This should make you proud and feel comfortable:https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=G5DTqvX74O4
(AlsoSee 1 below.)
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Dick Berkowitz, has written a booklet entitled:"A Conservative Capitalist Offers: Eleven Lessons and a Bonus Lesson for Raising America's Youth Born and Yet To Be Born" Half The Proceeds Go To "The Wounded Warrior Project!"
By Dick Berkowitz - Non Expert
Dick wrote this booklet because he believes a strong country must rest on a solid family unit and that Brokaw's "Greatest Generation" has morphed into "A Confused, Dependent and Compromised Generation."
He hopes this booklet will provide a guide to alter this trend.
You can now order a .pdf version from www.brokerberko.com/book that you can download and read on your computer, or print out if you want. Cost is $5.99
In several weeks the book will be available in soft cover format at a cost of $10.99.
Booklet illustrations were by his oldest granddaughter, Emma Darvick, who lives and works in New York.
Testimonials:
Dick, I read your book this weekend. I hardly know where to start. You did an excellent job of putting into one short book a compendium of the virtues which only a relatively short time ago all Americans believed. It’s a measure of how far we have fallen that many Americans, perhaps a majority of Americans, no longer believe in what we once considered truisms. I think your father would have agreed with every word, but the party he supported no longer has such beliefs.
I would like to buy multiple copies of your booklet..
You did a great job. I know your parents would have been proud and that your family today is proud.
Mike
You wrote a great book. The brevity is one of its strong points and I know it was hard to include that in and still keep it brief. Your father in haste once wrote an overly long letter to our client, then said in the last sentence, “I’m sorry I wrote such a long letter, but I didn’t have time to write a short one.”
"Dick, I indeed marvel at how much wisdom you have been able to share with so few words. Not too unlike the experience in reading the Bible. I feel that with each read of "A Conservative Capitalist Offers:…." one will gain additional knowledge and new insights…
Regards, Larry"
Dick ,
Your book is outstanding! Due to illness, I've been unable to read it in entirety until today .Your background is often very similar to mine (e.g. Halliburton's influence was very important in my life), and your thoughts reflect very closely the the teachings that I received from my parents and granddad. I will write a more detailed statement in the near future!
All the best, Bob
Your book is outstanding! Due to illness, I've been unable to read it in entirety until today .Your background is often very similar to mine (e.g. Halliburton's influence was very important in my life), and your thoughts reflect very closely the the teachings that I received from my parents and granddad. I will write a more detailed statement in the near future!
All the best, Bob
Regarding your booklet, I have begun to read it and look forward to finishing it this weekend. Congrats on getting it published and
on the great reviews. I know how much this booklet means to you and how important getting this message out to the public is.
P------
Dick attended Georgia Military Academy, in Atlanta, graduating in 1950. He attended The Wharton School of Commerce graduating in 1954, served both a stint in the Marine Corps Active reserves and The Army Finance Corps.
Upon completing his tour of service he enrolled in The University of Miami Law School (was an associate editor of The Law Review) graduated in 1960, moved to Atlanta and began his Wall Street career as a stock broker with Courts and Company and became a general partner in 1967. When Courts merged he opened an Atlanta Office for Burnham and Company in 1970 and when Drexel Burnham demised, in 1990, he took the institutional department , he created, to Oppenheimer going into semi-retirement in 2006 (he still manages money for some clients.).
Dick resides with his wife of 40 years - Lynn Rudikoff, At The Landings on Skidaway Island near Savannah.
He has three daughters from a former marriage, a son and daughter with Lynn and 7 grandchildren.
During his working career, Dick was a member of The Board of St John's College for nine years (The Great Books School) served on The President's Commission on White House Fellowships during the elder Bush's Administration, and served on the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Board among many other public activities.
After moving to Savannah in 2003, Dick, began The JEA Speaker Series, continues to serve on the Board of The State of Georgia's Museum (GMOA) located on the campus at Athens, is on the advisory board of Spine and Sport and The Skidaway Island Republican Club. Dick also serves on the investment committee board of the Savannah Jewish Federation.
He recently underwent a knee replacement in the hope that he can continue playing tennis.
Dick also posts to a web page (dick-meom.blogspot.com) on a daily basis focusing on The Middle East, politics and economics.
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Timing is everything. Even if based on 'perfumed' information it still can have an odor. (See 2 and 2a below.)
