The New New Romney Is a New Kind of Mendacious Liar - Charles Pierce, Esquire

[Bozita]

The New New Romney Is a New Kind of Mendacious Liar
By Charles Pierce, Esquire
10 October 12


eaving aside for the moment the audacity of Josh, we must leave it to the fanzine reporters from Tiger Beat on the Potomac to explain in-depth how the heroic intervention of the plucky Romney family forced the transition from the previously unsuccessful campaign of sheer mendacity to the campaign of sheer mendacity that seems to be on something of a roll at the moment. The basic Politico analytical technique - buying whatever magic beans are being sold, as long as the beans are sold anonymously - is perfectly suited to the fairy tale of how Ann and the boys convinced the paterfamilias to drop all this Beltway wiseguy nonsense and get back into the comfy, well-worn, three-piece, double-breasted bullshit suit he used to wear when he was governor of whatever that state was he once was governor of. Let's break down The New New Romney, shall we?

-snip-


That's enough of all this. Read the whole saga of Ann Romney, Political Wizard if you care to do so. (However, I tend to discount any story that depends on people's bragging anonymously about how smart they are.) Nevertheless, it has become apparent that the various sheeplings and scooplettes of our elite political media are buying this wholesale and, if the polls are any indication of it (and that's still an if), they are doing a very good job selling it out in the country. There is now an actual election going on, and we should accept that, and we should be quite amazed by the campaign being waged by the Republican candidate because, frankly, I've never seen its like before and, should it succeed, our national political handbasket will have drifted past a serious mile marker on the River Styx.

That Willard Romney is a preposterous candidate for either party to run three years after his general social and economic class nearly burned down the world economy always was a given. That, in the intervening years between his two presidential campaigns, Willard Romney really has become quite a remarkable liar is something to which we all should have become accustomed by now. (It certainly shouldn't have startled the president as much as it obviously did last week.) That he would attempt to "pivot" away from the stances he took to win the Republican primaries was as inevitable as the dawn, especially given the previous two factors we've mentioned. When it is argued that he is running a "post-truth" campaign, this should surprise approximately nobody. However, I am rather stunned that the quote from the primary debates that seems to be most revelatory of the Romney campaign was the answer he gave when poor, unfortunate Rick Perry asked him about the undocumented immigrants who once trimmed the hedges at the Romney family manse.

"I'm running for office, for Pete's sake, I can't have illegals."

This is not just lying or fudging or flip-flopping, although it contains elements of all of these. It is the same impulse that has fueled his (apparently successful) refusal to disclose fully his tax returns. It is the same impulse that led him to say what he did in the debate about his health-care plan and pre-existing conditions, and then have his campaign dispatch Eric Fehrnstrom to the spin room to declare precisely the opposite. And it is the same impulse that led Mike Murphy, a Republican strategist, to declare on Sunday that...

-snip-

more...
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/13897-the-new-new-romney-is-a-new-kind-of-mendacious-liar

[iemitsu]

1. great article but depressing.

how can our democracy survive this onslaught?