Here's something shocking from the Fed to chew over while you read my diary below, and ponder how Romney will spin this against President Obama:
Americans’ wealth plummeted 40 percent from 2007 to 2010, Federal Reserve says
Just up on WaPo
In 1971, I worked very close to the White House, across a little side street from the Old Executive Office Building. Twice a day I walked right by the WH, across the street, on my daily trek to and from the bus. At the very time Nixon was instigating the break-in at Watergate I could have glanced up and seen those crooks coming or going. Often I ate my lunch on the roof of our building overlooking the White House. Little did we know. We assumed the people's business was going on in there. Because I lived in DC during that period it is very real to me. I know that crooks can live in that place and work against us.
If you didn't go through the Watergate times you may not realize how bad it all was for us, and we didn't at the time know how bad it was in reality.
Reading the 40 year anniversary article by Woodward and Bernstein I was struck by Romney's similar propensity to lie, his habitual lying and fabricating untruths he insists are true when they are not. What would he do if he got into that House? Is there anything he would not do?
Yesterday's diary Romney & Nixon: Outright lies and fabrications set them apart.
Why is this dangerous? What exactly was Nixon attacking? Well, Senator Sam Ervin, leader of the investigating committee on Watergate said that Watergate was an attack on:
"..... the heart of American democracy: the Constitution, our system of free elections, the rule of law."
Now, Mitt Romney's total fabrications in ads and out of the candidate's mouth are well documented and widely known among those paying attention. But media, though calling him on the most egregious perhaps, are adjusting to this and not covering it nearly enough. People tire of it, come to accept it. That's just Mitt. If media treats this as just a little tick, not worth continually pointing out the lies, I'm afraid that what we'd get with a Romney as president could be another Nixon.
As I post this there is a front page story by Jed Lewison illustrating the lying:
Mon Jun 11, 2012 at 03:45 PM EDT "Just when you thought Mitt Romney couldn't go any lower..."
What do we learn from ads for Romney constantly, consistently telling complete falsehoods about President Obama? Are we are so used to stories about Mitt's lying that we almost do not react? Yes, there he goes again. We read stories of Mitt's behavior in his youth as an entitled bully, of near criminal behavior. Are we outraged? Sometimes youthful behavior is telling.
Here's what I fear:
Presidents who have awful character traits may succumb to their worst inclinations when under the relentless pressure of having the weight of the world on their shoulders. They lash out and sometimes do terrible things: a Watergate break-in and lying about it, bombing a country and lying about it. If you don't enter the office strong with excellent character what happens when you are under great stress? When you or your family are bombarded, lied about, persecuted by the media or some group of people? When nothing goes your way and perhaps an obstructionist Congress blocks your every move?
Did we ever hear that Nixon was guilty of the range of deviant, bad behavior that Romney has admittedly and reportedly engaged in? NO! Am I wrong? Is Romney worse than Nixon in some respects?
His wife pre-emptorily stated to the nation that behind the facade Mitt was a wild and crazy guy and the media have mostly ignored his bad, deviant behavior that shows bad character. They excuse these actions as if young Mitt was a totally different individual. Things like dressing up in uniform, "disguised" as a police officer, and stopping motorists. Things like symbolically beating up a stunned teenager who had the temerity to wear a hairstyle Mitt did not like, by enforcing him while crying and calling for help to endure a Mitt shearing while others at his lead held down the poor boy. The list goes on.
What do we learn from this behavior? What do we learn from Romney ads that constantly, consistently tell complete falsehoods about President Obama? Look at a few of these fabrications/lies. See some of the many DKOS diaries listing and documenting the lies. Some are rebutting them like Romney's saying that the stimulus made the economy worse.
Congressional Budget Office Defends Stimulus In a survey conducted by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, 80 percent of economic experts agreed that, because of the stimulus, the U.S. unemployment rate was lower at the end of 2010 than it would have been otherwise. snip ......Most economists not only think (the stimulus) should have worked; they think it did work, Elmendorf replied. CBO......found that the package added as many as 3.3 million jobs to the economy during the second quarter of 2010, and may have prevented the nation from lapsing back into recession.
Even the
Post and Jake Tapper have taken to writing stories pointing out Mitt's falsehoods! When's the last time you heard Tapper come to the president's defense, saying Romney's accusation was completely false?
Rachel Maddow has been great at pointing them out, and Friday night was no more egregious than another but was so stark I could not get it out of my mind. Romney made up a whole story that was completely, demonstrably false. He said that a new book contained a certain story about the president. But Maddow pointed out that each statement Romney made was absolutely false. The author of the book backed her up. Rachel Maddow, Friday night:
"Mr. Romney gets caught saying things that are factually wrong, and the thing that is different about him is that he does not mind; he doesn't fix it; he doesn't even try to worm out of it. He doesn't appear to feel any shame about it at all -- and he's happy to keep telling the lie once he knows it is a lie."
What does that tell you? They willingly, knowingly, persistently and continually lie, lie, lie, in order to get what they want. And cannot admit it when caught.
I'll tell you what I believe it shows. Like Nixon, Romney is a habitual, perhaps even a pathological liar, and that's a bad person to have as president. We need to get the person with the best policies and record and character for that office.
Friday's Al Sharpton show: Steve Karnaki said that Romney's ads show that Romney is making things up to appeal to people's emotions, people who are hurting will believe the lies, he reasons. Whatever it is, it is wrong.
Compulsive liars like Romney and Nixon routinely tell lies, it's habit with them, they do not know how to tell the truth, but that's okay because they are comfortable with lying constantly. Perhaps Mitt feels entitled to his own reality, his own truth. Perhaps telling the truth would make him uncomfortable and this is why he (and Nixon earlier) seems so uncomfortable in normal life situations with real people. Getting away with things in his childhood and youth fueled his desire and ability to create his own reality and essentially lie all the time while oblivious he is doing it because he believes his lies. He discovered long ago that if he believed them with all his heart he could get others to believe him too. It worked!
That's why he said, "I will not be that president of doubt and deception!" And the people applauded him. While he was lying. Did he realize he was lying? He is incredibly smug and secure in his lying. It's his comfortable and home position. Nor is he embarrassed in the least about all the deviant behavior episodes reported in reputable media. And that is a danger signal.
Did Jeb Bush and his family read this writing on the wall and that is why he appeared on the cbs morning show saying that this is his time? So, wake up, America, will you? Who can you TRUST?