Lying is one thing but repeating known lies is another and suggests desperation and/or a pathological problem. In Obama's case I believe both shoes fit!
What I believe has happened is when Romney uncorked the bottle and disproved some of the lies the Obama crowd have been throwing at him it has had the effect of causing other charges to be re-examined as potential lies and this is why the women's pro Obama trends has now reversed and swung Romney's way. (See 3, 3a and 3b below.)
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Peter has increased concerns. (See 4 below.)
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Dick
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1)Alexander's Column – October 11, 2012
Obama's 'October Surprise' #1 -- Obfuscation and Diversion
Saving Big Bird While the U.S. Economy Sinks
"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." --John Adams (1770)
"Facts," as John Adams famously wrote, "are stubborn things." Thus, to alter the perception of the truth, the art of remolding it into something else in order to promote particular political agendas, was perfected by 20th-century socialist propagandists under the heading "Dezinformatsia" (disinformation). The primary goal of this deception was, and remains, the subversion of Liberty and free enterprise.
Disinformation campaigns rely on two primary tactics: obfuscation and diversion.
Other than the dezinformatsia directorates in China, North Korea and the handful of other Communist countries yet to implode under the weight of the totalitarian state, no Western socialist regime has been more effective at manipulating facts and public opinion to comport with its statist agenda than that of Barack Hussein Obama, augmented by hisLeftmedia apparatchiks.
That proficiency was in full bloom last week when a monthly "jobs report" produced by the Obama administration's Department of Labor ostensibly showed that the headline unemployment rate (U-3) had dropped dramatically during the month of September, from 8.1 percent to a much more politically pleasing 7.8 percent. The problem with this report, a survey of 0.6 percent of households, is that the anomalous drop starkly contradicted much more reliable economic data, including a payroll survey of 30 percent of employers (no change), and the economic growth measure of GDP (revised downward).
So, if employers report little change in hiring, and the economy is contracting, how is it that the much-heralded DoL household survey discovered enormous job growth, which would require record job creation by employers and significant economic expansion?
Most Beltway pundits answer that question with tortured hypotheses in an attempt to explain such statistical anomalies, but few dare to suggest that the politically fortuitous timing of this household jobs survey is anything but that. However this report, which Obama referenced within 24 hours of his abysmal performance in the first presidential debate, amounts to an incredible "October Surprise" for his re-election bid. Indeed, he has spun this report as proof that his economic policies are working.
Regarding the first tactic of successful disinformation campaigns, obfuscation, some analysts have suggested that the criteria for the jobs report might have been manipulated. Altering polling criteria in order to obtain a desired result forpolitical propaganda can be accomplished with subtle changes to polling criteria or interpretation, which are both difficult to detect.
That method of manipulation would be much more subtle than simply altering the numbers as suggested in a Wall Street Journal column by former GE chairman Jack Welch: "Unbelievable jobs numbers ... these Chicago guys will do anything ... can't debate so change numbers."
Predictably, Alan Krueger, chairman of Obama's White House Council of Economic Advisers, claimed, "No serious person would question the integrity of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. These numbers are put together by career employees." (Of course, we all know that career government bureaucrats wouldnever show political favor to a Democrat administration!)
Krueger's assertion notwithstanding, Newt Gingrich, John McCain and other notable pragmatists have registered serious concerns about manipulation of polling criteria and interpretation. My friend, Rep. Allen West, observed, "Somehow by manipulation of data we are all of a sudden below 8 percent unemployment, a month from the presidential election. [This report is] Orwellian to say the least, and representative of Saul Alinsky tactics. Trust the Obama administration? Sure, and the spontaneous reaction to a video caused the death of our ambassador ... and pigs fly."
To that end, I registered two questions with the Department of Labor this week regarding the household survey parameters: Were the criteria determining the demography and geography of households surveyed in September the same as for all previous months in 2012? Were the survey results interpreted according to the same norms and standards?
I have received no answer other than the public statement of Labor's Karen Kosanovich, who insists, "We have done a monthly survey since 1940 and the methods have broadly not changed."
Assuming the survey criteria were not manipulated and Obama simply won the statistical mega lotto, one might still surmise that his smug debate demeanor reflected advanced knowledge of the "ace-in-the-hole" that would be publicly announced 36 hours after his debate debacle. For the record, it is unlawful for the administration to receive the results of those surveys until after the close of financial markets the afternoon prior to the public release of that data the next morning.
