Charles Steele is a blogger I like to follow and he links to some terrific coverage of the “Fast and Furious” gun-running scandal. What surprises me – although I should not be surprised – is how this has just not registered much in the mainstream press, but then considering how much of the MSM is covering for Barack Obama, there is no surprise, really.
On the other hand, if Mitt Romney – who is hardly my idea of a great candidate – makes a correct (sort of) comment to the effect that a large number of people who receive subsidies from the state are unlikely to vote for him, the MSM goes berserk. Colleagues in my office in London were remarking how stupid and nasty MR obviously is. When I quietly pointed out that he merely touched on how hard it is to reform entitlements when almost half the country is receiving them in some shape or form, it produced a few furrowed brows. In their mindset, only a Republican commits “gaffes”; if Obama calls the the Falkland Islands the Maldives, for instance, or gives an execrable speech at the expense of entrepreneurs, it is laughed off. “Everyone is human, we all make mistakes, you got him out of context” etc.
Update: I love this piss-take of the MSM via Andrew Klavan.
“Romney is caught on tape saying that nearly half the country is on government assistance and will vote for Obama to keep the dole coming. In related news, a video is unearthed of Pythagoras saying that the square of the hypotenuse of the right triangle is equal to the sum of the square of the two adjacent sides.”
I am reading in the mainstream press that Romney is running a terrible campaign. The trouble is that I have no idea whether this is actually true or not.
FOX are not exactly enamored with his campaign either, IIRC.
Yes, and I am thinking that, in fact, he is genuinely running a terrible campaign. And yet, the once every four year presidential campaign is when the American media, who manage to sound reasonable most of the rest of the time, reveal themselves to in fact be frothing at the mouth partisans.
Isn’t that a natural phenomenon everywhere else as well?
So far and from where I sit, Romney seems to be mostly worthless, both as a campaigner and as an actual candidate. But, I do take the point Brian made earlier that he may well rise to the occasion once in office. I just don’t know the man anywhere well enough to know what to expect. But my gut tells me not to expect much, and my gut is seldom wrong…
Romney strikes me as a fairly nasty piece of work as a human being – a bully, essentially. Obama strikes me as not that, exactly – he is so self absorbed that such questions barely come up. I think I would still prefer it if Obama loses.
I think the point most of us American conservatives/libertarians have grasped is that Romney can be absolutely no good at all and still be ‘better’. And he’s probably not absolutely no good at all.
Also, if it looks like he’s going to lose, expect a huge Tea Party vote to elect a Congress that’ll keep Obama in hand.
Doesn’t matter how bad Romney might be (and where on earth did you get that “bully” idea? That’s just bizarre), he’d be better than Obama. Anyone would be better than Obama. Hell, anything would be better than Obama; I’ll take that empty chair, thank you very much. So while I can understand not liking Romney (I don’t much like him either), I can’t understand considering, even for a millisecond, voting for Obama.
Obama falsely claims in speech that Fast and Furious started under the Bush administration.
Actually, I have no trouble at all imagining Romney being a bully – can’t prove it though, of course. We were just discussing gut feelings, that’s all.
Governor Romney proved to be a good campainer (and campaign organiser) during the Republican nomination process.
Although a cyncial person might think that as Romney had been constantly compaiging for President since about 2006 – the good folk in Iowa , New Hampshire and so on may have come to the conclusion that the only way to get rid of him was to give him wanted by voting for him.
Anyways……..
Mitt Romney could be the most wonderful person in the world – and the “mainstream” media would still present him as cross between Sauron and Vlad the Impaler.
At some point one has to start looking at the people who are convinced by the msm.
Remember (unlike the education system) msm propaganda is voluntary – no one forces anyone to buy a newspaper, turn on the television, or go to see a Hollywood film.
And there are alternatives – there is the Wall Street Journal, Fox News (for those with cable anyway) and even non leftist films.
So people who really do watch and believe ABC, CBS and NBC (or take Hollywood celebs as their political guides) are not totally innocent victims.
They are lazy and/or as thick as two short planks.
Paul – being a bit intolerant.
Laird wrote:
Agreed. While I have friends who subscribe to the “vote Obama and drive it off a cliff, it will have to get worse before it gets better” school of thought, I can’t bring myself to do that. That said, I can’t bring myself to vote Romney, either (and, if I recall correctly, neither can you).
