My husband is fond of telling people that eight years ago I didn't know the difference between a liberal or a conservative. It's true. I was never very interested in politics and what was going on in the world. I was happy to live my life without thinking about worldly things. Now, my husband says that I am often the one who explains what is going on in the world to him. Quite a turn of events evidenced over the last few months by my prolific diary writing here at DailyKos.
Now that I am paying attention and spending a lot of time keeping up with news from numerous sources, I wonder about people in this country who are like I used to be. Not paying attention, or very little attention, by perhaps watching 30 minutes of evening news each night like most of us did before there was 24/7 cable news. I am also acutely aware of the fact that my opinions lean left. Every so often I try reading conservative blogs only to find that I simply can't agree with the opinions being aired, often finding what is written to be absolutely disgusting and heartless. So in an effort to try and get some idea of what people who aren't paying close attention are seeing, I try to watch the NBC Night News with Brian Williams each evening.
When the tapes of Romney speaking at that fundraiser in Boca Raton last May surfaced all over the Internet yesterday, I was particularly curious to see how NBC Night News with Brian Williams would report it, and was deeply disappointed. Basically, Brian Williams played a portion of the tape and then turned the platform over to Chuck Todd to put the tape in context, which basically was a terrible attempt at being fair and balanced. First he asked two rhetorical questions,
[I]s the candidate saying what he truly believes? Or is he saying what he thinks the audience wants to hear?"
which he never answered. And then he offered the time candidate Obama talked about people clinging to their guns and religion during the 2008 campaign as a comparison moment.
Fortunately, after that I saw Ezra Klein's post, Romney’s theory of the “taker class,” and why it matters, at his WonkBlog at The Washington Post. What a relief to finally see somebody talk about the actual numbers and say that this division of “makers” and “takers” isn’t true, and then backed up pointing out the lie with actual facts, numbers charts and graphs. Of course, I could not contain my excitement and had to write a diary. My first responses to a comment was, how I was extremely angry when I watched Chuck Todd's dismissive explanation. That prompted me to add the video and transcript of the NBC News segment to the end of the diary so others too could compare the difference in reporting.
Needless to say quite a few people made remarks about having a problem with the way Chuck Todd had reported the “context” of the tape. There were also comments of about how Andrea Mitchell too had tried to take a similar stance when she appeared on Hardball with Chris Matthews last night as well. Since I was responsible for posting the video and transcript, I thought it only proper that I add tonight's segments on the story, which turned out to be a much better example of reporting the news which appeared in four separate video clips.
The Fall Out
Brian Williams: Good evening. It was a room full of supporters and Mitt Romney thought that what he told them would stay in the room. But someone recorded it all. And the result could be a potential game changer in the presidential election. Specifically, the way Romney talked about President Obama's supporters; about Americans who benefit from government programs; Hispanics and the situation in the Middle East. The way he talked about citizens, who see themselves as victims, pay no income taxes. He went on to say his job is not to worry about those people. Politicians speak differently when they think they are speaking in private, as all of us do, as Mitt Romney did. Today, though, his remarks were called “stupid and arrogant” and that was from a fellow Republican. Romney stood by his words while admitting they weren't elegant; they were, however, impactful. It's where we begin our reporting tonight with NBC's Peter Alexander traveling with the Romney campaign tonight in Salt Lake. Peter good evening.
So far, so good. Pointing out that people speak differently in certain circles is true, but that doesn’t mean what they say behind closed doors with people they feel comfortable with isn’t what they really think.
Peter Alexander: Brian, good evening to you. Romney's only scheduled events today were fundraisers, but here at a luncheon in Salt Lake City he made no reference to the controversy that is now surrounding his campaign. Top advisors insist that Romney believes that voters are more concerned about economic issues that affect their lives than they are about any comments said at a private fundraiser.
I noticed this before. Whenever a controversy comes up, the Romney campaign responds by saying that
Romney believes that voters think… Ironically, what Romney believes people think never seems to agree with anything that I think. In Romney’s privileged world, things are never the way they are for people who live in the real world. Obviously, Romney can only imagine what regular, hardworking people think and experience. His imagination is sorely lacking in any true understanding about what most people experience in life. Comparing the lives of ordinary citizens to the lives of the privileged few isn’t an exercise Romney should attempt. Perhaps he should try an exercise like in one of those realty shows where he actually has to live like a regular person for a month, and then get back to us.
Peter Alexander: This is the first campaign approved look inside a Romney fundraiser earlier today [video of Romney speaking at fundraiser today] in Salt Lake City. It comes just one day after this secretly recorded video first surfaced, taken at a private fundraiser in May. On that tape, Romney declares 47% of Americans pay no income tax and paints them as quote victims and government dependents who will vote for President Obama no matter what.