Surely no cutout Obamaphile over at Labor would have passed the survey results to some cutout Obamaphile in the White House ahead of the debate ... surely not?
Typical of the Leftmedia promotion of the jobs numbers, on the day it was released ABC News reported, "Mitt Romney surprised President Obama with a dynamic debate performance Wednesday night, but he's been upstaged today by another October shocker as the unemployment rate plunged from 8.1% to 7.8%, its lowest since Obama took office in 2009."
"October shocker" is a bit understated.
For the last week, Obama has been launching every stump speech with this theme: "We found out the unemployment rate fell to its lowest rate since I took office. It's a reminder this country has come too far to turn back now."
And Obama will back that up this week by citing a Department of Labor report that the Leftmedia proclaims is evidence the 7.8% is accurate. The DoL report notes that weekly jobless claims dropped by 30,000 to a mere 364,000 new unemployment claims -- lower than it was when Obama was elected.
Sound familiar?
What the Leftmedia is not reporting is what was in the fine print of this report: "One large state didn't report some quarterly figures." A DoL analyst concluded that the "missing figures" account for most of the decline. In other words, there was little or no decline in new jobless claims, but who reads the fine print -- certainly not Obama's useful idiots. (Expect more on this from Joe Biden in the VP debate tonight.)
Now, those who've followed The Patriot Post's political analysis for the last 16 years can attest that none of our editors fall into the category of "Chicken Little conspiracy theorist." However, given the benefit of a keen sense of the obvious in the case of this jobs report, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck -- it's not an eagle. Thus, we will see what the next household jobs survey finds for October when it's released just days before the November election. However, if the survey parameters were altered for September, the October results might reflect similar alterations.
And that brings me to the second and more obvious component of Leftist disinformation campaigns: diversion.
In a memorable moment from last week's presidential debate, Mitt Romney was asked about cuts in spending. He responded, "Well, first of all, I will eliminate all programs if they don't pass this test: Is the program so critical it's worth borrowing money from China to pay for it? And if not, I'll get rid of it. ObamaCare's on my list."
Then Romney turned to PBS employee and debate moderator Jim Lehrer and said, "Jim, I'm going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I like PBS, I love Big Bird. Actually like you, too. But I'm not going to borrow money from China to pay for it."
On that note, Team Obama cooked up a supplemental diversion to further deflect attention from their failed economic policies and Wednesday night's debate massacre.
In addition to touting the "success" of his economic policies on the campaign trail, Obama is now doing stand-up comedy for his audiences: "Do you want me to save Big Bird? For all you moms and kids out there, don't worry, somebody is finally getting tough on Big Bird." In a reference to the bizarre pursuit of O.J. Simpson in his white Ford Bronco after he allegedly murdered Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman in 1994, Obama told attendees at an L.A. fundraiser, "Elmo, you better make a run for it. Elmo has been seen in a white Chevy Suburban, he's driving for the border."
For their part, Sesame Workshop, the company that owns and produces content for PBS's Sesame Street, is not laughing. Sesame Workshop has asked that Obama cease and desist with its references to Big Bird, because that is drawing undo attention to Romney's assertion that the company is one line item on a very long list of taxpayer-funded liabilities that should be cut. For the record, the "non-profit" Sesame Workshop reported $130 million in revenues and $355 million in net assets, according to their most recent Form 990. And one $7 million government grant they received last year was sufficient to cover the $5,944,000 in executive compensation they reported. CEO Gary Knell was paid $990,000 and the lowest paid executive on the report made almost $294,000 -- just under the $300,000 in compensation for the actor who waddles around in the Big Bird costume.
Turns out, beneath all of the bright yellow plumage, Big Bird is actually a cash cow!
Mitt Romney responded to Obama's Big Bird rhetoric much as he responded to Obama in the debate: "The president spent the last week talking about saving Big Bird. I actually think we need to have a president who talks about saving the American people and saving good jobs."
Indeed, while Obama fiddles, the American economy burns.
By the numbers: The real (U-6) unemployment rate, which includes those who are underemployed and those who have become discouraged and simply given up looking for work, is reported as 14.7 percent but, as with U-3, is probably much higher. In addition, the real unemployed and underemployed ranks of Americans have swollen to more than 20 million, households considered impoverished have grown to one in six, and there are 47 million food stamp recipients -- up 50 percent since Obama's election. Obama has also amassed $5 trillion in new debt, and our national debt now totals $16 trillion, which for the first time in history now exceeds U.S. annual economic output. Finally, median household income has declined by $4,520 (8.2 percent) since Obama took office (that's the real "Obama tax"), energy prices have doubled because of Obama restrictions, and economic growth has slowed to an anemic 1.3 percent.
