he is in an op ed piece last summer (separate from the profile I mentioned)–
    link
    The Republican right is becoming indistinguishable from the Israeli right on Mideast issues.

  39. Romney says stupid things because he is a stupid man. How else to explain his conflation of the 47% who are likely Obama voters with the 47% who Mary Matalin dismissively describes as “parasites”? They are two different sets of people. As Republicans are fond of saying, apples and oranges.
    How can someone this stupid with statistics be considered an excellent businessman?

  40. Last night, Jon Aristophanes Stewart (when the satire stops, be very afraid, because violence will be imminent) showed a small portion of the video of Rmoney speaking to $50,000 a plate angry people.
    It was bad.
    Like inadvertently as a kid walking in on your parents having sex.
    At any rate, the video was shot on some hand-held device set on a table to the side of where Rmoney and his guests were seated.
    As Romney spoke about the parasitic 47%, probably about some of the hard-working taxpayers slinging the hash and pouring the champagne (did I say it was bad; imagine, a video surfacing from, say 1863, of a Southern plantation owner regaling his guests about the heavy burden and rising costs of slave ownership as his “staff”, eyes averted, ears on mute, beavers away quietly around him) one of the catering staff kept passing in front of the table.
    The catering employee (hey, he’s happy to have the work, which is probably leeway for lowering wages further) stopped at the table, and just inches from the video camera, removed a tiny vial from inside his black catering vest and poured the contents into a glass of champagne.
    I thought he was going to take the glass and set it at Rmoney’s place at the head of the table, but instead the catering staff member listened to Rmoney’s words for a few minutes and then, gripping the stem of the champagne flute with thumb and forefinger, he put his head back and drained the contents in one swallow.
    He grabbed his throat as his face went into a rictus and fell to the floor, apparently having poisoned himself.
    The double thump of his body hitting the floor was audible on the video.
    No one in attendance noticed.
    In fact, the assembled guests, including Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia, rose from the table a few minutes later and stepped over the worker’s body as they filed on to the veranda to view the live sex show in the hosting hedge-fund manager’s cement pond.

  41. If the Palestinians want to really make some progress, what they need is a stupidly rich Palestinian American who is willing to make seven-figure contributions to some US national candidates.
    That’ll move the policy debate in their favor.

  42. Another video surfaces of Romney emoting his real inner Erick Erickson
    +
    Romney says stupid things because he is a stupid man. How else to explain his conflation of the 47% who are likely Obama voters with the 47% who Mary Matalin dismissively describes as “parasites”? They are two different sets of people.
    =
    and i just heard Erickson on N-fncking-PR make the same stupid argument. and the host let him get away with it.

  43. Yes, Erickson, Matalin and the rest of the usual suspects are the true narcissists, for all the energy they expend accusing others of that disorder.
    They hear Romney’s words and they hear their own crabbed voices speaking and imagine their own hands up the back of Romney’s suit jacket working the dummy’s levers.
    Who can blame them? He is a dummy.
    Any businessmen and women here who would trust one line item of a business contract signed by Mitt Romney?
    Erickson goes unchallenged on NPR. To think of all the tax dollars I poured down that rat hole to confirm my own biases.
    I kid. I love NPR, but they have been gotten to.
    It’s like inviting al-Zawahiri to express his view of the world to a PTA meeting.
    Everyone nods sagely and considerately and goes home and burns their inner Jew.

  44. So there’s this family of 5 – wife, husband and 3 young kids. One spouse works, making $50k/yr, while the other stays home with the kids.
    Using the 2012 tax code:
    Standard deduction, married filing jointly – $11,900
    Personal exemption for each – $3,800, totaling $19,000 for the 5
    This leaves $19,100 of taxable income.
    10% on the first $17,400 is $1,740.
    15% on the remaining $1,700 is $255.
    This yields a tax of $1,995.
    With a child tax credit of $1,000 for each child, totaling $3,000 for the 3, this leaves net taxes due at NEGATIVE one thousand and five dollars.

  45. Just happened to flag this story on my morning perusal of financial websites.
    http://money.msn.com/main-street-america/job-gone-health-care-out-of-reach
    Being a single man, Medicaid is verboten for him.
    I know some view universal medical insurance as unconstitutional, among other things.
    I say it was nice of the Founders to craft the guy’s suicide ahead of time for him and give all of us the impression that we are complicit in his misery.
    They thought of everything.

  46. clearly, that family must get rid of one child and quit mooching off Mitt Romney’s* taxes.
    * who has never found a tax deduction he wouldn’t take.

  47. In closing for the week (me, not Stewart), Stewart also spoke with Salman Rushdie, who just released a memoir about HIS ordeal, and it was fascinating, particularly his view of very current events.
    Excerpts from his new book are available in this last week’s New Yorker.

  48. There’s a section of the video that is even more damning of Romney than the 47% stuff. In that section he talks about how Reagan used the Iran hostage crisis to win his election (that’s Romney’s interpetation of those events) and goes on to say that if there was a crisis involving Americans he would certainly take advantage of it.
    Interesting that he said this before he mouthed off in an obvioulsy gleeful atempt to use the death of the ambassador to his advantage.
    I don’t think that personal niceness is necessary in a President and the presence or lack of personal niceness wouldn’t sway me much one way or the other unless the lack of niceness took the form of torturing puppies or something like that.
    Or unless the lack of personal niceness was a filter that effected in a fundamental way the President’s reaction to events, thereby influencing to a significant degree his policies.
    I think that’s the case with the Rombot. His lack of personal niceness is so profound that he sees a crisis involving American lives –genuinely sees–as a means to his ends and has no shame or self awareness that inhibits him from jumping on the opportunty for his own advantage.
    In the same video he comments taht his campaign is limiting his wife’s exposure so “people won’t get sick of her.” Jeez,, a person with any awarenness of the feelings of other people at all would find a more tactful way to express that thought.
    So he casually dismisses half the populatio of the country for not paying taxes he almost certainly didn’t pay himself, labels them all as the enemy…
    It’s just breathtakingly not nice.
    LIke gutting the fundiing for Medicaid is not nice.
    Like turning Medicare into a voucher program is not nice.
    LIke making unemployment a state responsiblity is not nice.
    Lying about the changes in job requirements for welfare was not nice. Lyig about the millions of dollars the Obama adminstration saved on Medicare was not nice.
    Like promoting all this crap about rich people being job creators and the lie that cuttig their taxes will produce jobs while demonizing and threatening those few people who remain in the niddle class is not nice.
    But its the real face of the Repulbican party, Repubican values on display. Republican party ideas and values are every bit as selfish and primitive as Romney appears to be.

  49. Yeah, the foreign policy comments are even more gob-smacking than the other stuff.
    It’s like watching a not very trustworthy kid come upon a cache of fireworks.
    I’m done now.

  50. CCDG,
    May I suggest you have a look at this.
    There’s a lot there, and it does an excellent job of debunking Romney.
    One point near the end particularly struck me:

    A GAO study found that in every year from 1998 to 2005, approximately 55 percent of large corporations paid no corporate income tax. ** But just 2.7 percent of large corporations reported no net tax liability in all eight of those eight years. This reflects a similar pattern as applies to families and individuals — those who do not pay income tax in a given year often do pay income tax over time.

    IOW, businesses don’t pay taxes when they have a bad year either.

  51. I think it’s a general problem of perception, with the kind of statistical categories the come into play when discussing taxes and income, that people tend to think that the individuals who fall into a given category at one point in time are the same individuals who do at another.
    We currently have this 47% who pay no federal income taxes. This percentage was lower before the financial crisis, so we know at least some of those people weren’t in that category before. But I think some people think of, say, the 30% (just a number of rectal extraction) who entirely accounted for that category some number of years earlier are necessarily part of the current 47%, as though we just added another 17% to those same people.
    I think this occurs with unemployment figures, income percentiles and whatever. I sometimes automatically think this way and have to correct myself when considering such matters. It’s just simpler and therefore easier to think in those terms, even though it’s wrong.

  52. I should add that sometimes, depending on the specific discussion at hand, it just doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about the same people or not. The categories and their sizes are what matters, not the elements.
    But, when you start talking about the people, themselves, the way Romney did, characterizing them and imputing specific thoughts and additudes to them, that mode of thinking becomes highly problematic.

  53. “IOW, businesses don’t pay taxes when they have a bad year either. ”
    I will look through this when I can today. But i am not sure how it debunks Romneys underlying, and, to me, obvious point, that there is a huge number of people he just isn’t going to sway. Every pundit on every political show, blog, news show, etc. agrees with this. Some of those are people who fear losing entitlements, some are people who think we should be providing those entitlements that the first set are afraid of losing with no restriction, some believe that Obama has great policies that will recreate the golden age of American business and thus the mddle class.
    The ones that Romney needs to convince are the ones that don’t fit in any of the above categories. Like most human beings, he was talking to people who weren’t going to take his words and assume the worst about every sentence. So he made the point in a lazy way.
    I struggle to listen to any of what he said and see where it is politically incorrect, any more than the guns and religion comments by Obama weren’t politically correct. Even his assessments of the Palestinian issue and N Korea are pretty standard fare.
    It is a problem to hear a candidate speak really honestly about practical realities in the middle of a campaign. So this hurts him because it reinforces and hardens both sides view of him.

