It'll depend on whether people care about facts.
I'm pretty bummed about last night's debate. I can't figure why Obama was so meek when it came to Romney's blatant lies about his tax and health care plans. No matter how you parse them, no matter how much he pretended he'd never said a thing about them until last night, they were lies. They don't add up. And yet, Barack Obama was ineffectual in pointing it out.
Since Jim Lehrer essentially handed moderation away, Obama easily could have found a way to ask, specifically, how much money is lost by the cuts he proposes, and how much would be found by reducing deductions. And he certainly could have asked what The Rominee's plans are for people who park money oversees to avoid taxes. Was he afraid Romney had a zinger lined up for that one. "What do you have against money enjoying nice weather?" maybe.
As I said: on style, Romney won hands down, and from the comments from my paragon of persiflage here, it's clear that that's what matters. Substantively, Mr Romney did what he's done since he's been in politics: run away from everything he's said and pretend it never happened. It's as if he'd never kissed a teabagger ass. Nothing he said was remotely like what he's been saying, to get nominated, and to do the RWS™ bidding. It was someone else entirely up there. Except for the guy whose math skills are a little wanting.
And why not? It's always worked for him. Suddenly he disavowed everything he'd said till now; and, clearly, Obama wasn't prepared for it. Forgetting history, he probably thought Romney had meant what he'd been saying until last night, when it was as if it'd all been a dream.
So the question is: will undecided voters, teabagger-like, fall for the dissembling; or are they undecided because they want facts? In which case they'll not have been moved by The Rominee's subterfuge. And it'll be interesting to see how long it takes teabaggRs to notice they were dumped like tea in the Boston harbor. Or bankers. We'll know eventually, won't we?
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Sid, and I say this as one who's dabbled in a few "Substances" in my 1/2 century upon this moral coil...
ReplyDeleteNot recently, of course...
Somebody slipped a Qualude in EICOTUS's Danani.
I'm suspecting Karl Rove, probably hid the capsule under one of his 17 chins...
Thats "Methaqualone" if your Insurance only covers generics, and since it's a Schedule 1, you can only get it in Mexico.
Or in certain areas of the A-T-L.
And what baseball games were you watching? The Mariners were eliminated in what? May?
Frank "Don't bogart that Lude' man"
It should come as no surprise to anyone who has bothered to back up enough to truly envision the forest rather than the nogtion of individual trees, that America has become a single party system wherein there are simply two factions of the right wing.
ReplyDeleteObama is, in truth, something not at all distant or distinct from yesterday's Rape Public Cons - on the way to becoming what they are today. It is sad, but undeniably true. Even in the best of times, he has become an "enabler" for the enactment of regressive, plutocratic policies that, in the end, help to entrench and ensure the ownership of everything by a very small handful of men.
Even today's ctitics, who find themselves proven correct again and again through a careful study of history, seem now to shy from calling a spade a spade and instead settle in their roles as no more than apologists.
We are offered endless opportunities to realize that the game is over; the deck is so thoroughly stacked that it has become impossible to EVER right it by playing within the established rules. Not until we, as a group, are willing to offer all in personal sacrifice to mount a menaingful opposition will anything of real significance change; and when it does, what remains will no longer resemble the charade we have today.
I fear that such will be a LONG time coming - but when it does, it will represent the growing force evident today to mount a second civil war.
We can all see it, but for the time being, so many of us are coddled by our love of gadgets and "comfortable" enough to settle for things as they are while avoiding the unpleasantness which is surely coming. It is a game of procrastination and many of us are hopeful that we will meet death before the brutality escalats to the degree where we can no longer avoid participation.
The longer we are willing to defend the pretense that what we see today might somehow be seriously labeled as a form of "business as usual", the more we lose any vestage of credibility we may once have had.
The "election" pagent we see these days is little more than a sick joke designed to enlist the public to buy into and internalize the notion of "free elections". It requires no more of an imagination to get that same public to parrot the word, "freedom" while conveniently overlooking the fact that this same power structure incarcerates a greater percentage of its citizenry than any other on the planet. It stares us directly in the face and DARES us to notice - yet we all distance ourselves and continue to pretend.
Something more than "Obama didn't do his best" is begging to be observed here. But history will say the same of us.
Rick
I agree with much, Rick, especially that Obama is mostly a centrist, despite the screamers on the right. But whereas I also agree that the two parties aren't all that different compared, say, to the rest of the world, there are some pretty stark choices this time; such as gay rights, women's rights, and aspects of domestic spending that I think are critical to the future: student loans, education spending (despite what Romney said last night), the environment.
ReplyDeleteAnd to enable such crazies as are now considered mainstream, all the Congressional teabaggers, is to relegate science to the dustbin, to make the bible the prime text, and to ignore climate change even more than Obama has. It's also to return to the neocon view of American strength through invading a country every couple of years.
If I thought there was no significant difference between the parties, I'd not be writing, and I'd not be so depressed.
I understand Rick's frustration, but he must remember that his fellow Americans elected the current House of Representatives, and get what they deserve. If we are to escape from this slough of despond, it will be by a slow slog back, away from the right wing extremism with which so many of our neighbors have become comfortable. I don't know how long that will take, but I don't see a sudden revolution.
ReplyDeleteDebating Mitt Romney is like trying to punch a dent into a plate of warm jello. He has no substance, and therefore cannot be wounded. The president can only continue to point out the emptiness of his suit and hope the public catches on...
Mark V