According to American Enterprise Institute economic analyst James Pethokoukis, "The U.S. labor market remains in a deep depression with virtually no recovery since the official end of the Great Recession. But the Long Recession continues unabated."
Joe Biden was right. "This is deadly earnest man, this is deadly earnest. ... [T]he middle class has been buried the last four years..."
If Obama is re-elected, they may be buried for generations.
(PS: Look for the next diversionary "October Surprise" to be a temporary treaty with Iranian mad man Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose aggression toward Israel will succeed only if he helps Obama's re-election. Alternatively, expect "targeting terrorists" in Libya.)
Pro Deo et Constitutione — Libertas aut Mors
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis
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Data Massaging Continues: Initial Claims Tumble To 339K Lowest Since 2008, Far Below Lowest Expectation
This is just getting stupid. After expectations of a rebound in initial claims from 367K last week (naturally revised higher to 369K), to 370K (with the lowest of all sellside expectations at 355K), the past week mysteriously, yet so very unsurprisingly in the aftermath of the fudged BLS unemployment number, saw claims tumble to a number that is so ridiculous not even CNBC's Steve Liesman bothered defending it, or 339K. Ironically, not even the Labor Department is defending it: it said that "one large state didn't report some quarterly figures." Great, but what was reported was a headline grabbing number that is just stunning for reelection purposes. This was the lowest number since 2008. The only point to have this print? For 2-3 bulletin talking points at the Vice Presidential debate tonight. Everything else is now noise.
It is also sad that the US "economy" has devolved to such trivial data fudging on a week by week basis, which makes even the Chinese Department of Truth appear amateurish by comparison. Needless to say, Not Seasonally Adjusted initial claims jumped by 26K to 327K in the past week but who's counting. Finally, what is the reason for ongoing QEternity if the employment situation is now back to normal. Finally, in completely ignored news, because who needs global trade when you have toner cartridge, and generally ink, the US trade deficit in August rose by 4.1% to $44.2 billion, on expectations of a deterioration to $44.0 billion. Then again nobody talks about the US trade deficit during presidential debates so all good here.
Jobless Claims beat by the most since May 2009 and is the lowest since Jan 2008 - the new normal...
with the biggest 3-week drop since Jan 2006..
and the idiocy of relentless revisiosn continues...
as the six-sigma beat plays out...
Luckily I found a transcript of a conversation between two eminent economists discussing this very question!
Here we go, the recent unemployment report explained --
COSTELLO: I want to talk about the unemployment rate in America.
ABBOTT: Good Subject. Terrible Times. It's 7.8%.
COSTELLO: That many people are out of work?
ABBOTT: No, that's 14.7%.
COSTELLO: You just said 7.8%.
ABBOTT: 7.8% Unemployed.
COSTELLO: Right 7.8% out of work.
ABBOTT: No, that's 14.7%.
COSTELLO: Okay, so it's 14.7% unemployed.
ABBOTT: No, that's 7.8%.
COSTELLO: WAIT A MINUTE. Is it 7.8% or 14.7%?
ABBOTT: 7.8% are unemployed. 14.7% are out of work.
COSTELLO: IF you are out of work you are unemployed.
ABBOTT: No, Obama said you can't count the "Out of Work" as the unemployed. You have to look for work to be unemployed.
COSTELLO: BUT THEY ARE OUT OF WORK!!!
ABBOTT: No, you miss his point.
COSTELLO: What point?
ABBOTT: Someone who doesn't look for work can't be counted with those who look for work. It wouldn't be fair.
COSTELLO: To whom?
ABBOTT: The unemployed.
COSTELLO: But they are ALL out of work.
ABBOTT: No, the unemployed are actively looking for work. Those who are out of work gave up looking and if you give up, you are no longer in the ranks of the unemployed.
COSTELLO: So if you're off the unemployment roles that would count as less unemployment?
ABBOTT: Unemployment would go down. Absolutely!
COSTELLO: The unemployment just goes down because you don't look for work?
ABBOTT: Absolutely it goes down. That's how the current administration gets it to 7.8%. Otherwise it would be 14.7%. Our govt doesn't want you to read about 14.7% unemployment.