  54. Laura Koerbeer ,
    In that section he talks about how Reagan used the Iran hostage crisis to win his election (that’s Romney’s interpretation of those events) and goes on to say that if there was a crisis involving Americans he would certainly take advantage of it.
    I don’t know what to make of this observation, Another October Surprise?.
    In the same video he comments taht his campaign is limiting his wife’s exposure so “people won’t get sick of her.” Jeez, a person with any awareness of the feelings of other people at all would find a more tactful way to express that thought.
    I think Frank Rich shows in My Embed in Red, discovers a lot of right-wing radio show hosts could not stand Ms. Romney. So that may be for certain members of the base.
    CCDG,
    But i am not sure how it debunks Romneys underlying, and, to me, obvious point, that there is a huge number of people he just isn’t going to sway. Every pundit on every political show, blog, news show, etc. agrees with this. Some of those are people who fear losing entitlements, some are people who think we should be providing those entitlements that the first set are afraid of losing with no restriction, some believe that Obama has great policies that will recreate the golden age of American business and thus the mddle class.
    I agree with this sentiment, that is to say the Dems and Repub, both go into an election with about a 45-47% base. What it doesn’t assume though, is “Limousine Liberals” and other such categories are not paying taxes. It also doesn’t assume that non-tax payers refuse to vote for Republicans. Romney’s explanation seemed “childish”, something young right-wingers tell themselves, instead of the realities on the ground.

  55. russell: And it fails to explain all the dudes in the top quintile who pay way less than a 25% effective tax rate at the federal level.
    Because they’re hiding in the data. Assuming that CCDG’s number for income necessary to be in the “top quintile” are correct (seems like it), the vast majority of them earn ordinary income taxed at up to 35%. To really see who’s getting away with what, things need to be broken down into the top 5%, 1%, 0.1%, 0.01% and even the 0.001% of income. But federal income tax statistics don’t do this (other than the summary release of the Top 400 returns, average tax rate in 2009: 19.91%). I wonder why.
    CCDG: But i am not sure how it debunks Romneys underlying, and, to me, obvious point, that there is a huge number of people he just isn’t going to sway.
    Ah, if only he left it at that. Instead, not.

  56. “To really see who’s getting away with what, things need to be broken down into the top 5%, 1%, 0.1%, 0.01% and even the 0.001% of income. ”
    The breakdown of the top quintile is in the article.

  57. I struggle to listen to any of what he said and see where it is politically incorrect, any more than the guns and religion comments by Obama weren’t politically correct.
    This is a hilarious false equivalency. This is what Obama actually said:
    “You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
    In every way, this quotation is compassionate – except that people took offense to the “cling to guns and religion” part. Obama is empathizing with the people he’s talking about – saying that their feelings are easy to understand, and that he wants to persuade them. Except for the “clinging” part, nobody even disagrees with anything he said.
    On the other hand, Mitt Romney said this:
    “There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it — that that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. … These are people who pay no income tax. … [M]y job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
    In other words, 47% of people have no sense of personal responsibility – they just want to live on government handouts.
    If you can’t see the difference CCDG, especially when you understand who that 47% is (including active duty military personnel that Romney obviously has no experience with even though he is drumming for war) there’s something terribly wrong.

  58. Thanks for saving me the trouble, sapient. I had already formulated more or less the very same thoughts after reading Bill Kristol’s Op-Ed putting forth the same false equivalency. The attitudes towards expressed by the two statements are vastly different, even if people could take offense to either.

  59. In other words, 47% of people have no sense of personal responsibility – they just want to live on government handouts.
    …AND that exactly same 47% is the Democratic base.
    which is a lie.
    and, it doesn’t take into account the fact that Romney, like every other person in that room, would be very happy to pay no federal income tax; and they do, in all likelihood, employ legions of people to figure out how to get their tax bills as low as possible.
    which is perfectly legal. if the deductions and credits are there, take them. i do it; i’m sure we all do. but what i don’t do is to then begrudge people who end up paying no federal income tax because they don’t make enough to owe any, or they credits and deductions fall just right for them.
    why is it not enough to be rich beyond most people’s wildest dreams? why does he have to resent people for being poor? and why do people defend him for it?
    if someone is too poor to owe taxes, they are parasites. but people who are so rich that they can arrange their vast finances just so that they owe little or no taxes are sainted.
    you can’t have it both ways, “conservatives”. if not paying taxes is a sin, you can’t worship and support people who strive to pay no taxes.

  60. For the record, I find Romney’s family absolutely and utterly charming. But I don’t vote on those types of things.

  61. Wow, how many actice duty personnel are there? 1.5M, doesnt move the needle, how many elderly and very poor 18%. In the end his campaign on lowering taxes doesn’t mean anything to them, it can’t get lower than a little under 0. We can all find examples of hard working people that are in that 47%, I am sure he could to. Again, not nuances he would have thought to make for the crowd he was talking to.
    And no, it is not a false equivalence, bad phrasing in a private setting. The rest is where your bias started from.

  62. The breakdown of the top quintile is in the article.
    Thanks CCDG, I just noticed that, and it shows that the average tax rate for those making $10M plus is…less than those making 5% of that. 22.6% vs. 24.4%. (also the link to the IRS data on this is broken in the article and I can’t seem to re-produce it)
    Suffice it to say, someone making $10M a year should not be paying a lower effective tax rate, all in, than someone making $500k a year. If the equalization of the capital gains and ordinary income tax rates was good enough for St. Ronnie, it’s good enough for me. And it’s rare to see income stats broken down into anything other than the Top 5%, so good for the article’s author in doing so.

  63. And no, it is not a false equivalence, bad phrasing in a private setting. The rest is where your bias started from.
    If you honestly can’t read the two statements, whether or not they were both badly phrased in a private setting, and see a difference in the speakers’ attitudes toward the people they were taking about, I have to conclude your bias is at work.
    Romney is contemptuous and dismissive, while Obama is compassionate, even if condescendingly so. Obama’s words may be imperfect, but Romney’s are downright ugly.
    But there’s probably no point in arguing over it. No one’s changing anyone’s mind.

  64. Some other interesting observations from the Right.
    The more general misimpression that Romney propagated in Boca Raton, Fla., is that nearly half of the “47 percent” are nonproductive parasites who take no “personal responsibility or care for their lives.” This just isn’t true. A majority of government spending benefits the middle class. The progressive Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that the bottom fifth of households received 32 cents of every dollar of federal benefits in 2010. What’s more, both whites and blacks benefit from government in proportion to their share of the overall population.
    It would be great, as David Brooks writes, to have an argument about whether the distribution of these benefits is overly generous to the elderly and too stingy toward the young. (I’m assuming that when Romney promises to repeal Obama’s “raid” on Medicare, he believes today’s seniors are “entitled” to healthcare.) And it would be great, as economist Scott Sumner writes, if we could distinguish between “big government” and inefficient and behavior-distorting government.

    From:
    The 53 Percent Are at the Trough, Too

  65. CCDG,

    Romneys underlying, and, to me, obvious point, that there is a huge number of people he just isn’t going to sway. Every pundit on every political show, blog, news show, etc. agrees with this. Some of those are people who fear losing entitlements, some are people who think we should be providing those entitlements that the first set are afraid of losing with no restriction, some believe that Obama has great policies that will recreate the golden age of American business and thus the mddle class.

    Nope. That’s not his underlying point. He’s not saying Obama has a 47% base that supports him for a broad variety of reasons. Absolutely not. That’s the GOP spinners’ tale, but it’s a lie, as you can easily tell if you read the quote.
    What Romney said was:

    There are 47% who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they’re entitled to healthcare, to food, to housing, to you name it. It’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. I mean the president starts off with 48%, 49%, 40–he starts off with a huge number.

    IOW, Romney said the 47% Obama base is entirely made up of moochers. It’s impossible to read the statement any other way.

  66. Nope. That’s not his underlying point.
    nope. but that’s the point they’re all going to insist he was making.
    we’ll see if the media has enough spine to point out, over and over and over and over, that it’s not at all what he said. i’m betting “no”.

  67. oops. no, the new talking point is going to be that the video is missing a crucial 90 seconds, and that MoJo snipped out that 90 seconds because it contains crucial context that will make all of the current criticisms moot.
    that Romney hasn’t yet mentioned what’s in this magic 90 seconds will remain one of life’s great mysteries.

  68. I struggle to listen to any of what he said and see where it is politically incorrect, any more than the guns and religion comments by Obama weren’t politically correct.
    “Politically incorrect” is not really the issue.
    It was (a) false and (b) extraordinarily offensive to people who work their @sses off and don’t make enough money to end up with a net federal income tax liability.
    Those people do NOT consider themselves victims. They do NOT assume that the state owes them food, shelter, and healthcare as an entitlement. They are NOT dependent upon government any more than anybody else, and are less so than many of the folks in Romney’s audience.
    It is not a matter of inartful wording, it’s freaking false. The substance of his statement is false. And not just false, but insulting to tens of millions of people.
    Obama’s comments were likewise offensive to a lot of people, although for different reasons. And he got hammered for it, and deserved to get hammered for it.
    And Romney is getting hammered, and will continue to get hammered, for his. And he will deserve it.
    If I give Romney’s comments the most charitable reading I can, he is so freaking out of touch with normal human life that he might as well be living on Mars.
    A more realistic reading, IMO, is that his comments be taken at face value. I think what he said is what he believes, as stated. He’s had many opportunities to unpack what he said, correct the wording, explain what he really meant, and he has quite clearly opted not to. By “quite clearly” I mean he has stated, explicitly, that he stands behind the substance of what he said.
    Romney started out the 2012 campaign cycle as a reasonably well-regarded guy. I think he’s gonna end up as one of the most disliked characters in recent American public life.
    If so, IMO he will have earned it.