Video of Romney speaking at May fundraiser: My job is not to worry about those people, I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.
Hold on right there, Peter. Don’t you watch your sister network? Last night Rachel Maddow reported about the fact that portions of that video have been floating around the
Internet for months. To be accurate, nobody had verified its authenticity until yesterday. But go on.
Peter Alexander: Late Monday, Romney said it was a poor choice of words.
Video of Romney speaking at hastily called press conference Monday night: It's not elegantly stated, let me put it that way. I'm speaking off the cuff in response to a question.
Peter Alexander: Romney, who this summer told reporters he believed in a two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, behind closed doors questions the Palestinian's interest in peace.
Video of Romney speaking at May fundraiser: You hope for some stability, but you recognize that this is gonna remain an unsolved problem.
Peter Alexander: Before the video was leaked Monday, Romney's advisors had promised a renewed campaign focused on detailing more policy specifics, but just hours after Romney publicly courted Latino voters in Los Angeles,
Video of Romney speaking at U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in California: And I'm convinced that the Republican Party is the rightful home of Hispanic Americans.
In other words, no sign of the promised specifics; just more platitudes. But wait, what did Romney have to say about Hispanics during his private fundraiser?
Peter Alexander: That secret recording showed Romney privately joking about his famous father's background born to American parents in Mexico.
Video of Romney speaking at May fundraiser: Had he been born of Mexican parents, I'd have a better shot of winning this thing, but he was (laughter) unfortunately born of Americans living in Mexico. They lived there for a number of years and uh, I say that jokingly, but it would be helpful being Latino.
Peter Alexander: And later added.
Video of Romney speaking at May fundraiser: We're having a much harder time with Hispanic voters. And-- and if the Hispanic voting bloc-- be-- uh becomes as committed to the Democrats as the African-American voting bloc has in-- in the past, why we're-- we're in trouble as a party and, I think, as a nation.
This shouldn’t be news to Mitt Romney. There have been many warnings to Republicans over the last few years that ignoring Hispanic and other minorities would be the death of their party. Evidently, the GOP convention coordinators
thought all they had to do was arrange seating properly:
the delegations of Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, or the District of Columbia, all of which, preposterously enough, were given prime seats near the stage in Tampa. Oh, and of course, pack your convention with Hispanic and African American speakers because the image is everything and people are so easily fooled.
Peter Alexander: Romney's candid remarks ricocheted across the political landscape. President Obama's reelection chairman Jim Messina blasted Romney's comments as quote shocking. And Vice President Joe Biden was, for once, almost speechless.
Video of Joe Biden: I'll let his words speak for themselves.
Peter Alexander: Conservative commentator Bill Kristol called the remarks arrogant and stupid [See A Note on Romney’s Arrogant and Stupid Remarks by Bill Kristol, The Weekly Standard, September 18, 2012], and Joe Scarborough weighed in this morning on Today.
Video of Joe Scarborough appearing on Today: And Mitt Romney is blowing this race. It is too much for many Republicans to handle.
I really did enjoy that Kristol article, especially the part where he wrote,
It remains important for the country that Romney wins in November (unless he chooses to step down and we get the Ryan-Rubio ticket we deserve!). If I remember correctly, neither one of those candidates were on the stage at the Republican debates during the primaries. Now all of a sudden they would make a better ticket than the man who won the primary? Wow! Has Kristol been watching the news about Ryan since his nomination? Sure, he’s a true believer in the conservative cause, but his belief in the same policies as Todd Akin when it comes to women’s reproductive rights aren’t going to make him more popular with women if he were at the top of the ticket.
Peter Alexander: Still, many conservatives rushed to Romney's defense one calling this his Gettysburg Moment urging Romney to rise to the occasion and fight [See Mitt's Gettysburg Moment by Michael Walsh, The Corner, National Review Online, September 18, 2012].
Oh, please, please, Mitt Romney. Listen to those conservatives. Keep pandering to them and say out loud and in specific detail every single thing they believe. Swing voters really would like to hear how you’d raise their taxes so you can cut the taxes of people in your bracket, and how you will kill Medicare as we know it.
Peter Alexander: And today, Romney didn't back down from the substance of his comments. Instead, Brian, in a televised interview he tried to turn the tables on the President accusing him of running a government centered society and favoring redistribution of wealth. Incidentally, the person who leaked that video is former President Jimmy Carter's grandson, who told NBC's Michael Isikoff he was angry that Romney had attacked the former president.
Brian Williams: Peter Alexander traveling with the Romney campaign in Salt Lake City, Utah, starting off our reporting tonight. Peter thanks.