COSTELLO: That would be tough on those running for reelection.
ABBOTT: Absolutely.
COSTELLO: Wait, I got a question for you. That means there are two ways to bring down the unemployment number?
ABBOTT: Two ways is correct.
COSTELLO: Unemployment can go down if someone gets a job?
ABBOTT: Correct.
COSTELLO: And unemployment can also go down if you stop looking for a job?
ABBOTT: Bingo.
COSTELLO: So there are two ways to bring unemployment down, and the easier of the two is to have administration supporters stop looking for work.
ABBOTT: Now you're thinking like the Economy Czar.
COSTELLO: I don't even know what the h***l I just said!
ABBOTT: Now you're thinking like our current President
The President's advisers concede 80% of Romney's tax-cut math.
At last Wednesday's debate in Denver, Mr. Romney explained that he doesn't plan to cut taxes by $5 trillion. This is because, while his plan rolls back individual income tax rates by 20% and cuts the corporate rate to 25% from 35%, he also plans to reduce personal and corporate deductions.
The idea is that lower rates but fewer loopholes and the faster economic growth that results can generate a similar amount of tax revenue. The Republican also stated once again that his plan does not include a tax increase on the middle class.
Mr. Romney has been saying this for months, and over the weekend Obama campaign spokesman Jen Psaki conceded 80% of the argument. En route to California with reporters aboard Air Force One, Ms. Psaki said that the elimination of enough deductions and loopholes could in fact cover $3.8 trillion. That becomes $4 trillion if you include fewer interest payments on less debt, which means the Obama campaign was saying as of Sunday that the Romney "tax cut" was $1 trillion, not $5 trillion.
But soon after Air Force One landed, it became clear that either Mr. Obama hadn't gotten the memo—or didn't like what it said. At a Los Angeles fundraiser, Mr. Obama repeated the bogus claim that his own campaign had just repudiated.
The President said, "And when my opponent proposes $5 trillion worth of tax cuts, $2 trillion of additional military spending that our military is not asking for, and doesn't provide a single detail on how to pay for it, what that means is either we're going to be blowing up the deficit or we're going to be sticking it to folks who can't afford it."
So the Romney campaign and the Obama campaign agree that President Obama is wrong. There is no $5 trillion tax cut. But before retreating to Ms. Psaki's seemingly more reasonable $1 trillion figure, Mr. Obama should think twice.
Turns out there's trouble with that estimate too. Princeton economics professor Harvey Rosen, cited by the Obama campaign as a source for the claim that the Romney plan must raise taxes on the middle-class to avoid increasing the deficit, now says that Team Obama has been misrepresenting his research.
In fact, his work shows that increased economic growth from a more efficient tax code and lower marginal tax rates will allow Mr. Romney to cut rates and deductions while avoiding both a rate hike on the middle class and a deficit increase. Maybe Mr. Romney's reasonable, coherent explanation for this is why he won the debate.
3a)Botched in Benghazi
New evidence on the Libya debacle and false White House spin.
At Wednesday's House oversight hearings into the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya, Democrats protested loudly about a GOP political witch hunt. If only such alleged partisanship were always so educational. The Congressional investigation has in a few hours brought greater clarity about what happened before, during and after the events of 9/11/12 than the Obama Administration has provided in a month.
Among the revelations:
• There was no public demonstration whatsoever against an anti-Islam video, or any other grievance, outside the consulate in Benghazi the night of the attack.
"There had been nothing unusual during the day at all outside [our emphasis]," a State Department official told reporters in a Tuesday night briefing hastily organized before the House committee session. Only at 9:40 p.m. on September 11 did a large pack of armed men storm the compound, firing guns and grenades and eventually setting buildings on fire. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were murdered.
For more than a week afterwards, Obama Administration officials said the attacks were the result of a demonstration triggered by anger over a YouTube video, as were protests earlier in the day in Cairo. "Putting together the best information that we have available to us today, our current assessment is that what happened in Benghazi was in fact initially a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired hours before in Cairo, almost a copycat of the demonstrations against our facility in Cairo, which were prompted, of course, by the video," said U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice on September 16 on NBC's "Meet the Press."
On Tuesday night, a State Department official said, "That was not our conclusion."
• The frontal attack by an extremist militia group with links to al Qaeda was recognized as such by some Obama Administration officials within 24 hours. Testifying on Wednesday, Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Wood, a Utah National Guard Green Beret who commanded a 16-member security team in Tripoli, said the attacks were "instantly recognizable as a terrorist attack. . . . I almost expected it to come."