  69. In other news on the “why this will not lose Romney a single vote” front, earlier today I read a posting from a buddy of mine on FB.
    My buddy had a lifelong friend who killed himself a couple of years ago. Lost his job due to the recession, then lost his house to foreclosure, then his marriage fell apart.
    In short, his life was freaking shattered to crumbs. We all know the story, it’s not an unfamiliar one these days.
    In his middle 40’s I suppose he figured starting over from scratch just wasn’t worth the candle. Or, he just didn’t know where to begin.
    Anyway, today my buddy chimed in to say that sure, Elizabeth Warren could talk a good line about standing up the banks etc., but his vote was going for Brown because he was in the National Guard.
    People do things for all kinds of reasons. Not all of them make a lot of sense to other people.
    Stupid, rude, offensive, clueless comments or not, Romney’s still got a shot.
    Read’em and weep.

  70. But wait, there’s more!
    What Romney doesn’t understand.
    A snippet:

    The thing about not having much money is you have to take much more responsibility for your life. You can’t pay people to watch your kids or clean your house or fix your meals. You can’t necessarily afford a car or a washing machine or a home in a good school district. That’s what money buys you: goods and services that make your life easier.
    That’s what money has bought Romney, too. He’s a guy who sold his dad’s stock to pay for college, who built an elevator to ensure easier access to his multiple cars and who was able to support his wife’s decision to be a stay-at-home mom. That’s great! That’s the dream.
    The problem is that he doesn’t seem to realize how difficult it is to focus on college when you’re also working full time, how much planning it takes to reliably commute to work without a car, or the agonizing choices faced by families in which both parents work and a child falls ill. The working poor haven’t abdicated responsibility for their lives. They’re drowning in it.

    Anybody who has ever had to sweat the rent, or pick which bills they are going to let go overdue this month, or choose between fixing the car or eating three meals a day, knows *exactly* what Klein is talking about.
    Romney does not. Never has, likely never will.
    I’m growing to dislike the guy quite a bit. Didn’t start out that way, but I’m getting there.
    h/t atrios

  71. One point no one seems to have brought up yet is that claiming to be the victim of evil forces is a favorite on the right. What about the claims that Christians in the US are treated like the Jews in Hitler’s Germany, that the liberal media suppresses any public expression of conservative thought, that the liberals want to and will take your guns any minute now, that evil Washington steals the hard-earned money of upright (and therefore automatically conservative) citizens to give it to the undeserving, that all good jobs and all scholarships are given to the unqualified minorities instead of the above mentioned upright citizens, that the children get indoctrinated by the forces of evil in the unconstitutional public school system, that the gays prey on each and every child etc. etc.?

  72. From russell’s link:
    Romney, apparently, thinks it’s folks like him who’ve really had it hard. “I have inherited nothing,” the son of a former auto executive and governor told the room of donors. “Everything Ann and I have, we earned the old-fashioned way.” This is a man blind to his own privilege.
    “Blind to his own privilege.” No effing sh1t. I have no doubt he’s worked hard, but the idea that he “inherited nothing” is farcical, a sign that the man believes his own BS. Not good.
    I agree with russell, I’m growing to dislike the guy quite a bit. Didn’t start out that way, but I’m getting there.
    It’s like being a callous douchebag is a feature, not a bug, for the GOP these days, and probably at least since Nixon.
    Fnck.

  73. “The problem is that he doesn’t seem to realize how difficult it is to focus on college when you’re also working full time, how much planning it takes to reliably commute to work without a car, or the agonizing choices faced by families in which both parents work and a child falls ill. The working poor haven’t abdicated responsibility for their lives. They’re drowning in it.”
    At least they both have jobs, huh? This describes my whole life until my first two kids graduated from college, I am not sure I would describe it in such pathetic terms though.
    Planning to get to work is just what we did. Deciding who stays home with the sick child is Agonizing? Really?
    Paying for college? Yeah, I was thrilled when two of them decided to go to state schools, the other two were half paid and half borrowed, and the bills were juggled.
    I am much happier to have someone I believe will focus on making sure both of us have jobs (which I don’t) than someone worried about how agonizing it is to decide who takes care of the sick kid.
    bah.

  74. I am much happier to have someone I believe will focus on making sure both of us have jobs
    well, as long as you pay income taxes (or make enough to hire somebody to make sure you don’t have to pay any), Mitt welcomes your vote.
    everybody else is a professional victim.

  75. This describes my whole life until my first two kids graduated from college, I am not sure I would describe it in such pathetic terms though.
    Maybe you were just better off than some other people. Maybe the two jobs you and your wife had were better than the jobs some other people have.
    You focus in on the word “agonizing” to turn the description of working poor people’s lives into a maudlin soap opera if you like, but the point is that poor people have a ton of responsibilities and that ol’ Mitt doesn’t get that.
    It’s not about picking someone who “worries” about who’s going to watch the sick kid. It’s about one guy who doesn’t even know what it’s like to have to consider such things.
    And it’s possible to focus on people being able to find work and to understand what it’s like for working parents to take care of their kids, like, at the same time.

  76. Planning to get to work is just what we did. Deciding who stays home with the sick child is Agonizing? Really?
    I wouldn’t say “agonizing” but certainly a pain in the @$$. Not every job pays you if you don’t show up for work.

  77. This describes my whole life until my first two kids graduated from college
    It describes a lot of people’s lives. Like, millions of people.
    That’s my point. I don’t wish to speak for others, but I suspect it’s the point of everyone on this thread other than you.
    The people whose lives it describes don’t suddenly fall into the bucket of “dependent on government”, “victims”, or “not taking responsibility for themselves” if their income in any given year results in them having no net federal income tax liability.
    In fact, if they make little enough $$$ to have no net federal income tax liability, they most likely can’t afford to hire anybody to deal with problematic stuff, so they are responsible for everything.
    Nobody is running errands for them, Nobody’s picking up the dry cleaning, nobody’s watching the kids after school for them, nobody’s doing grocery shopping or cleaning the toilet or taking the kid to the doctor or [fill in your favorite list of j-random daily household errands].
    Nobody is doing that for them. They are doing it, for themselves. They are responsible for themselves, and their families.
    And yeah, that describes tens of millions of people in this country. Including you, including me, including most people hanging out here on ObWi.
    That is the damned point.
    Romney says if they don’t happen to have a federal income tax liability, they’re not taking responsibility for themselves. They are living on government largesse. So, they won’t be open to his promises of a lower tax burden.
    What they aren’t open to is his inability to understand how people who aren’t worth 7 or 8 or 9 figures live.
    Because he’s never had that experience, and apparently doesn’t have the personal equipment to imagine it.
    Planning to get to work is just what we did.
    See my comment above.
    Deciding who stays home with the sick child is Agonizing?
    It is if “stay home with kid” means “no pay”, or “get fired”.
    So yes, agonizing. Maybe not for you, in which case lucky you. For lots of people, agonizing.
    My message to conservatives, now and always: there are other people in the world besides you.

  78. What they aren’t open to is his inability to understand how people who aren’t worth 7 or 8 or 9 figures live.
    Mitt Romney thinks $200,000 to $250,000 is “middle income”:

    GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Is $100,000 middle income?
    MITT ROMNEY: No, middle income is $200,000 to $250,000 and less.

    $200K is four times the median US household income.
    man of the people.

  79. OK, true story.
    I used to commute into Boston on the train. The morning ritual included a few minutes of hanging around at the station and shooting the breeze with the other folks who were waiting for the train.
    It was a mix of folks, from various backgrounds. One guy was from, basically, money. He was sharing a story about a summer party he had attended on a small island just off the coast of a nearby town.
    “A party on an island?”, someone asked. “How do you all get out there?”
    Answer: “You take the boat!”.
    Obviously.
    Because everybody has a boat. Obviously.
    Everybody has blind spots. Romney’s are the 99% of people in the world who aren’t freaking rich.

  80. “Planning to get to work is just what we did. Deciding who stays home with the sick child is Agonizing? Really?”
    “I wouldn’t say “agonizing” but certainly a pain in the @$$. Not every job pays you if you don’t show up for work.”
    Been awhile since I read Nickeled and Dimed, and I’ve never been in that position, but it does sound like some people have bosses who are less than kind and understanding.
    I thought of replying to CCDG’s brief Palestinian comment, but decided it wasn’t worth it. Sure, lots of people think the way Romney does. Basically, if you don’t have power or money and can’t do him any good, you’re worthless in his eyes,whether you’re some individual in what he perceives as an inferior culture, or someone who doesn’t make enough here to pay income taxes.
    “Stupid, rude, offensive, clueless comments or not, Romney’s still got a shot.”
    True. With his core constituency, his remarks will spark enthusiasm. Others will (cough, cough) try to rephrase the remarks into something less offensive.

  81. “You focus in on the word “agonizing” to turn the description of working poor people’s lives into a maudlin soap opera if you like,”
    For the first 20 years of my adult life and 15 years of my kids life we were definitively working poor moving up to lower middle class.
    Not so much the last fifteen years,( but it’s perfectly possible I could be back there in six months).
    The whole point of what was there was to describe the working poors life as a maudlin soap opera. But more important, it is to imply that it is governments role to fix those challenges.
    Those are the very ways that people describe things that sound like we were “victims” of some kind of lack of understanding by the government.
    As far as I’m concerned Ezra Klein doesn’t have a clue how much I object to him painting me as a victim that Romney should be trying to understand. Klein is an example of a huge part of the problem: the patronizing crusader for me or my family, most of whom are still working poor.
    I wish he would take his faux concern and shove it.

