David Gergen Still Gets Paid to Speculate Wildly

Analysis: Romney's secrecy becomes focus of Obama's attack strategy

In ads, interviews and social-media blasts, the Democratic president's team is casting Romney as a mysterious figure who is guarding important secrets about his wealth and work history.
Feeding the Democrats' storyline: Romney's refusal to release more than a year or two of his tax returns, questions about whether he is being honest about when he left his job at Bain Capital, and the reams of records that have been kept secret from his years as Massachusetts governor and chief of the Salt Lake City Olympics.

Here is an example of an unforced meme, and an unforced error by Willard. Or, perhaps it's not fair to call it an error, since there's really not much he can do, apparently. He really, really wants to be president, but that seems to conflict with the fact that he, in the past, really, really wanted to be rich. Now it seems his hard work at becoming rich is hurting his chances to be President. Hoocouldaknowed?

The fun part in this story is David Gergen, who is yet another pundit who has been so horrifically wrong in the past that it is a wonder that he still gets paid to spew what he thinks through his pie hole.

David Gergen, an adviser to two former Democratic and two Republican presidents, is among those who believe that questions about Romney's faith are an unspoken part of the Democrats' strategy of focusing on the secrecy issue. 

"I think they're connected," he said. "Clearly they're trying to weave together: 'Do we really know what he did at Bain ..., do we really understand his faith and, you know, what he would do and who is he?' " 

Democrats "know it's in the culture," Gergen said of questions about Romney's religion. "They don't have to say it. I think they're very intentionally weaving these together."
Gergen added that the Obama campaign's strategy could backfire if it mentioned Romney's religion directly.

Of course, Gergen doesn't have one shred of evidence proving that the Obama team is "very intentionally weaving these together." He just thinks it. And, of course, the reporter doesn't ask if he has any evidence, or even a plausible theory, supporting such a contention. Because that would be, ummm, reporting, instead of dictation, which is all reporters are allowed to do anymore.

None-the-less, if we just drop the whole thing about Willard's sky wizard worship being more secretive than, say, the Vatican is when moving pedophiles around, we find that the rest of the article focuses on more substantial issues, like, well, Willard's taxes and offshore accounts.

And, that's it. No mention of the erased hard drives from Willard's Governorship in the rest of the story. No mention of the secrets from the Olympics mentioned at the top of the story. No mention of anything else at all. And yet, there is so much they could have covered. Here's just one example:

Bush Library Refuses To Release Rob Portman’s Records

The George W. Bush Presidential Library has denied a request by a Democratic super PAC to turn over documents relating to Rob Portman’s stint in the Bush administration.[/quote]

So many things to choose from when it comes to the leader of the GOP's secrets. In fact, at the end of the Reuter's article, the story just turns to some concern trolling on Gergen's part:

"Politically all of these attacks may in the end work, but it's also clear that they are going to come at the expense of governing in a second term" by making it even tougher for Obama to work with Republicans, Gergen said.

No worries that Willard's attacks on Obama might possibly poison the well with Democrats in congress if Willard wins, eh Mr. Gergen?

Ann Romney's Hard Work

In 2010, Willard paid 4 people just over $20,000 to help around the house. I wonder how much he paid when there were five boys running around? How many cooks? How many nannies? How many maids? How many drivers? Tutors? Gardeners? Ski coaches? Horse trainers? If Willard would just release all his taxes, we could all find out just exactly how much work raising five boys was for Ann Romney.

And I would really like to hear how the Willard team makes up for the fact that their candidate has let himself be defined as an out-of-touch rich guy war monger who lies a lot and wants to cut his own taxes even further?

And I would REALLY like to know how the Willard team makes up for the fact that he is the least liked Republican nominee WITHIN HIS OWN PARTY ever.

Romney's 42% support in the final 2012 nomination preference poll ranks among the lowest Gallup has measured for a nominee in its final poll since 1972, when the McGovern-Fraser reforms shifted power for choosing the nominee to voters in primaries and caucuses rather than party leaders at the national conventions.

Obama shares are still $6 at Intrade. It's a steal.

The White Horse Apoplexy

Via Steve Benen (because I wouldn't watch a GOP debate if you held a McDonnell brand trans-vaginal ultra-sound probe to my head), I hear that Willard had yet another software glitch last night, when he revealed that he hasn't been updated with the latest current events driver (aka, reality patch) in regards to Iran, and his speech center blurted out this gem:

This president should have put in place crippling sanctions against Iran, he did not.

Benen points to the still quite conservative Jeffery Goldberg, who says:

It is precisely because the Obama Administration has constructed a sanctions program without precedent, and because the Obama Administration has funded and supported multinational cyber-sabotage efforts against the Iranian nuclear program, that Iran is panicking and lashing-out.

It is not only Israeli leaders who have doubted Obama's commitment to stop Iran's nuclear program; Iran's leaders themselves didn't take Obama seriously. After all, George W. Bush labeled Iran's government a member of the axis of evil, but then did nothing much at all to thwart its ambitions. But Obama, while avoiding rhetorical drama, has actually done more to stop Iran than the Bush Administration ever did.

Here's the thing, Republicans. When you update your brain with the reality patch, which essentially just puts the Bush Administration back into your memory, you'll realize that we had a President who lied us into attacking Iraq, which empowered Iran, which wanted to protect itself from US imperialism and a belligerent White House that says shit like "Real men go to Tehran," so it gets going on building a bomb, and then this whole Mission-Accomplished ball of bee-hive gets handed to Obama as part of the giant clusterfuck that was the end of 8 years of GW Bush and Dick "Deficits Don't Matter" Cheney.

Obama then quietly repairs our image around the world, gets major-league sanctions going while keeping diplomatic channels open, slowly ratchets up the pressure, and even gets praise from Jeffery "WMD" Goldberg, and the best Willard (who's foreign policy team is a who's who of Dick Cheney's best friends) can do is a lie that stands out like a man standing in front of everyone with nothing on but his magic underwear, which is hanging by a thread.

Flaming Feces: Romney Lies about the Bush Economy

Republicans don't care about facts. One of the important facts of economics is that a lot of economic indicators, like unemployment and food stamp use, are lagging indicators. That means they get bad AFTER an economic disaster.

What Romney calls the Obama Economy is really what's left of the failed Republican experiment in supply-side bullshit undertaken during the Bush Administration, in which we had massive tax cuts for the rich that were supposed to create jobs that resulted in an economy shedding jobs to the tune of 750,000 per month when Obama took over.

Furthermore, the debt, which Romney and his magic underwear are trying to also blame on Obama, was mostly created by the Bush tax cuts, two unpaid for wars, and a Medicare prescription drug benefit the total cost of which the Bushies lied about, and for which we have not paid.

That's a lot of failure under Bush that Romney, of course, wants to put in a paper bag, light on fire, and place on Obama's doorstep. So, there's Obama, stomping out the shit fire, and Romney sitting back saying it's Obama's shit, when it's really George W. Bush's.