(Larry Downing/Reuters)
Santa's naughtier elves dumped this down our chimney this morning: Republican presidential contender
Mitt Romney vs. Mark Halperin.
In an interview with TIME Magazine’s Mark Halperin, Romney said, “I know that the Democrats will try and make this a campaign about Bain Capital…. 25 million people are out of work because of Barack Obama. And so I’ll compare my experience in the private sector where, net-net, we created over 100,000 jobs.”
“I’ll compare that record with his record, where he has not created any new jobs.”
Sigh. All right, for expediency, here's Steve Benen:
This detachment from reality fascinates me, so let’s unwrap the argument.
First, the confused former governor believes 25 million people are out of work “because of Barack Obama.” If Romney can explain why Obama is to blame for a recession that began in 2007, I’d love to hear it. [...]
Second, Romney now claims to have created “over 100,000 jobs” at his vulture-capitalist firm. [... W]hen Romney’s Super PAC ran an ad claiming he “helped create thousands of jobs” as CEO at Bain, Super PAC officials were asked to back that up with evidence. They refused.
Third, it’s remarkable that Romney is only willing to compare his “experience in the private sector.” What about when Romney was willing to put his experience to work in the public sector, during his one term as governor of Massachusetts? Romney doesn’t want to talk about it for a reason — his state’s record on job creation was “one of the worst in the country,” ranking 47th out of 50 states in job growth. It’s one of the reasons Romney left office after one term deeply unpopular, and why his former constituents don’t want him near the White House.
And fourth, Obama “has not created any new jobs”? The ease with which Romney lies continues to be disconcerting.
The amount of nonsensical bluster Mitt Romney can pack into a few tight sentences is really quite impressive. No, he was not called out on any of this by Mark Halperin, because TIME Magazine is not really into the whole "pointing out bullshit" part of journalism. I'm not terribly surprised by that, but I am surprised that the steadfastly dull, have-no-opinions, make-no-waves Romney can, when switching out of his trademark milquetoast primary performances and into talking about the other party, can and does flat-out lie with the best of him. He's no firebrand, true, but his bullshit-to-words ratio is, up there, easily the match of Bachmann's crazy alternate-reality theories or Gingrich's notion that being a oft-self-described expert on history gives him license to alter actual history in whatever manner he sees fit. No, Romney is easily their match, when it comes to lying outright.
I suppose we could mutter about fact checkers here—if you're going to give out a Lie of the Year, that tight little ball of baldfaced fibbing up there really sums up the perniciousness of organized lying in politics, intentional lies repeated over and over as a propaganda technique—or gripe about TIME or Halperin directly, since having a possible leader of the free world casually lean over and drop bullshit upon you like he doesn't have the slightest care over whether or not you call him on it.
But I'm mostly impressed that even the dull-as-dishwater Romney has learned, and learned to exploit, the single greatest lesson of modern politics. Lie, lie often, and lie spectacularly about stuff: Even if you are, by some remote chance, called out on it, the overall effect will still be to plant the idea solidly in the minds of the duller members of the public, and that can gain you real votes. The Swift Boat Vets nonsense was really the textbook-worthy episode of this: I remember Nightline devoting an entire show to the accusations, and showing them to be without any real-world merit at all, but even serious frowny-faced journalism efforts did nothing to stop politicians and partisans alike from suckling at the teat of that sweet, sweet conspiracy theory. What's true or false doesn't matter: All that matters is the framing.
So now we're facing a campaign season in which Barack Obama is going to be blamed ad infinitum for an economic collapse and a guns-blazing recession that started long before he ever set foot in the White House, and a great deal of very, very stupid people will actually believe it (the events of a few years ago might as well be apocryphal, they are so distant: Who's to say we didn't just dream everything in human history that happened before, say, March of last year?), and it will be propped up as a serious, not-at-all-insulting, not-at-all-batshit-insane thing to say by none other than the Halperins and TIME magazines in the world. Objectivity demands the ability to rewrite history however a candidate damn well likes, after all. Journalism!
This is going to be a very long season. I must confess I am, however, a little heartened to see that Mitt Romney will be bringing nothing unusual to the party, if his party does indeed decide to simply give up and nominate Mr. Wishy-Washy. The standard Republican game plan will apply, which is to come up with lies so big, and so ridiculous, that it won't even matter if a few Real Journalists call them out on it.