  82. My brother is a rigger; the company he works for is a subsidiary of Halliburton. Missing work for anything is almost impossible, although there are labor laws that should prevent the exploitive nature of the job; it is an open secret that anything smelling of injury or sickness will not be tolerated and lead to dismissal. Mentioning a union guarantees dismissal.
    And kids just don’t get sick, they get into trouble at school, they go to a home devoid of adult supervision, etc.
    My highest paying job treated me like a prince (Prospect Research for Catholic institution, separating the middle-class from the millionaires from the billionaires for possible donations) but those below me were constantly supervised and constant passive-aggressive hints of losing their jobs.
    My lowest paying job (unloaded trucks for a liquidator) would frequently send people home without pay, and the in-your-face threat of dismissal.
    The more money you make, the better you are treated.

  83. “Klein is an example of a huge part of the problem: the patronizing crusader for me or my family, most of whom are still working poor. ”
    So you or somebody is Ezra Klein’s victim? “The problem” being what, exactly?
    I suspect that any problem of which Ezra Klein constitutes a huge portion thereof probably isn’t much of a problem after all.

  84. But more important, it is to imply that it is governments role to fix those challenges.
    No, it isn’t. It’s to state outright that Mitt Romney has no fnkcing idea what he’s talking about. It’s a response to the obnoxious and stupid crap he said while running for the office of the President of the United States of America. It’s about Mitt Romney impugning the character of people who don’t make enough money to pay federal income taxes.
    Jesus H Christ on a popsicle stick, this isn’t that hard.

  85. And yet, in that election, in the Jimmy Carter election, the fact that we had hostages in Iran, I mean, that was all we talked about. And we had the two helicopters crash in the desert, I mean, that was the focus and so him (Reagan)solving that made all the difference in the world. (snip) If something of that nature presents itself, I will work to find a way to take advantage of the opportunity.”
    See? The purpose, in Mitt the Moocher’s mind, of foreign policy is to look strong to the masses at home in order to manipulate domestic politics.
    Kind of like why Bush decided to invade Iraq. He was looking for a quick easy war tht would make him look like a big hero. Foreign policy reduced to photo ops.

  86. But more important, it is to imply that it is governments role to fix those challenges.
    Who the hell here is talking about government “fixing those challenges”?
    What defines the population Romney is talking about is that, for one reason or another, they don’t have a federal income tax liability.
    “You don’t owe any federal income tax this year” is several miles away from “Here, let me fix all of your problems”.
    You are making the opposite point that I think you wish to make.

  87. But more important, it is to imply that it is governments role to fix those challenges.
    Socialized medicine would help, but we got a Democrat who used a Republican idea for that one.

  88. CCDG: For the first 20 years of my adult life and 15 years of my kids life we were definitively working poor moving up to lower middle class.
    It’s kind of weird to me that you think that it’s an acceptable situation to be “working poor” for the first 20 years of your adult life. If you’re working for 20 years, do you really think that you should still be poor if you’re working in a fair society? Or do you not think that your efforts were worth a decent income? That’s what’s totally baffling to me. Why do you accept that you’re not worth more?
    I’m not talking about people who choose to be artists, or forego standard, annoying employment in order to follow some uncompensated path. I’m assuming that you’re not one of those people (just guessing – please correct me if I’m wrong). But if you’re working for an enterprise where profit is being made, why do you tolerate, or venerate even, employers who pay people poverty wages?

  89. “No, it isn’t. It’s to state outright that Mitt Romney has no fnkcing idea what he’s talking about. It’s a response to the obnoxious and stupid crap he said while running for the office of the President of the United States of America. It’s about Mitt Romney impugning the character of people who don’t make enough money to pay federal income taxes.
    Jesus H Christ on a popsicle stick, this isn’t that hard.”
    Perfect. Miracle of miracles. For once we agree wholeheartedly with the regulars here.
    No, this isn’t that hard to comprehend. Romeny has revealed himself to be a complete snob of a foot in mouth jackass.
    We’ll take the slick talking BHO over this rich mamma’s little country club boy baffoon any day – if we’re going to be takin’ a long hard @ss fnckin’ we prefer a little vasoline and some sweet talkin’ foreplay.
    Military personnel do not favor Romney according to our limited poll.

  90. “If you’re working for 20 years, do you really think that you should still be poor if you’re working in a fair society? Or do you not think that your efforts were worth a decent income? That’s what’s totally baffling to me. Why do you accept that you’re not worth more?”
    Wow, I love that, were you a labor organizer?

  91. No, but thanks, someotherdude. I was a worker in a right to work state (for a time). Fortunately, I found a way out. I honestly don’t get it though. CCDG is obviously a literate, somewhat thoughtful person. And he really worked for the man for 20 years at poverty wages? I get it that a lot of people have to do that. But then they don’t blame their employer, they blame the government? Or they blame themselves for being worthless?

  92. There are people who derive their self respect from their ability to cope with deprivation, and once they leave the deprivation behind them, they want to slam the door so no one else can escape. They particlualry fault anyone who wants to fix the facotrs tht caused the derivation in the first place.
    It’s almost like they see the deprivation as a hazing experience that proves their worthiness. And those who object to the hazing aren’t worthy.
    OF course I’m not reading CCDG’s mind here. I’mthinking more of people I’m acquainted with.

  93. I get it that a lot of people have to do that. But then they don’t blame their employer, they blame the government? Or they blame themselves for being worthless?
    Posted by: sapient | September 19, 2012 at 07:33 PM
    I think it’s the way the idea of the “individual” and “community” was translated in the United States. The rest of the modern West seems to have included “labor” as well as “property” in the idea of a functioning community. Whereas, “labor” in the United States has gone through way more translations…or something.
    I used to think Puritanism and Calvinism were the major influence, but then why did Calvinists and Socialists in Scotland and Denmark, find so much common cause when it came to those issues. And Puritans had many laws regulating capital and profits.
    Reading what Marx admired about Capitalism, (in the preamble of the Communist Manifesto): its ability to get rid of tradition and mysticism because it can place a price on anything and everything, reminded me of what “conservatives” don’t like about change, and originally did’nt like about Capitalism. And why conservatives in other Western nations were (and still) are suspicious of “free markets”. The way it objectified labor as “un-human?” and/or “in-human” was how, I think, Socialists and religious folks found some common cause.

  94. ” And those who object to the hazing aren’t worthy.”
    So you won’t have to read my mind, no one likes to have to work 12 years in definite poverty, another 5 on the edge before truly getting to lower middle class.
    But all I hear, most of my life now, is how I must have been lucky, I wasn’t smarter(probably true), didn’t work harder, I didn’t do anything special to make it to upper middle class from where I started.
    You see, I come from a family of 5 kids and 4 cousins and I watched all of us all of our lives. What I did was make different decisions, some better, some worse, than my closest 8 peers with the most common background.
    Three of them died of drug overdose or failed liver before the age of 30. One is living full time on the dole, drug status unknown, the other 4 are living somewhere between working class amd middle class.
    I know what we did different, it isn’t complex. They are all good people, well most, and they work hard at work every day. But they didn’t work as hard as I was willing to when I worked my way through school. They weren’t willing to take the next job no matter where it was, they weren’t willing to drive an hour each way to work every day. When I talk about working harder it isn’t in physical labor, it is in time and sacrifice.
    They had work/life limits they weren’t willing to give up on, before thats what they were called, they had very different priorities.
    Then some of them complained because they didn’t make as much as me. They complained about not making enough or having a house, or having one car, and of course, one complained because I didn’t support them.
    But see, we all started at the same place, and today I am proud of where most them are, and I still miss the ones gone. Some took a longer road, one won’t get there. That one needs a safety net for sure.
    And all of them have a story, they all have loving families, they are all happier today than yesterday.

  95. I have finally figured out a way past my cognitive dissonance on Romney and taxes. If I make less than $100,000 per year, and pay no (Federal, income) taxes, I am a moocher. If I make over $1,000,000 and pay no taxes, I am a savvy businessman with a good tax advisor, and a pillar of the nation. Got it!

  96. CCDG ,
    Wouldn’t you also agree that there were generations before you that build a society where it was possible for you to do the things you did?
    I don’t think you can fail to recognize that the New Deal and the Progressive Movement (acknowledging their sins, of course) helped redefine the vision of their forefathers, to create the environment you succeeded in. And rolling back their work is just insane.

  97. Oh, and let me add Truman’s Fair deal and LBJ’s Great Society, like it or not, they changed the political economy of this nation-state. And it went primarily to the middle-class.

  98. Or, alternatively, do you know of anyone advocating a policy that allows people to move out of poverty and into the middle class without having to work for it? Who is looking to hand people enough money to live a middle class lifestyle simply because those people were born poor and regardless of their willingness to work?
    I believe what you’ve written and think what you’ve done is admirable, but I’m not sure how to apply it, other than to say “Way to go – you did it. Kudos.”

  99. Rich folks work really hard and pay a lot of money for the government they want. By and large, they have succeeded admirably: Tax breaks for sham “business expenses”; lower tax rates on capital gains; subsidies of all kinds; endless tax gimmicks; protective tariffs; the ability to virtually break unions at will; patent monopolies; a deliberately overvalued dollar; licensing protection; and so-called “free trade”. All of these are due to government largess.
    They have used the government to get where they are and they see no reason why they should not be able to use that power to further enhance their position, their privilege, and their deep seated sense of entitlement.
    All this talk about taxes masks the real issue….who has real power in this nation and gets what pre-tax, because that’s where the booty really gets divvied up.
    This has nothing to do with envy. It’s about power.

