Romney Brings Us Fantasyland

When you wish upon a star,
Makes no difference who you are,
You can give everyone what they desire,
You can set reason on fire,
Oh, cut taxes for the billionaire,
And the middle class doesn't care,
Because we'll cut the deficit, too
Doesn't matter if it's true.

And government regulations make you blue,
Until you need to change your image,
Until you do not need T Party baggage,
And you can dis the Brits and make them mad,
That will not make Joe Sixpack sad,
All he really wants to know,
Is that you are white and you can grow,
The economy with voodoo stuff,
For America, oh, that's enough.

All Is Forgiven: America's Love Affair with Romnesia

"We've Got To Destroy That Village To Save It"

Oh, it was so long ago. Maybe 18 months. Romney said we've got the best medical care in the world--all those uninsured could just go to the Emergency Rooms. Plenty of care there. GM could go belly up. Bankruptcy can be good for a company--bad for the workers, but good for the stockholders.  Medicare can be turned into Couponcare, but never mind if you're over 60; won't affect you, just your kids. Government regulation is BAD, well, mostly, until the first debate, then we were all for it.  We cannot telegraph to the Taliban when we are leaving Afghanistan, sends the wrong signal, well until the third debate. Obamacare is the devil's work. Romneycare came from the angels. They are twins, the good twin and the evil twin. Cut taxes for billionaires. You can believe me: If billionaires pay less, we can build the middle class. Government cannot create jobs, except in Congressman Ryan's district. Obama did the apology tour; I did the stand tall tour--they loved it in London.  And any President would have, could have done what Obama did in taking out Bin Laden. I coulda hit that home run.

Oh, America, what have you wrought?

Remember last month?

Flipper is Drowning! We have to save Flipper!

Romney and Ryan want to kill Medicare. Have made plans to kill Medicare. They Deny it, of course, but that's what they will do.

But in one debate, Mr. Romney has erased that memory from the American voter, as easily as...Etchy Sketch. 

Wow.

What I heard a pundit say tonight is that the Democrats had managed to paint Mr. Romney as a really unacceptable buffoon and all that was undone during the first debate. If one debate is all it took, what does that say about the American mind?

Horses and Bayonets

There was a Monday night football game and a baseball play off tonight, so I'm not sure anyone beyond the crew at PBS was watching, but from my view out here in New Hampshire, Mr. Obama made Mr. Romney look like an inept amateur tonight.

Mr. Romney, as I'm sure most people will hear tomorrow morning, tried to attack Mr. Obama as a wrecker of the national defense, as a man who had weakened America by cutting back on our armed forces. Why, we have fewer ships today than we did in 1910, Mr. Romney said, scandalized.

Mr. Obama smiled slyly and replied, "That's because you have no idea of what real strength is. Yes, we have fewer ships, and we also have fewer horses and bayonets in our armed forces, but that's because we have these things called aircraft carriers and these ships that go underwater, called submarines. You have to know how military forces need to be constructed in the 21st century. "

And another exchange, Mr. Obama remarked, "You want to return to  the wars of the 1980's, the social policies of the 1950's and the economic policies of the 1920's." 

At least, that's the way I remember it.

One thing I do remember is Mr. Romney and his running mate Mr. Ryan both said, quite clearly, during prior debates we do not want to draw a line in the sand and say we will leave Afghanistan at 2014, because then we tell the Taliban all they have to do is wait until that date. But now, with the ever changing kaleidoscope which is Mr. Romney, we are all for a clear date, Taliban planning no longer mentioned.

Romney did what Romney does:  He spun his tale about how everything has collapsed around the world and it's all because Mr. Obama has been a failure as a President.  Those who want to believe that will believe that. 

For whatever reasons, some people want to believe Mr. Romney wouldn't be so bad, and he'd be better than Mr. Obama.

To paraphrase The Wire, Mr. Obama has to be saying to himself, "I can be right about Afghanistan; I can be right about the economy; I can be right about Social Security and I can be right about Medicare, but tomorrow morning, I still wake up Black in a country which isn't."

We'll find out what this country is made of on November 6.

Republican Pie: Romnesia Rhubarb

Once upon a time, there was a lovely Princess named Prosperity, and there was a handsome prince, called Romnesia.   Prosperity wanted to visit every house in the shire, and shower them with goods and services and bank accounts bursting at the seams and F-150 pick up trucks (made in the USA) and Sig Sauer hand guns and Winchester rifles and bottles of beer and long, long vacations. 

But there was an evil spirit in the shire:  Government Regulation and his evil twin, Government Interference, and they stood between the Princess and all her people. Together they worked their nefarious will through something caused "taxes" which made all the good, rich people in the shire afraid to come out and do all the good things rich people like to do, like hire poor people and send over Thanksgiving turkeys and allow everyone to visit their country clubs, right after the proper respect had been paid by mowing the lawns and power washing the decks of the rich people.

But I digress. We were talking about the bad twins, Government Regulation and Government Interference, who tried every day to bring bad things like socialism and  Medicare and Social Security to the people of the shire, who, if those things were allowed to grow would have found themselves turning into worthless, dependent slackers who felt government owed them a living.

Fortunately, Prince Romnesia came along and fought many battles against many nasty foes, like the troll Newt and the wizard RonPaul and the horney toad Pizzaman and the sorcerer Santorum and the winter queen Bachmann. One after another, Prince Romesia slew each with his nifty rightward dodge: Every time one of his foes swung a  blade at the Prince, the Prince jumped to the right, and got behind his foe and kicked him to the ground.