Next, Brian Williams introduced Andrea Mitchell who reported on the fact checking. Yes, actual fact checking. Of course, the Romney campaign probably isn’t pleased with the results and will be calling for new fact checkers to check the fact checkers hoping for a different result.
Realty Check
Brian Williams: Romney's remarks about that 47% who pay no income tax set off an immediate flurry of fact checking and tonight, NBC's Andrea Mitchell has our reality check.
Andrea Mitchell voice over video of OWS: It started a year ago as a conservative reaction to Occupy Wall Street's battle cry that they were the 99%. Conservative blogger Erick Erickson declared he was the 53%; taxpayers subsiding people, in his words, so they can hang out on Wall Street and complain. Others chimed in. It quickly became a Tea Party mantra.
Video of Michele Bachmann, October 2011: Today only 53% of Americans pay federal income tax; 47% of Americans pay nothing.
Andrea Mitchell: What are the facts? It's true that approximately 47% of Americans do not pay federal income taxes as Mitt Romney says but not because they are living off of the 53%.
Video of Roberton Williams, Tax Policy Center: In fact, about 60% of people who don't pay federal income taxes have jobs. And nearly half the rest are elderly who are retired. They had jobs and they're now no longer working. These are hardly people who are sitting around living off the government dole.
Andrea Mitchell: They say 44% who don't pay federal income taxes are elderly, retirees living on social security. Another 30% get child tax credits and other tax benefits favored by Republicans; a smaller percentage are the very rich benefiting from special tax breaks for investment income. Responding to Romney today, New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote Who are these freeloaders? Is it the Iraq war veteran who goes to the V.A.? Is it the student getting a loan to go to college [See Thurston Howell Romney by David Brooks, The New York Times, September 17, 2012.]? Brooks concluded that the people who received most of the government spending are not big government lovers, but Republicans, senior citizens; mostly white men with high school degrees. In other words, according to most surveys, they are Romney supporters. Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington.
Wow! I’m impressed. Did my eyes deceive me? Where are all those freeloaders Mitt Romney was talking about? I certainly didn’t see any thing about them in that reporting.
Next, came a clip of President Obama’s reaction to what Romney said in the video about is job is not to worry about half the country. Okay, 47%; that’s almost half.
President Obama's Reaction
Brian Williams: And just tonight we got the first official reaction from the President to the words of Mitt Romney. Here's a short bit of what President Obama said in an appearance for tonight taped on David Letterman.
Video of President Obama appearing on Late Show with David Letterman: When I meet Republicans as I'm traveling around the country, they are hardworking family people who care deeply about this country and my expectation is that if you want to be president, you've got to work for everybody, not just for some.
I just watched this part aired on
David Letterman. The clip showed on the news left out the huge round of applause President Obama received from the audience. He then went on to talk about meeting people around the country, and specifically mentioned autoworkers in Detroit and Toledo. Then he said,
They work hard. And you don’t meet anybody who doesn’t believe in the American dream and the fact that nobody’s entitled to success; that you’ve got to work hard. And so, I promise you. There are not a lot people out there who think they’re victims. There are not a lot of people who think they’re entitled to something. What I think the majority of people, Democrats and Republicans believe is, is that we’ve got some obligations to each other, and there’s nothing wrong with us giving each other a helping hand. So that if there’s that single Mom’s kid, even after all the work she’s done, still can’t afford to go to collect; for us to be able to give them some help on a student loan so they can end up curing the next disease or making sure that they’re starting the next Google. I think that’s a good investment for America. If you want to be president, and you want to bring people together, I think that that’s the attitude you’ve got to have.
This is what I can’t wrap my mind around with regard to how some conservatives think. They’ve created a stereotyped class of people, actually millions of people because we’re talking about 47% of the population, who in their minds are lazy and shiftless. I can think of maybe one or two people that I’ve known in my entire life that even come close to that description. And as Andrea Mitchell’s report indicated, 44% of people who pay zero income taxes are elderly retirees. They may not pay income taxes now, but they worked all their lives and paid income taxes and paid payroll taxes (Social Security and Medicare) into the system to that they could have some security when they reached their retirement years. So this idea Republicans are trying to sell that there is this huge swathe of people in this country who expect to be taken care of makes absolutely no sense at all.
Dave Letterman asked what he thought about what Mitt Romney had said, to which President Obama responded:
Here’s what I’ll say. When you run for president, you are under a microscope all the time. All of us make mistakes. All of us say the wrong thing once in a while. That incident in 2008, where what I said; I immediately said, you know, I regret this. Because I think it sent the wrong message to the country. So people understand, I think, you’re going to make mistakes on the campaign trail. What I think people want to make sure of, though, is that you’re not writing off a big chunk of the country because the way our democracy works it’s a big country. And people disagree a lot, but one thing I never tried to do, and I think none of us can do in public office, is suggest that because somebody doesn’t agree with me that they’re victims or they’re unpatriotic or don’t have a sense of responsibility.