  100. In short, do you think it would be a good thing to make it even harder for people to move up?
    Beyond what nearly everybody would agree is a decently high level, why yes. Why not? As the saying goes, “You can’t take it with you.” Yet here we are, structuring a society virtually dedicated to the proposition that one day it might actually happen.
    Some experiment.

  101. “…, like it or not, they changed the political economy of this nation-state. And it went primarily to the middle-class.”

    Yes, the working poor start working earlier, work longer while paying a regressive payroll tax, die younger and not receiving their share of Social Security and Medicare they paid for if they live long enough to get anything at all.

  102. Charles WT,
    I remember, during the 1980s, in my JSA debates, the right-wing debaters would always admit that an unfettered free market was the good in itself, equity be damned. Even though the State may do something much more efficient, the fact that it was the government, meant it was evil. Now the argument right-wingers seem to be pushing is, all will be well, under total capitalism.

  103. Capitalism and the free market don’t have much in common these days if they ever did. We have crony capitalism, corporatism, something. Not much free market to be found.
    Bain Capital’s business model is roundly criticized. Then the government uses about the same model with regard to Chrysler and GM. And does it so badly that “General Motors is alive”, but a zombie that will blow thru billions of the tax payers’ dollars before it finally dies.

  104. I’ve deleted the url for the Latte Lounge Karashi, but if someone really has an urge for a latte in Karachi, let me know and I will pass it on to you…
    (srsly, this is the 4th or 5th spam url that goes back to some business in Pakistan. Anyone know what is up with that?)

  105. Then the government uses about the same model with regard to Chrysler and GM. And does it so badly that “General Motors is alive”, but a zombie that will blow thru billions of the tax payers’ dollars before it finally dies.
    How exactly is this true? I don’t really follow that it is the same model. As I understand it, the rationale behind the auto bailout was that if those companies went under, all of the companies that supply parts or use parts would have been in jeopardy, so the model was that you keep the company alive because if it went under, it would pull down so much more, endangering local and state government that depends on those companies. This interdependence was/is heightened by the adoption of ‘just in time’ management, where companies don’t keep a large stockpile of parts, but depend on the supply chain to provide them at the right time, so that a shortage of parts would have a ripple effect.
    The Bain model, if I understand it correctly, is to purchase a company with borrowed money and then use the cash flow to pay off those debts (while also getting paid to ‘manage’ the company and be paid for doing that) which would often entail selling off parts of the company and/or pushing to company to bankruptcy to get it out from pensions etc.
    The first was done with full recognition of the interconnectedness of the economy, especially as is relates to auto manufacturing, the second really couldn’t give a sh*t about what the company in question is connected to, unless it is to get a better price for the best bits. What am I missing?

  106. So you won’t have to read my mind, no one likes to have to work 12 years in definite poverty, another 5 on the edge before truly getting to lower middle class.
    So when you were in poverty, mooching off people like me, you voted Democrat, and now that you pay income tax you vote Republican?

  107. “As I understand it, the rationale behind the auto bailout was that if those companies went under,…”

    The companies were facing Chapter 11 bankruptcy, not closing their doors and being liquidated. They would have continued operations after some reduction in size and reorganization. Which is what happen anyway after the government intervened.

    “The Bain model, if I understand it correctly, is to purchase a company with borrowed money and then use the cash flow to pay off those debts (while also getting paid to ‘manage’ the company and be paid for doing that) which would often entail selling off parts of the company and/or pushing to company to bankruptcy to get it out from pensions etc.”

    Which is about what happen with the government being the buyer using tax money. GM lost Hummer, Pontiac, Saturn, Saab, 900 dealerships, 13 plants and 22,500 employees. A couple of differences from a Bain takeover is that the unions got preferential terms and the bondholders got kicked to the curb.

    “What am I missing?”

    That none of Bain’s takeovers have been accused of illegal treatment of bondholders?

  108. The companies were facing Chapter 11 bankruptcy, not closing their doors and being liquidated.
    Which is what happened. I realize that this is wikipedia, so I’d appreciate any pointers to what is wrong in the article, or correct and problematic to you.
    Your argument is, iiuc, that the government should have just taken a hands-off attitude because the bankruptcy court would have been able to deal with it. Yet, as you note, bondholders would have had first call on any assets, and they refused to a debt for equity swap, so it isn’t clear to me that they would have done what was best for the company. So the counterfactual is that things would have turned out just the same had the government not intervened. That’s a pretty big bet, and given the time that all this was occurring, not really one designed to assauge consumer confidence.
    That none of Bain’s takeovers have been accused of illegal treatment of bondholders?
    At the risk of ‘letting the mask slip’, I don’t think there is a 100% overlap with what is immoral and what is illegal. Or to be more clear, the Bain model has, as you note, roundly criticized. That doesn’t make it illegal, but it doesn’t make it right. I don’t think what Bain has done is illegal, but I’m pretty sure it should be illegal.

  109. I am much happier to have someone I believe will focus on making sure both of us have jobs (which I don’t) than someone worried about how agonizing it is to decide who takes care of the sick kid.
    Then, to echo sapient, you really should be voting Democratic.
    The Republicans have killed several jobs programs for no good reason.
    They opposed any sort of stimulus.
    Romney and Ryan are both bizarrely critical of the Fed’s latest efforts.
    IOW, they have no idea how an economy works.

  110. “Yet, as you note, bondholders would have had first call on any assets, and they refused to a debt for equity swap, so it isn’t clear to me that they would have done what was best for the company.”
    Well, no, the bondholders would have done, to the extent they were legally entitled, what was best for them. As opposed to the government doing, to an extent which actually violated the law, what was best for the UAW, but leaving GM still a failing company.
    Once you’ve got a bankruptcy looming, somebody’s going to get screwed. We have rules for who gets screwed, known in advance. With GM, the government up and violated those rules for political gain.
    Oh, and Romney, not that I’m terribly fond of him, doesn’t seem to come equipped with self-destruct buttons. Rather, Democrats, including that subset who call themselves “the media”, interpret everything he does as him self-destructing.
    And yet, after each explosion, he’s still standing there. Must be frustrating.

  111. “Once you’ve got a bankruptcy looming, somebody’s going to get screwed.”

    I suspect, were McCain president, about the same thing would have happen. The difference being, perhaps, would be who got screwed.

  112. Again, Charles, I don’t see it. The judge said in his ruling
    As nobody can seriously dispute, the only alternative to an immediate sale is liquidation – a disastrous result for GM’s creditors, its employees, the suppliers who depend on GM for their own existence and the communities in which GM operates
    Not only were the bondholders pushed to the back, so were retired GM workers. Maybe you read different newspapers than I did in 2009, but if you think that everything was business as usual at that point, you are welcome to make that argument. That you suspect the same thing would have happened if it were McCain seems like you are acknowledging that the situation was the key. Can’t tell if Brett feels the same way, and just feels it is unfair that the bondholders weren’t able to pull down the entire US auto industry in trying to get 33 cents on the dollar rather than 30, or if he thinks that if we had just treated the bondholders better, things would have magically turned out alright.
    Brett further opines:
    “Rather, Democrats, including that subset who call themselves “the media”, interpret everything he does as him self-destructing.”
    Whoops, mask slippage! Now, if Romney doesn’t win, it’s because he was sabotaged by the librul media and he would have gotten 53% of the vote if everyone would have just shut their piehole.
    Which is why liberal pundits like David Brooks(“Mr. Romney… when will the incompetence stop?”), Peggy Noonan (“It’s time to admit the Romney campaign is an incompetent one”), Bill Kristol ( “stupid and arrogant”) are piling on and why Republican pols (like an RNC prime time speaker and honorary co-chair of “Juntos Con Romney”, Linda Martinez) are running away. (They will probably need to change the name to Junta de Romney, because everyone on it will be able to fit around a boardroom table.) Curse you, librul media!!
    Truthfully, I can’t imagine how frustrated you must feel.

  113. “And yet, after each explosion, he’s still standing there. Must be frustrating.”
    Indeed we are all frustrated that Mitt has not, like every major-party presidential nominee before him, abandoned his campaign before Election Day.

  114. LJ, the question is, how does Romney manage to repeatedly “self-destruct” while remaining competative in the polls? I see two explainations:
    1. Obama is a really lousy candidate, to the point where even somebody who’s serially self-destructive can hold his own with him.
    or,
    2. Liberals are no better at distinguishing self-destructive from politically canny acts on the part of members of the opposite party than conservatives are.
    I’d go for 2: You’re not who Romney is campaigning for the votes of, you’d never in a million years consider voting for him. You don’t know from self-destructive, in this context.

  115. I’ll answer that question:
    Let’s define “self-destruct” as “actively hurting his chances.”
    Is it possible that Romney is both
    1. Actively hurting his chances and
    2. Remaining competitive in the polls?
    Yes, because sans the active hurting of his chances, he would be polling even better. For another example of counterfactuals, see the stimulus (without it, economic recovery would have been even worse).

  116. “I believe what you’ve written and think what you’ve done is admirable, but I’m not sure how to apply it, other than to say “Way to go – you did it. Kudos.”
    hsh, no kudos warranted. The point was that I see little difference in the opportunity today than over the “last 30 years” except the economy is creating jobs really slowly.
    It is a small slice of why some people look around in their peer group and think that the reasons for not getting ahead seem more like excuses. If you want all those things then they can be gotten, if you want to live and work “your” way then some of them cant be.
    I have heard people complain about their bosses, the company, the government, the big banks, the local bank, the colleges, you name it. But mostly it is what they do that matters.
    I certainly don’t think that constitutes closing the door behind me.