But then, Prince Romnesia had to face the ultimate Radical, who had been born in No Place, and had no birth certificate and who had wandered through youth from parts of the globe where bad thoughts come from: Indonesia, CALIFORNIA, and Hawaii (which isn't so bad, but it's not really America, as Alaska is.)

There was a great tournament and Prince Romnesia stalked the Radical, and the Prince swung his sword many times, and hard and he was very brave. But he was also very clever, because this time, he jumped, not to the right, as he had before, but to the left. And he made friends with Government Regulation, and he said we all should love Government Regulation, because it is necessary for free markets. And the Prince split the alliance between Government Regulation and Government Interference, and he was smart to do this, because you can divide and conquer.

So, the Prince became the great champion of Government Regulation and he even said he would make sure the rich people did not pay any less in taxes. But what he really meant was the total percentage of all taxes paid by the rich would not be any less. This did not make the rich people afraid because Prince Romnesia said he would make everyone pay less in taxes and the proportions would all stay the same. 

And while he was cutting taxes, he would swing his magic sword and cut the deficit into little, little pieces. 

And everyone lived happily after.

"I'll Be Happy To Guard Your Henhouse"

Romney and The Contemptible Poor

When Mitt Romney told his rich donors there are 47% of the American people who are slackers and free loaders, whose votes he will never get and doesn't really care about because these because  those 47% are the slackers and free loaders who don't pay the income taxes, he was, of course, embracing the basic Republican ethos: We deserve what we've got. The poor people who are not paying income taxes,because they are making only $20,000 a year, and soldiers serving in Afghanistan, those people are parasites, and beneath contempt. Doesn't matter if they pay payroll taxes, they are parasites. Not like us. Not like me. Why, I paid 13%!

Mitt is slick about his con--saying the rich will pay the same 60% of total income tax collected in this country they now pay. but that still leaves individual millionaires paying only about 35% of their incomes.  Of course,  60% is not nearly enough. We're not talking about the overall slice of the pie, we are talking about what an individual billionaire pays. And 60% may sound like a big share, but not when you look at the wealth pie--80% of all wealth and income in America go to just 20% of the people. So if the share of the billionaires rises to 70% or even 80% of the total, is that unfair? 

Nobody wants to go back to Eisenhower Republican days, when the top earners paid over 60% of their individual incomes in income tax. We are talking about Clinton, going up to, say, 38%. Or something. Let's not get lost in the numbers. Keep the ideas out front: They can pay more and still have way more than they deserve.

Of course, it's not freeloading for the rich to have off shore bank accounts, to have their Congressmen in their pocket so that's legal, to arrange their income so none of it is "ordinary income" but comes from "capital gains" or some other category that doesn't get taxed. That is not government teat feeding, that's just the game.

But here's the ad I'd like to see: 
Picture of Romney:
"Vote for Mitt:  
1. End legal abortion
2. Lock in a Supreme Court owned by Republicans
3. Kill Medicare
4. Apply for your membership in Mitt's country club.
5. Hold your breath."

Something simple, like that.

The Pitchman vs The President: Con Artist vs The Captain

"Oh, we got trouble. We got trouble right here in River City."
"It's offensive. It's offensive that you would use the death of any American as a political football. I had to greet those flag draped coffins when they came home."

Finally!

Okay, so the man can throw a punch, not just a single punch but a flurry.
Admittedly, I may not be the most objective viewer, but I thought Mr. Romney looked for all the world like the cheap hustler he is, with his breathless pitch, trying to sell you the home you cannot afford, and Mr. Obama said, "Oh, suddenly you are the champion of the middle class: the man who scorns the 47%."

It's what we wanted to hear out here in the Shire.

Romney did shout out that line "Government cannot create jobs! Government cannot create jobs!"  which I wish someone would finally say,  "But it sure does every day."

But in the end, Mr. Obama stuck it to Romney for voucher care, for refusing to tax the wealthy and for shipping jobs overseas.

Once again,  the moderator allowed Romney to bully his way into the time space, and you could see it on the clock behind him, but Candy was not nearly as inept as Jim Lehrer and the President got enough time to land his punches.

Mr. Obama does have a halting, thoughtful delivery which in some ways works to his advantage, when juxtaposed to that rapid fire, breathy motormouth, try to get-in-that whole-sale pitch style of Mr. Romney. "Oh, we got trouble, we got trouble in River City." I half expect to see him with the boater hat soft shoeing across the stage.

I'm still not sanguine we'll see a reversal of that nugget: "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." The people I talk to in my office every day are just as thick and slow and prepared to vote Republican as you can imagine.  I do not for one second believe "voters are not fools." Voters elected George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan twice.  So you have to have a very delusional notion of what the American electorate is like to hold out much hope for Mr. Obama's chances.

But we can always dream,  and for the weekends before the election, Mad Dog will be knocking on doors and doing whatever he can, for all the good it does. 

But tonight, at least, Mad Dog will sleep happily, as if lulled by a glass of port after a bracing swim through the waves.

Provided we are done with the earthquakes--Hampton, New Hampshire had a dilly tonight. 4.6. I did not consider it a good omen.  At least, we are told it was just an earthquake. Mad Dog thought the Seabrook Nuclear plant had blown. Could have been worse. Say the same for the debate.
But maybe that earthquake was portentous: Maybe that's what hit Mr. Romney tonight.  Tonight he was unmasked. What looked like confidence and aggressiveness last week turned out to be hucksterism, a phony sales pitch that hung all over Romney like a cheap suit.