But then, there's this from that same piece:
I've always had a soft spot for Mitt Romney, who strikes me, in a way I can't completely define, as a good guy. The fact that he is an audacious liar does not strike me as a definitive judgment on his character, but primarily a reflection of the circumstances he finds himself in -- having to transition from winning a majority of a fairly liberal electorate to winning a majority of a rabidly conservative one, one that cannot be placated without indulging in all sorts of fantasies.
[snip]
I see him as a patrician pol, like George H. W. Bush, who believes deeply in public service but regards elections as a cynical process of pandering to rubes.I gotta tell you . . . I'm not quite sure what to make of this. I understand what Chait is saying here -- and I understand that his main take-away is that Romney is, in fact, an inveterate liar on the campaign trail -- but couple that with the foregoing and I think what I am listening to is an excuse for Romney to be a huge liar on the campaign trail.
The excuse goes something like: Yeah, sure . . . Romney is lying, but he's only saying things he doesn't believe in order to get elected. Deep down and underneath it all, he's not a bad guy -- he's like Poppy Bush.
Excuse me but . . . WTF?!? This entire thing smacks of the very elitism and self-regard that the 99% are always railing about regarding the 1% - economically speaking.
First . . . either you believe in democratic self-governance, or you don't. Either you believe the people can govern themselves, or you don't. Jefferson said it best when he said the great mass of men break down between those who trust the people, and those who fear the people and who prefer instead an aristocracy. It can be an aristocracy of Aristotle's arete (which never has been tried) or it can be an aristocracy of wealth and privilege (tried many times before with - uhhmm - disastrous results), but it is definitely not a democracy.
Second . . . if you declare that the people are fit to govern themselves and that you believe in democracy, you don't get to point to all the people's flat-out failures of self-governance (for example, giving George W. Bush a second term), as a reason to justify pandering to and duping them. Self-governance counts for nothing if the people are duped into voting for their leadership; that is democracy as date-rape, that is governance by the consent of the roofied.
Third . . . if you cast your lot with representative democracy and you think that the people often make amazingly poor decisions (as, personally, I do) then you must ask yourself why that is; why have the people - in whom the very hope for democracy rests - failed themselves?
My favorite answer is that the pundits and the political media have failed us. People like Chait, who at once can say they think Romney is a nice guy and then excuse his lying and pandering as "just something one needs to do to get elected" are the ones who already think they are not "of the people." They obviously think that "the people" are those other, lesser masses, the great unwashed and unlearned who cannot be reached but only patted on the head and distracted with a pretty lie.
Personally, my belief in democracy is a bit stronger. I'm pretty sure that my next door neighbor would have no problem recognizing right and wrong if the people reporting on our politics weren't so goddamned gun-shy about being called "partisan" whenever they pointed out that -- oh yeah, by the way -- Mitt Romney is lying again.
Just yesterday I was listening to Diane Rehm's Friday News Roundup, and she had -- as always -- three political pundit/reporters on. One was talking about Mitt Romney and his claim that the US is militarily weaker now than it ever has been before because -- for instance -- we have less ships in the Navy now than at any time since 1917.
"This is a nonsense argument," the guy said, "because of course we have different types of ships now. We have aircraft carriers with sonar and radar and we can control a huge amount of sea with less actual ships. So this is like comparing apples to oranges and doesn't really tell us anything.
"Of course," he continued, "it is technically true, so Romney can make this argument and I guess we'll have to see how this plays out in the campaign."
Really? Really? "Romney can make this argument and we'll have to see how this plays out in the campaign?" And you -- the guy the rest of America looks to to tell them the news -- have no obligation to point out that Romney is fucking lying to us all?
And then these same pundit/reporters want to sneer about how dumb the American electorate is, and how politicians have to pander to us, and they never - ever - think that maybe they are even the least bit responsible for this state of affairs. That maybe if they were actually journalists -- and not stenographers and theater critics -- our democracy might actually work a little bit better.
* * *
The First Amendment's concerns for the freedom of the press weren't inscribed so that political star-fuckers could hitch their wagons, get famous on the TeeVee, and live well. Those concerns were put in place because -- when we started the going concern that is the United States of America -- it was understood that somebody had to speak Truth to Power, and that somebody had to call BULLSHIT! when they saw bullshit happening.
That somebody was supposed to be the press. The press was supposed to be something other than, different than, better than entertainment and propaganda.
Politics as a bloodless bloodsport, ladies and gentlemen, place your bets, pick your teams, try to forget that it doesn't really make a difference and never, ever pay attention to the little man whose hand is in your pocket and whose accomplice is stealing your future.
To be sure, today's political press will never tell you.
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