  117. From the librul media that Jon Stewart called “Bullshit Mountain” last night:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTwpBLzxe4U
    Thing about libruls is we, lamely, ineffectively, resort to “satire” when elections don’t go our way.
    We laugh and kvetch our way, ruefully, through the next four years, because we are pansies.
    At some point, I hope, the satire will stop and then there will be an eerie, portending silence.
    In the meantime, conservatives, by their own proud admission, empty out the gun shops and shows of every weapon known to man with enough ammo to choke a Nazi and then make one more stop on the way home to buy cans of nigger-toes for the next four years of target practice when their “people” don’t win.
    Regarding GM, no arrangement was ideal, but even the CEO of Ford, which declined the bailout, made a point of saying that HIS company would have gone under too without the GM and Chrysler bailouts because EVERY original parts supplier here and maybe even overseas would have gone under, too.
    Add in the banks and finance companies that purist bullsh*tters would have preferred to see go kaputnik (yes, there were some CEOs and quants who should have been prosecuted), too, and imagine, if your ideologies will permit, what this country and much of the rest of the world, would have looked like.
    I don’t think anyone wanted to see what would have happened when several million auto-workers, both Democratic and Republican, emptied out the gun stores throughout the Midwest.
    Especially when sub-human murderous vermin in the Republican Party would inevitably take to the right-wing media airwaves to call them parasites and moochers from citadels of horseshit under high security with underpaid armed guards.
    Now, get the f*ck off my lawn.

  118. LJ, the question is, how does Romney manage to repeatedly “self-destruct” while remaining competative in the polls?
    Uh, the single most accurate predictor of all the most recent presidential and off-year elections, Nate Silver’s 538, currently shows Obama with a 75.2% chance of winning the presidency again. Let me repeat that number: 75.2%.
    Here’s a nice little tidbit from yesterday’s post in which he bemoans some crazy state-level polling data but tries to discern whether there are any reasonably trends or inferences to be found:

    The most unambiguously bearish sign for Mr. Romney are the poor polls he has been getting in swing states from pollsters that use a thorough methodology and include cellphones in their samples.
    There have been 16 such polls published in the top 10 tipping point states since the Democratic convention ended, all conducted among likely voters. Mr. Obama has held the lead in all 16 of these polls. With the exception of two polls in Colorado — where Mr. Obama’s polling has been quite middling recently — all put him ahead by at least four points. On average, he led by 5.8 percentage points between these 16 surveys.

    (bolding mine)
    Stop getting your news from WingNutDaily, Brett. It’s rotting your brain.

  119. Phil phrases it a bit more sharply than I would, but the lead that Obama is opening up is pretty dispositive of something. Interestingly enough, Nate Silver also noted that there may be a cell-phone bias that is reflected in the polls. And also, this:
    There are no such ambiguities in the race for control of the Senate, however. Polls show key races shifting decisively toward the Democrats, with the Republican position deteriorating almost by the day.
    Since we published our initial Senate forecast on Tuesday, Republicans have seen an additional decline in their standing in two major races.

    The liberal media didn’t put Clint Eastwood and a chair in front of the TV audience. The liberal media didn’t somehow take over Romney’s body and have him deliver that late Monday nite presser that was called so quickly, the major media outlets didn’t have time to send someone to cover it. Of course, the emphasis is SELF destruct. If you want to interpret that Mitt’s head blowing up a la Scanners, that’s possible, but as Julian points out, that requires a bit of interpretive disfluency on your part. Which, like your frustration, is palpable.

  120. For the first 20 years of my adult life and 15 years of my kids life we were definitively working poor moving up to lower middle class.
    First, thanks for a candid and really thoughtful post.
    I don’t think anybody disagrees with the idea that, if you work hard and apply yourself to the best of your ability, you will be more successful than if you do not.
    I also don’t think anybody disagrees with the idea that, if you work hard and apply yourself to the best of your ability, that you are entitled to whatever rewards flow from that.
    I certainly don’t disagree with any of those things.
    All of that said, a couple of comments.
    First, note that I’ve said “success” and not “money”. Success can mean a lot of things, including: being good and effective at what you do, adding value to whatever situation you find yourself in, achieving meaningful goals that you have set for yourself.
    Those things might translate to “more money” and they might not.
    There may not be all that much of a direct connection between being effective, doing good and useful work, creating value, or achieving goals, and the amount of money that flows back to you as a result.
    There are entire classes of occupations that are *essential*, which require large amounts of time and effort to be good at, and which simply don’t pay well.
    Folks who do those things will largely fall within Romney’s 47%.
    If you’re really good at doing something *that is renumerative*, you will probably accumulate some wealth.
    If you’re really good at doing something *that is not so renumerative*, you may not.
    That’s got nothing to do with how hard you work, with the tangible value of what you do, with your personal level of responsibility to yourself and others, your personal work ethic, etc.
    Nothing.
    Millions of people get up and go to work every day, do valuable and essential work, work that they have spent years of time and effort becoming good at, and yet do not make a whole lot of money.
    Romney’s comments consign those folks to the ranks of the irresponsible, and the dependent.
    It’s false, and stupid. And, harmful, should he become President, because the policies he will seek to put into place will be informed by his false, stupid point of view.
    He has, throughout his campaign, demonstrated an astounding lack of understanding of the tangible realities that 99% of the people in this country — hundreds of millions of people — live with.
    So, IMO he would be utter crap as a President.
    Making money is a useful skill but it’s not the same as knowing how to govern and lead. And for “not the same” please read “miles away”.

  121. You’re not who Romney is campaigning for the votes of, you’d never in a million years consider voting for him. You don’t know from self-destructive, in this context.
    IMO Brett is correct.
    I doubt that Romney’s comments have hurt him all that much, electorally. If anything, they’ve solidified an important part of his constituency.
    Draw from that whatever conclusions you like, but I’m not sure “self-destruct” applies.

  122. they’ve solidified an important part of his constituency.
    his base is already solid, right? or are there really people who think 47% of Americans are parasites who weren’t already committed to voting for Mitt?
    because, IMO, Mitt’s problem is not with his base, it’s with that small percentage of Americans who haven’t made up their minds yet. and i don’t see how calling half of Americans “victims” and “dependent” helps him there.

  123. i don’t see how calling half of Americans “victims” and “dependent” helps him there.
    Because it persuades conservatives who have, up to now, thought of Romney as a nice polite RINO, that he can channel his inner hard-@ss.
    I’m not a pundit, I could be totally wrong. But the reaction I’m seeing among leftish people is “he really screwed up this time”, and the reaction I’m seeing among non-pundit rightish people is “yawn”.
    I’d be delighted to be wrong.
    What I always come back to on topics like this is the roomful of folks at the Republican candidate’s debate who gave a robust cheer at the prospect of some guy dying because he couldn’t afford to buy health insurance.
    I think Romney’s comments were odious, but I have to recognize that not everybody thinks about things the same way I do. Some folks heard Romney’s comments and thought “Hell yeah!”

  124. What I always come back to on topics like this is the roomful of folks at the Republican candidate’s debate who gave a robust cheer at the prospect of some guy dying because he couldn’t afford to buy health insurance.
    Sure. But those are people watching a primary debate. They’re not general election voters. If the only people you can convince are the primary voters, you lose.
    Another way to look at cleek’s point is to ask, if the 47% line was awesome for Romney, why is every Republican Senator and Congressman running away from it screaming? Some of them have actively rejected it (like Brown in MA) and all the others that I know of have kept their mouth shut. I’d argue that people who are more skilled in retail politics than Romney (starting with my bedroom doorknob) know that this is a loser, and that’s why they’re either rejecting it outright or keeping real quiet.

  125. I’d argue that people who are more skilled in retail politics than Romney (starting with my bedroom doorknob) know that this is a loser
    From your lips….

  126. “It’s false, and stupid. And, harmful, should he become President, because the policies he will seek to put into place will be informed by his false, stupid point of view.
    He has, throughout his campaign, demonstrated an astounding lack of understanding of the tangible realities that 99% of the people in this country — hundreds of millions of people — live with.
    So, IMO he would be utter crap as a President.”
    I disagree with the last sentence, I don’t think that would make him crap as a President. Even knowing your feelings about Will, I have to quote from George Will’s column today(most of it as it turns out):

    “A recent Washington Post/ABC News poll asked respondents to say which presidential candidate “would you prefer to have take care of you if you were sick” and which “would you rather invite to dinner at your home.” What is depressing about these questions is not that they miss the point of presidential elections nowadays but that they seem to touch the electorate’s erogenous zones.
    “Tell me your troubles,” urged President Franklin Roosevelt in a broadcast fireside chat. But the idea of the president as consoler in chief and master of the bedside manner was unique to FDR until the 1990s. Then a nation with few pains had a president who promised to feel them.
    Imagine, if you can, wanting Dwight Eisenhower at your bedside. Or imagine him, who had seen serious pain, pretending to feel others’. Did anyone in 1952 ask voters whether they would prefer to have Eisenhower or Adlai Stevenson come to dinner? The nation liked Ike but hired him not for the pleasure of his company but to have him see that the laws were faithfully executed and to preserve the peace, which he did.
    An attractive aspect of Romney as a candidate is how endearingly unsuited he is to politics in an era when “friend” has become a verb. Would that he could just say this:
    I am not running to be your friend, because I hope you pick your friends from among people you actually know and for reasons unrelated to politics. And I will not insult your intelligence by claiming to feel your pain, which really is yours. Neither will I tell you that as president I would pacify distant mobs. I am running just to make government somewhat less destructive, to partially ameliorate the country’s largest afflictions and to make the world a bit less dangerous.
    “My candidacy comes down to an eight-word question, and it is not ‘Will you call me about your tummy ache?’ Rather, it is: ‘Is this really the best we can do?’ It is difficult to prevent Americans from briskly creating wealth, but bad choices by both parties have done so. My opponent is making many promises, although a simple apology would suffice. My promise is that although I will not really create millions of jobs, I will, if Congress cooperates, remove some of the obstacles to your doing so.
    “If you want a president who is the center of a government-centered society, pick the other fellow. If you endorse a dependency agenda — more and more people dependent in more and more ways on a government fewer and fewer are paying for — vote for the other party. If you do not share my opponent’s horror about being mostly on your own in the pursuit of happiness that you define on your own, give me a try. If it doesn’t work out, you can fire me in four years.”