• The State Department denied repeated requests to improve security at the Libyan mission. It kept the consulate in Benghazi open after Britain and the Red Cross had pulled out of the city after security deteriorated this year. No special security measures were in place for the anniversary of 9/11.
Lt. Col. Wood said he had argued to extend his team's tour in Libya but was pulled out in August. The State Department approved a 30% "danger pay" bonus for Americans working in Libya, but it turned down an Embassy request to keep a DC-3 plane in the country for security support.
Eric Nordstrom, a State official who was the regional security officer in Libya until June, told the committee about a "complete and total absence of planning" for security. The U.S. was relying on a Libyan government that was "overwhelmed and could not guarantee our protection," according to an October 1 memorandum written by Mr. Nordstrom.
Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa has forced the Administration to start to answer for this stunning and deadly assault on U.S. sovereign soil in Libya, but a lot of questions demand further investigation. Were warnings of an imminent threat ignored? Was incompetence or a systemic failure to blame for the security lapse?
The most immediate question concerns the Administration's response, and this is where electoral politics deserves to come in. Ms. Rice has defended her false and misleading statements by saying she was reading off a script prepared by U.S. intelligence—apparently a script not shared with the State Department she formally reports to.
It'd be instructive to know who provided her this script, and whether or not she spoke to White House political aide David Plouffe or the Chicago campaign office as she prepared for her Sunday TV show appearances on September 16.
Ms. Rice's Sunday story happened to fit the narrative offered by White House spokesman Jay Carney two days earlier that a rogue video had caused the anti-American demonstrations, which also fit the Obama campaign narrative that the President has made the U.S. more popular and that terrorism is on the wane in the world. A terror attack that killed Americans in Benghazi blows up that happy tale.
In a campaign speech Monday night, President Obama kept at it, saying that "al Qaeda is on its heels and Osama bin Laden is no more." The second half of the sentence is true. But the more we learn about what happened in Benghazi, the more the first sounds like fantasy, and the less Americans can trust this White House to tell them the truth.
3b)Obama and the L-Word
'Liar' is potent and ugly—with a sleazy political pedigree.
By Dan henninger
The election campaign of the 44th U.S. president is now calling another candidate for the American presidency a "liar." This is a new low. It is amazing and depressing to hear this term being used as a formal strategy by people at the highest level of American politics.
"Liar" is a potent and ugly word with a sleazy political pedigree. But "liar" is not being deployed only by party attack dogs or the Daily Kos comment queue. Mitt Romney is being called a "liar" by officials at the top of the Obama re-election campaign. Speaking the day after the debate in the press cabin of Air Force One, top Obama adviser David Plouffe said, "We thought it was important to let people know that someone who would lie to 50 million Americans, you should have some questions about whether that person should sit in the Oval Office."
The Democratic National Committee's Brad Woodhouse said, "Plenty of people have pointed out what a liar Mitt Romney is." Deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter says Republicans "think lying is a virtue."
Explicitly calling someone a "liar" is—or used to be—a serious and rare charge, in or out of politics. It's a loaded word. It crosses a line. "Liar" suggests bad faith and conscious duplicity—a total, cynical falsity.
Politics isn't beanbag, but politicians past had all sorts of devices to say or suggest an opponent was playing fast and loose with the truth. This week's Obama TV ad, "How Can We Trust Mitt Romney?" would have been perfectly legit absent the Plouffe "liar" prepping.
Other than the fact that calling opponents liars is so natural to their politics, one wonders why the Obama people think this will have deep political resonance. The idea that they can make voters who live outside the political steam baths believe that a man running for the presidency would stand in front of 67 million people and literally "lie" about a proposal to change the federal tax code is ludicrous.
Every other time he talks, Barack Obama says "millionaires" should pay more taxes, when all his proposed tax increases clearly start at individual incomes of $200,000. That isn't a "lie." It's a president taking three steps to make a layup.
This tack won't erode Mr. Romney's new support and may do damage to the president's candidacy. The polls aren't jumping around because Mitt Romney is a bamboozler. They're moving because the 2012 electorate is volatile. The first debate proved voters are looking for answers to their economic anxiety.