We’re all human after all, but I think President Obama was being very generous to Mitt Romney. When President Obama said what he did in 2008, he was trying to explain how people think. The choice of words was unfortunate, but President Obama never said that he wouldn’t try to win their votes, or that if elected he would not represent them. As
Jon Chait said better than I can,
Obama was aspiring to become president of all of America, even that part most hostile to him, in the belief that what they shared mattered more than what divided them. Romney genuinely seems to conceive of the lowest-earning half of the population as implacably hostile parasites.
Romney certainly exhibited a distain or at least lack of willingness to care squat about nearly half the people in this country, a majority of whom it turns out are actually Romney’s supporters. The sad twist in all this is that they will vote for him anyway having been convinced by the Republican campaign that there is something inherently evil in government. Romney promises to lower everybody’s taxes, but refuses to tell us how he will pay for those cuts. Oh, well, he says he will get rid of deductions, which in effect will raise taxes on lower income people who can no longer take those deductions. He will get rid of programs and his followers will happily go along with it. Of course, when agencies like FEMA have been defunded, those people who would elect Mitt Romney would be the first to yell wanting to the government to come to their rescue when a tornado or hurricane devastates their community.
But I digress. I was watching President Obama’s appearance on Letterman while putting this diary together. There was a final segment on NBC Night News with Brian Williams about the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that was released today.
State of Play
Brian Williams: And we are debuting new numbers this evening on this presidential race. Our NBC News political director Chuck Todd in our Washington bureau with the results of our newest wave in the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll just out tonight. Chuck good evening.
Chuck Todd: Good evening, Brian. Well remember what this poll is. It's our first national poll after both national conventions and both candidates had goals they wanted to accomplish: The president, to try to make the case that the economy was on the right track and he had the right policies, and Mitt Romney trying to improve his personal likeability. So, let's go to the numbers. On the head-to-head, the President has a 5 point lead [Barack Obama 50%; Mitt Romney 45%]. It's a small but significant lead. First time he's hit 50% in over six months.
Small but significant? Seriously? In this polarized political climate where polls have been a lot tighter this year, five points seems like a lot more than small. Mitt Romney is hoping to win 50.1% of the votes. Now that would be small, but significant.
Chuck Todd: Look at the perceptions of the economy; 42% say it's getting better [42% Get Better; 18% Get Worse; 32% Stay the Same]; highest we've recorded on this poll question in two and a half years, Brian. Also has an impact on people's perception on which candidate would better deal with the economy. On this President Obama, Mitt Romney are tied [43% each]. Why is this significant? It's the first time Mitt Romney has not lead on this question on the economy since we began testing this. As for Mitt Romney, did he accomplish his goal of his convention? Look at these likeability numbers. He is still upside down. More people view him negatively, 43%, than positively, 38%; thirteen straight polls where Mitt Romney's personal rating has been upside down.
Now there's a yellow flag here for the President. On Foreign policy we conducted this poll right after the Middle East crisis sort of popped up and you can see it's taken a toll on the President's approval rating here, 49/46 approve/disapprove; big drop from last month when 54% approved. Now one piece of silver lining for Mitt Romney, Brian. His supporters much more enthusiastic about this election than Barack Obama's. We'll see if that will have an impact.
Brian Williams: Of course, these numbers predated the surreptitious recording of his remarks, so it will be interesting to see the next wave of national numbers. Chuck Todd, thanks for that from our Washington bureau.
Oh good grief. Romney didn’t win a single measure in that poll and actually tied for the one measure he used to lead on but the silver lining is that his voters are more enthusiastic than President Obama’s? Give me a break. I guess Chuck Todd didn’t watch the Peter Alexander and Andrea Mitchell segments. I sure did see evidence that Republicans aren’t very pleased with Mitt Romney right now. But of course, this poll was conducted before that tape was released exposing Mitt Romney for the callous politician he is. Can’t wait for the next poll to come out when that last sliver of silver lining disappears for Mr. Romney.
Why did Chuck Todd neglect to report the part of the poll where there is a 42 point gap [Barack Obama 68%; Mitt Romney 26%] between President Obama and Romney among Latino voters? How about women voters? There’s a ten point gap there [Barack Obama 52%; Mitt Romney 42%]. Thank you, Chuck, for your fair and balanced reporting trying to find some good news for Mitt Romney in that poll you reported.