    (bold mine)

  127. I doubt that Romney’s comments have hurt him all that much, electorally. If anything, they’ve solidified an important part of his constituency.

    “I just couldn’t believe he said that. I was shocked when I heard it. I can’t believe someone in either Party would say something like that about Americans. Let me tell you something. I’ve worked hard my entire life, never took a handout from anybody. But Romney just insulted me and treated me like I’m nothing. Like I’m less than nothing. I’m one of the 47% that he’s talking about. I’m retired on a modest income after a lifetime of working to support myself and my family. That guy has no idea what he’s talking about. But I just wanted to tell you personally that I’m not a big fan of either Party, but I want to buy as many different kinds of Obama stuff as you can give me, because that just isn’t right. I’m pretty upset.”

    (Via.)

    Sheryl Harris, a voluble 52-year-old with a Virginia drawl, voted twice for George W. Bush. Raised Baptist, she is convinced — despite all evidence to the contrary — that President Barack Obama, a practicing Christian, is Muslim.
    So in this year’s presidential election, will she support Mitt Romney? Not a chance.
    “Romney’s going to help the upper class,” said Harris, who earns $28,000 a year as activities director of a Lynchburg senior center. “He doesn’t know everyday people, except maybe the person who cleans his house.”
    She’ll vote for Obama, she said: “At least he wasn’t brought up filthy rich.”

    (Via.)
    I don’t think the results are in on this one just quite yet.

  128. By the way, when something like this comes along, or when he uses Soviet style campaign art, conservatives see Obama self destructing. They see horrible unforced PR blunders.
    They’re probably just as wrong. Well, maybe a little bit more wrong, because when Obama stumbles, the media aren’t desperate to show it. Which is why Obama’s problems with numbers isn’t as big a deal as Dan Quayle’s spelling.
    We all see most clearly the problems of our foes, and the virtues of our allies. It’s human nature, and it takes a real effort to remember that your perspective is skewed.
    It’s worth making the effort, though.

  129. At some point, I hope, the satire will stop and then there will be an eerie, portending silence.
    I get that feeling, quite a bit.

  130. The “I feel your pain” guy was Clinton, not Obama. I don’t see Obama as a particularly friendly guy.
    On a personal level, Romney is far more affable.
    I see Obama as a guy who has a more concrete understanding of what people’s lives are actually like. I don’t think Romney has a clue.
    Since every single damned thing a President does has a tangible effect on people’s actual lives, I prefer a candidate who is able to imagine what the consequences of his actions will be.
    My druthers, YMMV.
    My biggest issue with Will is that he’s the all-time champion king of the strawmen.
    Speaking of strawmen:
    If you endorse a dependency agenda — more and more people dependent in more and more ways on a government fewer and fewer are paying for — vote for the other party.
    Virtually everybody pays taxes. Certainly, everyone who works, owns property, drives a car, buys stuff at a store, basically participates in public life in any fashion whatsoever, pays taxes.
    FEDERAL INCOME TAXES ARE NOT THE ONLY TAX LIABILITY.
    Dig?
    Virtually everybody is dependent on government in significant ways.
    Do you drink water?
    Do you own property?
    Do you drive on a road?
    Do you live in a house?
    Do you eat food you buy at a grocery store?
    How long of a list should I make?
    EVERYBODY DEPENDS ON THE GOVERNMENT.
    Dig?
    The thing that everybody gets bent over about is THEIR FEDERAL INCOME TAX MONEY being distributed in the form of a transfer payment to someone that they think doesn’t deserve it.
    They don’t deserve it because they’re lazy, or they don’t work as hard as they should, or they should quit having kids they can’t afford, or they are in some other way unsuitable or undeserving of public help.
    First, in the context of the overall federal budget, the amount of money that gets spent on welfare per se is not that much.
    Second, the people who receive it are by and large not a bunch of layabouts. A lot of them work, they just don’t make that much money.
    People who support Obama – including me – don’t do so because we want him to hold our hand and tuck us in at night. We do so because we think he will be a better President than Mitt Romney. The touchy-feely crap has nothing to do with it.
    Conservatives should look in the mirror if they are looking for folks who vote on a feel-good basis. Nuff said.
    So yeah, once again George Will is full of pompous windbaggy crap.

  131. when something like this comes along
    ?!?!?!?!?!!?
    Brett, I don’t even know what that was.
    An Obama campaign graphic, compared to random smears on a wall with Arabic script?
    Please tell me this is not the new conservative meme.

  132. No russell, I don’t “dig”. This is your standard meme that has little to do with a government centered society with the President as the center of the world. No one imagines, even those nasty Republicans, that there should be no government.
    Most of the things you name are universally recognized as valid and valuable government functions. The fact that you constantly bring them up is a strawman you have become an expert at constructing and tiresomely trotting out.
    Even SS and Medicare are different, because they aren’t transfers, everyone pays and everyone gets them. They are fundamentally different in how they are both paid for and perceived.
    So making the case that everyone depends on government providing the things that you keep going back to doesn’t refute any point that Will made.
    And if you are completely self aware enough that this:

    People who support Obama – including me – don’t do so because we want him to hold our hand and tuck us in at night.

    is true of you, your asssumption that it is true for “People who support Obama ” is just you projecting your views on a massive electorate, no less than George.

  133. a president who is the center of a government-centered society
    is a strawman, a figment of your imagination, a fantasy cooked-up by the professional GOP to keep the base in-line and agitated. no such person exists. you are concerned about something that only exists in your mind.
    Brett: or when he uses Soviet style campaign art
    now that is some sweet sweet absurdity.

  134. By the way, when something like this comes along, or when he uses Soviet style campaign art, conservatives see Obama self destructing. They see horrible unforced PR blunders.
    Brett, I hate to point this out when you are being a bit conciliatory, but I assume you are referring to the top picture. The bottom picture, which has a vandalized location with what is arabic graffiti and some red (blood?) stripes on it, so you must have gotten this from some website that is trying to draw an equivalence between Arab terrorism and Obama running for president. Some googling reveals Twitter and this blog (http://sfcmac.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/obama-desecrates-u-s-flag-replaces-stars-with-o/, no link cause I don’t want a backlink), which says it is the burned out Libyan embassy. If you had just a link to this and a story about how some people feel upset about it, I might take your offering it seriously, but the writer of that blog is convinced that the 2 minute gap in the Romney tape is indicative of a Fremat’s proof of Romney’s compassion. The equivalence the double image is, to repeat what Russell pointed out in your earlier iteration of this, some paranoid horseshi*t. And anyone who thinks that making a design like that is somehow related to Arab terrorism is really too far gone to reason with. It’s the same kind of people who look at the New York Post ad and say ‘now we have him, this is photographic proof!” If you are getting your info from sources that would take the time to juxtapose those two images, or feel that it was a meaningful comment to make on the President, it really suggests a problem.

  135. your asssumption that it is true for “People who support Obama ” is just you projecting your views on a massive electorate, no less than George.
    Well, the view George Will projects on people who support Obama, a group includes Russell (and me), is that they feels that ‘‘Will you call me about your tummy ache?’’ is what they want from the President. When Russell suggests that this is not what the people who support Obama, since he supports Obama, he may have wee bit more insight that George Will does. So if Russell is constructing a strawman, it is only because the raw materials have been piled high and deep and not by him. But if you want to suggest that we are saying this even though we really want our president to handle our rumbly widdle tummies, you are going to have to bring a bit more evidence.

  136. Most of the things you name are universally recognized as valid and valuable government functions. The fact that you constantly bring them up is a strawman you have become an expert at constructing and tiresomely trotting out.
    Even SS and Medicare are different, because they aren’t transfers, everyone pays and everyone gets them. They are fundamentally different in how they are both paid for and perceived.

    Then what the hell is Will on about?
    If it’s not SS, and it’s not Medicare, and it’s not public health, and it’s not regulation of industry, and it’s not education, ….
    then what the hell is it?
    What “big government” is Will on about, if all of the above are *not* what he is on about?
    I seriously don’t get it. Must be my liberal blinders.
    your asssumption that it is true for “People who support Obama ” is just you projecting your views on a massive electorate
    Fine. I’ll make more limited statement.
    Neither I, nor anyone else I know who supports Obama and who has spoken about why they do so, supports him because we think he is going to hold our hand or tuck us in at night.
    We aren’t interested in the President helping us with our tummy aches.