The Obama campaign's resurrection of "liar" as a political tool is odious because it has such a repellent pedigree. It dates to the sleazy world of fascist and totalitarian propaganda in the 1930s. It was part of the milieu of stooges, show trials and dupes. These were people willing to say anything to defeat their opposition. Denouncing people as liars was at the center of it. The idea was never to elevate political debate but to debauch it.
The purpose of calling someone a liar then was not merely to refute their ideas or arguments. It was to nullify them, to eliminate them from participation in politics. That's what is so unsettling about a David Axelrod or David Plouffe following accusations of dishonesty and lies with "whether that person should sit in the Oval Office." And that is followed by President Obama himself feeding the new line in stump speeches without himself ever using the L-word
This Obama campaign is saying, We don't want to compete with Mitt Romney. We want to obliterate him.
How did it happen that an accusation once confined to the lowest, whiskey-soaked level of politics or rank propaganda campaigns is occurring daily in American politics?
No one has worked harder to revive this low-rent tactic than New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. To my knowledge, Mr. Krugman is the only columnist writing for a major publication in U.S. journalism who has so routinely and repetitively accused people of being liars.
It began with the charge that Bush lied about WMD and became almost banal in its repetition after that. In a September 2008 piece on the GOP convention, "Blizzard of Lies," the New York Times' heir to Reston, Wicker, Krock and Safire blew the floodgates: "they're all out-and-out lies"; "the blizzard of lies"; "a grotesque lie" and "the McCain campaign's lies." The Obama campaign is saying "Romney lied," because Paul Krugman made it the coin of their realm.
The L-word's strength is directly proportional to the rarity and appropriateness of its use. Today in our politics it is as skuzzily routine as the F-bomb has become among 15-year-old girls on the New York City subways. This is not progress.
It will be interesting which variation of "lie"—if any—comes out of Joe Biden's mouth in his debate with Paul Ryan. Mr. Biden comes from a political generation that could play rough, but it knew the limits of going too low at the presidential level. Or used to.
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Schiff: Much Larger Fiscal Cliff Looms Over US Economy
The year-end fiscal adjustment shouldn’t raise as many red flags as it is, as the country’s chronic health issues are much more dangerous, said broker, author and financial commentator Peter Schiff.
At the end of this year, tax breaks are scheduled to expire at the same time automatic cuts to government spending kick in, a combination known as a fiscal cliff that could send the country into a recession next year if left unchecked by Congress.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the economy could contract by 0.5 percent next year if the economy rolls over the cliff, while the International Monetary Fund has said such an event threatens the global economy.
Even if Congress pulls through with short-term solutions that may spark sighs of relief, kicking the can down the road does nothing to address massive debts, liabilities and gaping deficits ailing the U.S. economy.
“It’s not because we go over this phony fiscal cliff, it’s probably because we don’t go over that one because the government cancels the spending cuts, cancels the tax hikes, and instead we end up going over the real fiscal cliff further down the road,” Schiff told Yahoo.
Federal Reserve stimulus measures that flood the economy with liquidity must halt, while Congress must cut budgets, overhaul taxes and narrow deficits if the U.S. economy is to avoid a doomsday fate.
The Fed plans to buy $40 billion in mortgage-backed securities from banks every month until the economy and labor market improve, a monetary policy tool known as quantitative easing (QE) that works by pumping liquidity into the financial system in a way that pushes down interest rates to encourage investing and hiring.
Critics say the Fed’s QE program, the third one since the downturn, is merely printing money out of thin air, plants the seeds for inflation down the road and does nothing to end regulatory and tax uncertainties that are worrying businesses.
Too much debt needs attention now, even if it means pain today.
“If we address these imbalances and let the economy restructure, people are going to lose their jobs in some sectors, some investors are going to lose money, it’s going to feel bad for a lot of people for a short period of time, but it will be very constructive pain,” Schiff said.
“The only way around this is to stop the presses, let interest rates go up, and they’re going to have to go way up, and let the chips fall where they may.”
Stocks, meanwhile, have risen in recent months, in part due to the Fed stimulus measures.
Yet some warn that investors need to brace for the inbound fiscal adjustment, as even a political compromise could still involve changes to taxes and public spending.
“Markets have not priced in the fiscal cliff and assume QE Infinity [the third round of quantitative easing] will drown out other factors,” BlackRock analysts write in a report.
Uncertainty alone could roil markets, and investors need to be prepared.
“Markets appear to underestimate the potential for panic in the run-up to the cliff, the possibility of the nation falling off the edge and the cliff’s impact on economic growth.”
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