Sine Qua Non

If you need an example of the pot-calling-the-kettle-African-American strategy of the R party, and of their Rominee in particular, look no further than this video. This, from the man who lies constantly, who's barely uttered a word about Barack Obama that's not demonstrably false. And, as more information comes out, even the above ad turns falser and falser, like the Marshall family's chests. Over time. It's Rovomcconnellboehnerhannitianism par excellence: accuse Ds of doing what you've been doing since day one, while expressing Louisrenaultian outrage.

If Obama fudges, Rominee packs fudge...

As I've said many times, even though it appears to be effective, I don't much like the line of attack on Bain. To me, the point is that what Mitt did there has nothing, zero, to do with how a president might manage the economy. (As the President just said.) And the more important point is what the budget that The Rominee loves will do to the economy.

As response to the above ad, I think the Obama campaign needs to make ads listing the lies of Romney, and throwing the line back at him: America expects more from a president.

Only problem is, it'd take way more than thirty seconds. Maybe a series, lasting from now till November. That'd cover about half of 'em. (Turns out, there is such an ad, but since it lasts longer than thirty seconds, it'll never be on TV.)

Related, here's an opinion piece by a conservative writer which exemplifies the sort of false equivalency that people apply to Obama and Romney:

Mitt Romney's unusually frequent flip-flops, shameless misrepresentations of the truth, and brazen pandering has caused some pundits to marvel at how dishonorable he is. "How did this happen?" Scott Galupo asks. "How did we come to this pass, where a man like Mitt Romney -- whose candidacy represents a breathtakingly cynical, borderline nihilistic pursuit of power on behalf of a tiny sliver of the population -- sits within striking distance of the highest office in the land?"

I won't defend the Republican nominee. But I am a bit confused by all the folks who aren't as disgusted by President Obama's performance on these metrics. This is, after all, a man who misrepresented his core to the electorate in 2008, constantly asserting that systemic reform would be his first priority in Washington, D.C., only to arrive in the White House and work within the system.

Admitting that Romney's lies are shameless and brazen and dishonorable (he links to another conservative who calls Rominee "loathsome"), he moves on fast -- nothing to see here -- and comes up with a list of Obama's transgressions which he suggests are equivalent. (Wow! "... worked within the system." The monster!!) They're not. Apples and... really small apples. Obama made some unfulfilled promises, all right, but he was thwarted at every turn when he tried to carry them out. Closing Gitmo is frequently cited, for example, as an Obama lie. But it was Congress -- Rs, mostly, of course -- that refused to allow it; which hardly makes it a lie, or in any way comparable to deliberately lying about what is already known. And so it goes.

I'm not saying Obama doesn't play footsie with the truth; and I agree with Friedersdorf that we've gotten pretty blasé about what we accept from politicians in terms of honesty. But I see enormous orders of magnitude of difference between the things that Obama has done or not done, said or not said, and what The Rominee says daily: if the former sometimes stretches the truth, or has failed to pull off what he said he would, the latter takes the truth and smothers it, boils it, turns it into something unrecognizable, and feeds it back as its opposite, to be gobbled up by Foxified R voters like chocolate pudding, with which it shares certain features, from a distance, and absent the senses of taste or smell.

Businessman

At the heart of The Rominee's argument for why he should be our leader is his business experience, so it's nice that there are at least a few reporters giving it a hard look. There's no doubt he was highly successful; but the sort of success he had in the sort of business he ran has nothing to do with running an economy. Nothing illegal about buying up companies, firing their workers, and selling them for profit before they went bankrupt. But in what way does that translate to presidentialism?

The more one reads about or observes the guy, the more one sees a dishonest and nasty man, guided not by any core morality, but by the goal of success at any price. So I found this article interesting. I'll be waiting for a thoughtful analysis by Fox "news" and the rest of the RWS™.

A person who worked for Mitt Romney at the consulting firm Bain and Co. in 1977 remembers him with mixed feelings. “Mitt was … a really wonderful boss,” the former employee says. ... But Bain and Co., the person recalls, pushed employees to find out secret revenue and sales data on its clients’ competitors. Romney, the person says, suggested “falsifying” who they were to get such information...“Mitt said to me something like ‘We won’t ask you to lie. I am not going to tell you to do this, but [it is] a really good way to get the information.’ ...

[...]

To give but one example, there is a Bermuda-based entity called Sankaty High Yield Asset Investors Ltd., which has been described in securities filings as “a Bermuda corporation wholly owned by W. Mitt Romney.” ... He set it up in 1997, then transferred it to his wife’s newly created blind trust on January 1, 2003... Romney failed to list this entity on several financial disclosures, even though such a closely held entity would not qualify as an “excepted investment fund” that would not need to be on his disclosure forms. ...

... they are in “jurisdictions where there is virtually no tax and virtually no compliance,” as one Miami-based offshore lawyer put it.

... The mantra of his campaign is that he was a businessman who created tens of thousands of jobs, and Bain certainly did bring useful operational skills to many companies it bought. But his critics point to several cases where Bain bought companies, loaded them with debt, and paid itself extravagant fees, thereby bankrupting the companies and destroying tens of thousands of jobs.

...

Come August, Romney, with an estimated net worth as high as $250 million (he won’t reveal the exact amount), will be one of the richest people ever to be nominated for president. Given his reticence to discuss his wealth, it’s only natural to wonder how he got it, how he invests it, and if he pays all his taxes on it.

...

In the face of such arguments, Romney’s defense is that he never broke the rules: if there is a problem, it is in the laws, not in his behavior. “I pay all the taxes that are legally required, not a dollar more,” he said. Even so. “When you are running for president, you might want to err on the side of overpaying your taxes, and not chase every tax gimmick that comes down the pike,” says Sheppard. “It kind of looks tacky.”

The article is long and, frankly, contains a bunch of snooze-worthy references to various tax dodges and shady -- if legal -- stock manipulations. To me, though, the point is this: Mitt Romney used every tax loophole and foreign investment dodge there are to get where he is, financially. On some levels -- the take-'em for all they're worth level, the teabaggR "screw you I got mine" level -- he's a paragon. But on the level of doing what's right for others, of maximizing success for the greatest number of average people, his business experience would suggest he's devoid.

Is it disqualifying? Well, certainly not to Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers; not to Rupert Murdoch or Roger Ailes. But is such a guy likely to address tax inequities for the good of America? In his much-touted business experience has he ever shown concern beyond his personal wealth aggrandizement? Is his really the kind of experience that indicates understanding of the larger economy as it affects the 99%? As he trolls for huge offshore campaign donations from international bankers, is he thinking of the average American? Consumer protection? Fair-minded regulation?

I'm thinking no.

[For commentary saying sort of the same thing, but more authoritatively, focusing on the fact that the problem with Romney's business experience is that it's exactly the kind of dealings that sank our economy, read this.]