  137. “Seriously, wtf?”
    Yeah, essentially my reaction when you guys start going on and on about “self destruct buttons”: “Wtf are you talking about???” The same as when you start raving about “dog whistles” only you hear, or channeling the way you like to believe conservatives think in private. (Usually some kind of wacked out mix of Snidely Whiplash and Bull Connor.)
    But the conservative looks at the Obama campaign graphic, eerily similar to the bloodstained fingerprints left behind at our consulate in Lybia a few days ago, and sees massive PR blunder, the sort that no GOP candidate would have a hope of surviving. He looks at Obama posters made to look like Soviet era art, and thinks, “What kind of a loon would WANT to evoke those associations? Might as well adopt ‘Slavery is Freedom’ for your campaign slogan while you’re at it!”
    But we don’t HAVE the same associations, do we? We can barely communicate on the level of strict denotation, when connotation enters the picture we might as well be speaking completely different languages.
    We sure as heck don’t understand each other well enough to know when somebody on the other side has self-destructed. You want Republican self-destruction, McCain putting his campaign on hold, or Dole going down a list of Republican interest groups, pissing on each one in turn, THOSE were campaigns pressing the self-destruct button. Romney looks nothing like that to a conservative. He looks like an establishment Republican with a more savory than usual private life, and the sense not to offend core constituencies. Nothing inspiring, to be sure, but a lot better than a Dole or McCain.
    Doesn’t look a bit like self destruction to us.

  138. CCDG, Earlier, I provided a link to an article in yesterday’s news how the Senate Republicans refused to pass a veterans’ jobs bill. It’s an example of why I would never vote Republican. I’d like to point to this example because it has nothing to do with the President holding my hand or comforting me. Instead, it has to do with taking care of veterans who put their lives on the line and in some cases sacrificed their health to fight in a war for the United States (started by a Republican President who refused to ask sacrifices of anyone but the military).
    Why wouldn’t it be a good idea to provide incentives for businesses to hire these returning veterans? You tell me why we, as a country, shouldn’t figure out a way for them to come home and settle into a reasonable life.
    That’s just one example of what I believe is a duty of government: to help people who fought in a war to readjust to civilian life. But because Obama is President (or because the Republicans are craven @$$es) Republicans want to withhold assistance to veterans. It’s nauseating.

  139. A recent Washington Post/ABC News poll asked respondents to say which presidential candidate “would you prefer to have take care of you if you were sick” and which “would you rather invite to dinner at your home.”
    I will say that I agree completely with George Will when he says that these survey questions are inane.
    So, there is that point of agreement.

  140. Brett,
    Not to threadjack, but why do you keep claiming it looks like “Soviet era art”. That is nothing like Soviet Era art. It is certainly modernist, but far from Socialist realism.
    It looks like Madison Avenue New Age, and you can’t get anymore capitalist than that.

  141. Brett: But the conservative looks at the Obama campaign graphic, eerily similar to the bloodstained fingerprints left behind at our consulate in Lybia a few days ago, and sees massive PR blunder, the sort that no GOP candidate would have a hope of surviving.
    Ah, that’s what I was going to guess. If the Obama campaign specifically based its campaign graphic on that image (or a similar one), then, well, fnck them.
    He looks like an establishment Republican with a more savory than usual private life,
    Heh.

  142. but the writer of that blog is convinced that the 2 minute gap in the Romney tape is indicative of a Fremat’s proof of Romney’s compassion
    here is a non-insane story about this latest non-story.
    it’s like these clowns have some kind of strange pareidolia that causes them to see evil in everything. the world is their inkblot.

  143. I will say that I agree completely with George Will when he says that these survey questions are inane.
    They should be. But some people do vote that way. Maybe not “who do I want to take care of me when my tummy hurts?” (that’s a little over the top) but “who seems more like a nice guy?” or “who do I just like more?”
    But, as you more or less wrote up-thread, russell, it’s not an Obama or Democratic phenomenon, per se. I mean, if more people just plain like Obama more, just as a guy, that’s going to help him some. But that’s true in every election, regardless of the party of the more likeable candidate. And none of them shun whatever votes are in play on that basis.
    So what’s his point? That that’s a stupid basis upon which to vote? Well, okay. But so what? Does that mean everyone else shouldn’t vote for the more likeable candidate, regardless of who they actually prefer – or something?
    It sounds like he’s just pissed his guy might lose and that it might be partly because people just don’t like his guy as much. Shorter George Will: “WAAAHHHH!!!”
    (I’m sure he was really upset when Dubya won the guy-I’d-like-to-have-a-beer-with vote.)

  144. What candidate would you rather have a beer with? The dry ex-alcoholic a decade ago of course and the current Mormon. DEfinitely not the guy who puts honey in his. 😉
    Looks like Romney’s strategy is now to fundraise 24/7 and to avoid any public appearance unless the audicence consists exclusively of friendly Latinos and women.
    Throw enough money at the swing states and let the voter suppression do the rest. If GOPster state officials don’t manage, the private sector is ready to jump in. A tea party affiliated group has declared that it will challenge 800000 voter registrations in Pennsylvania alone.
    Romney can still end up in the WH.
    Btw, the veterans bill that the GOPsters filibustered was written in large parts by some of the filibustering GOPsters.

  145. What “big government” is Will on about, if all of the above are *not* what he is on about?
    I seriously don’t get it. Must be my liberal blinders.

    I don’t know about Will, but while you’re haggling over tax policy and whatnot, Obama is fighting hard for his god-like power to indefinitely detain without trial or kill anyone he decrees a threat to the US including US citizens. If that’s not big government, I don’t know what is – liberal blinders indeed.

  146. If that’s not big government, I don’t know what is – liberal blinders indeed.
    I’d be more than pleased if that stuff was even on the radar. Thanks for raising the issue.
    But I don’t think that’s what Will was on about. I could be wrong.

  147. How exactly is Obama different there from his predecessors? And I see a lot of liberals that have their problems with that. Again, is Romney an alternative there given whom he has selected to be his advisors (with Yosemite John just the most prominent)?

  148. “I’d be more than pleased if that stuff was even on the radar. Thanks for raising the issue.
    But I don’t think that’s what Will was on about. I could be wrong.”
    I really doubt you’re wrong.

  149. And on the subject of drones and human rights and foreign policy, the Republicans are making it easy for me. Much as I might (and do) dislike Obama on many things, there’s nothing I can think of offhand where Romney isn’t worse, and sometimes much worse. Ali Abunimah wrote the other day that Romney just put into words what the actual policy is of the US towards the Palestinians and that’s a defensible proposition, but at least with Obama I think it’s a political calculation, whereas with Romney I got the sense that he really does think that way. It’s consistent with his attitude towards the 47 percent. That just seems worse to me. Though I’m fully aware that I’m rewarding Obama for bad behavior. But still, lesser of two evils. Given where I live I could cast another third party protest vote, but I don’t even feel tempted to do that, since I’d like to see Romney clearly lose the popular vote (and my one vote will bring him infinitesimally closer to that goal)
    Besides, on some issues (especially domestic ones) the gap is really wide.

  150. Not in response to anything in particular: John Scalzi on being poor
    decades later I still walk up to a snack machine and figure out what contains the most ounces per dollar, just a habit I won’t ever break.

  151. or channeling the way you like to believe conservatives think in private.
    Given a) your propensity to talk about “masks slipping” and b) the very topic at hand being how a conservative talked when he thought he was in private, this may be the absolute funniest thing you have ever said, Brett.

  152. Congress could, of course, put an end to Obama’s killing spree any time it wanted to. it isn’t going to.
    so why does Obama get all the blame?

  153. “so why does Obama get all the blame?”
    To be fair, he also hasn’t created a single job. Or passed a single HC bill.

  154. Well, no, you refer to the “mask slipping” when someone says something that you think reveals them to be the secret commie nazi that your paranoia leads you to believe.

  155. decades later I still walk up to a snack machine and figure out what contains the most ounces per dollar, just a habit I won’t ever break.
    I do that. But I think it’s just how engineers tend to be about stuff, rather than a leftover habit of poverty.

  156. If my paid-for Snickers Bar gets hung up in the machine, visible ten inches from my face, I sometimes imagine “reverse engineering” the snack machine with a karate sidekick, perhaps a crowbar, or a baseball bat.
    But then I figure, what the heck, a little mooching here and a little mooching there makes the world go round and I let it go.

  157. Yeah, essentially my reaction when you guys start going on and on about “self destruct buttons”: “Wtf are you talking about???”
    It helps to click on the links, though the name “Doctor Heinz Doofenshmirtz” might give you a tiny tiny clue that the whole notion of a ‘self-destruct” button is one of those attempts at something known as ‘humor’. Because, though Heinz Doofenshmirtz blows himself up every week, he is always in the following episode. Thus, your invocation of Snidely Whiplash is correct, (though reaching for Bull Conner is probably because you know you’d get slapped down if you went for your usual SS guard invocation) Or, as the link says “A routinely bumbling, incompetent and forgetful evil scientist, Doofenshmirtz is the primary villain of the series”
    Of course, given your participation here, you will probably click on that link and see this
    Doofenshmirtz’s goal in life is to “take over the entire tri-state area” and he attempts to do so with obscure contraptions and inventions that tend to have “-inator” as the suffix. Doofenshmirtz speaks with a caricature of a German accent and comes from the fictional European country of Drusselstein.
    and then think “what is it with these liberals? Romney doesn’t speak with a caricature of a German accent and he’s not from Drusselstein!” You might even be incensed because I was suggesting that there were only 3 states that were important rather than 50.
    I realize that humor can be a tricky concept to grasp. It’s worth making the effort, though.

  158. Not in response to anything in particular: John Scalzi on being poor
    I like the one that says, “Being poor is relying on people who don’t give a damn about you”.
    Wouldn’t it suck to have a President who said flat out that he didn’t give a damn about you?
    I think I’ve lost most of my poverty habits. I wouldn’t even think about changing my own spark plugs anymore. Last time I didn’t even ask the mechanics how much it was going to cost when they said it needed to be done.
    Then again I was only poor for a decade, maybe that’s not long enough.

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