Here’s what troubles me: The whole “vote the other fellow out” meme has been well established in machine party politics since before I was of voting age. When, though, did those of us who call ourselves libertarians start defining ourselves in terms of what we oppose?
I don’t particularly want to hark back to my earlier post on the subject, but it does seem to me that there’s one fuck of a big difference between saying “I want freedom so I’ll vote for it” and saying “I hate the way that this gang is taking away our freedoms so I’ll punish them by voting for some other bastards who are, at best, almost as bad.”
Agreed, Rob, there’s a huge difference between voting for someone and voting against someone else (and voting for the lesser of evils falls into the latter category). But that’s the system we’re stuck with, and we have to deal with reality. I’m voting for Johnson, but I have that luxury because I live in a solidly red state which is going for Romney no matter what I do; I can afford to indulge in a little futile message-sending. But I don’t know if I’d have the courage of my convictions if I lived in one of the “battleground” states. I like to think I would, but I so despise Obama that I honestly don’t know what I’d do in that case. I could very well hold my nose and vote for Romney.
Indeed, Laird. I also live in a solidly red state (though the usage of “red” and “blue” in politics over here still manages to perplex me) and also have a “my vote didn’t matter” get-out clause (which I’ll confess to cynically using to encourage others round here to vote Johnson).
That said, I’m planning on moving to a marginally blue state and I’m very confident that, should I move house before the election, my voting intentions will not change.
I’ve pissed away decades of my life doing “the right thing” and voting for the lesser of two evils and what did it get me? This pile of crap that we’re in today. This time, I’m going to vote my conscience and tell everybody why. It may make little difference to the outcome this time around, but if it inspires two people to vote their conscience next time, then we might be in business.
Human beings in time of war (and, make no mistake, there is a global war going on – and has been since even before the time of Bastiat) have to choose sides.
“Why” – “Why can we not just leave things alone” – because people will not leave you alone, and if you wait to fight till you and your family are directy attacked you have already lost.
Either someone is in enemy or a defender of “capitalism” (a term coined by the enemy – but then “Whig” and “Tory” were originially insults also, Scots bandit and Irish bandit, and then became names, if the name “capitalist” was good enough for Ludwig Von Mises and Ayn Rand then it is good enough for thee and me) or an enemy of capitalism.
Someone either supports traditional justice (to each their own) or supports “social justice” (the idea that all income and wealth are rightfully owned by the collective and should be “distributed” according to some political rule).
With the enemies of capitalism (i.e. of large scale private ownershp of the means of production, dirtribution and exchange) and the supporters of social justice, there can be no opting out. Any more than there can be with dogs who have caught rabies (it does not matter if he was a really nice dog before he became rabid – what matters is that he is now a rabid dog).
“Paul I understand all the above – but I still despise Romney, and for good reasons”.
Then libertarians should have worked harder to get a better candidate in the nomination process. Although some did work very hard indeed.
But we (not just the United States but the West generally) are where we are.
Mitt Romney is the candidate against Comrade Barack – against the enemy of capitalism and the supporter of social justice.
He may not be a very good candidate – but either he will win on the Cong will win.
It is that brutal.
I did not make the world – I just see it as it is.
Either we can fight the Cong by elections – i.e. peacefully.
Or we can fight with the Cong by battle and war – by both sides blowing off heads and cutting throats.
Which would you prefer?
Me and my luck: I vote in FL…
What the MSM doesn’t show you: huge turnouts at MR’s events.
They are so in the tank for 0bama, it’s malpractice. The death of their industry is well-deserved.
One reason that Romney is perceived as a bully while Obama is not is that Obama plays by Chicago Rules, the first of which is “no fingerprints.” All of the dirty work is done by proxies or surrogates. It just happens that friends get better lucky breaks than others with no good answer to “Who sent you?”
Turning now to the subject of media bias, it will be recalled that there was a media embargo on any reporting of FDR’s wheel chair. Everyone cooperated on the basis of patriotic national interest. By the same token, anything negative about Obama is treated like FDR’s wheel chair. There is nothing sinister or conspiratorial about this. The Media feel that they are doing God’s work.