Romney ~ Gone but not Forgotten

I think as a country we will never forget some of the Romney-isms we heard during this election. And I love lakes, trees and teachers as much as he does.

The End of the Romney Campaign

And I won't be sorry to see it go! Buh-Bye, folks!

New York Times: Career Options

After three decades of remarkably seamless career hopping — from Bain Capital to the Olympic Games, from governor of Massachusetts to constant candidate for president — Mr. Romney is now a restless chief executive with no organization to run.

. . . At a breakfast on Wednesday for top advisers and donors, Mr. Romney marveled at the Obama campaign’s ability to turn out such a large volume of voters on Election Day, though at times by using strategies that he said had unfairly maligned him.

He did little to hide his frustration and pique: he bemoaned attempts by the president and his allies to characterize him as an enemy of women, singling out advertisements that claimed he opposed contraception and abortion in all cases. That, Mr. Romney said, is simply untrue, according to those at the breakfast.

He even took a gentle swipe at the news media, mocking what he said were inaccurate articles suggesting that his oldest son, Tagg, had staged an intervention to fix a tottering campaign and was playing a heavy role in shaping political strategy.

“He will be sifting through this for quite a while,” said Kirk Jowers, a Romney friend. “The question is when the sifting takes a couple of hours a day instead of being all consuming.”

. . . “I know he will do something,” said Eric Fehrnstrom, a longtime Romney political adviser. “I just don’t know what it will be.”

Romney Transition Campaign Website That Won't Come True:


CBS News: Romney Wasn't Prepared to Lose

. . . it wasn't until the polls closed that concern turned into alarm. They expected North Carolina to be called early. It wasn't. They expected Pennsylvania to be up in the air all night; it went early for the President.

After Ohio went for Mr. Obama, it was over, but senior advisers say no one could process it.

"We went into the evening confident we had a good path to victory," said one senior adviser. "I don't think there was one person who saw this coming."

. . . Romney was stoic as he talked to the president, an aide said, but his wife Ann cried. Running mate Paul Ryan seemed genuinely shocked, the adviser said. Ryan's wife Janna also was shaken and cried softly.

"There's nothing worse than when you think you're going to win, and you don't," said another adviser. "It was like a sucker punch."

. . . Both wives looked stricken, and Ryan himself seemed grim. They all were thrust on that stage without understanding what had just happened.

"He was shellshocked," one adviser said of Romney.

GQ: How the Secret Service Said Goodbye to Romney

At some point, early Wednesday morning, when Gov. Mitt Romney and family were tucked into bed, a quiet call went out on the radio channel used by his Secret Service agents: "Javelin, Jockey details, all posts, discontinue."

Of all the indignities involved in losing a presidential race, none is more stark than the sudden emptiness of your entourage. The Secret Service detail guarding Governor Romney since Feb 1. stood down quickly. He had ridden in a 15-car motorcade to the Intercontinental Hotel in Boston for his concession speech. He rode in a single-car motorcade back across the Charles River to Belmont. His son, Tagg, did the driving.

. . . When the race was close, agents would joke about the number of "j" words they'd need to come up with in order to give every one of his children, their wives, and all of their children code names. That's 29 people who would have received, if not protection, at least a protective survey and recommendations from the Service. Quietly, plans had already been put in place to assign protective details to all of them, just in case.

Washington Insiders Say Obama Will Win

And this article has the best graphics of the year!!! So enjoy!


New York Magazine

Over the past two weeks, we surveyed 74 Beltway insiders—37 Democrats, 37 Republicans—on the election, the state of politics, and what comes next. We wanted honesty, so we offered to keep their answers anonymous (in some cases, they allowed us to quote them).
. . . Participants include: Jack Abramoff, Bob Bennett, Matt Bennett, James Carter IV, Reid Cherlin, Dan Conston, Jon Cowan, Tom Daschle, Fred Davis, Brad Dayspring, Tad Devine, Byron Dorgan, Derek Dorn, Eric Fehrnstrom, Adam Frankel, Tony Fratto, Juleanna Glover, Paul Goodwin, Trey Grayson, Anthony Green, Bruce Haynes, Jim Jordan, Ted Kaufman, Jim Kessler, Chris LaCivita, Rick Lazio, Chris Lehane, Stu Loeser, Matt Mackowiak, Fred Malek, Jim Margolis, Joe Miller, Julian Mulvey, Billy Piper, Ari Rabin-Havt, Scott W. Reed, Jon Reinish, Ed Rendell, Andrew Roth, Mark Salter, Bob Shrum, Erik Smith, Roger Stone, Scott Talbot, Neera Tanden, Joe Trippi, Doug Thornell, John Weaver, Brian Wolff.

Fehrnstrom: Romney Covered Afghanistan in Another Speech

I think something is seriously wrong with Eric Fehrnstrom, Mitt's senior adviser. Not only did he let his boss get upstaged by an empty chair on the most important night of his campaign, but he can't quite explain why Mitt avoided any mention of Afghanistan in his major speech at the Republican Convention.

Don't they realize how many young men and women are still in Afghanistan? Peopler are being hurt and maimed, mentally and physically, every single day. Don't they realize how many military families are involved in that effort? Stupidity doesn't even explain it - for instance, Sarah Palin mentioned the war and the veterans in nearly every speech she gave during the last election, and looking back that seems much more sensible than Romney's omission. I guess we have to assume he just didn't know what to say, so it's easier to slam China or Iran and talk about how Obama has "thrown Israel under the bus." Make up new threats to scare people instead of making them happy to have both Iraq and Afghanistan behind us.

Hey, Mitt - and you too, Eric - "Blessed are the peacemakers." Got that?

Here's the way Fehrnstrom explained it on CNN:

CROWLEY: Why didn't the president mention anything about there are troops as you know overseas still fighting in Afghanistan, but there was no mention of that in his speech. Was that deliberate, was it an oversight, what was that decision about?

FEHRNSTROM: Well, the day before the convention speech, Candy, Governor Romney traveled to Indianapolis on Wednesday and he gave a speech before the American Legion. Now that was an invitation that President Obama declined. Governor Romney thought it was a privilege to be speaking to people who had served so nobly. And in that speech, he talked about Afghanistan. He also talked about the $1 trillion in defense cuts that are going to be taking place under this president which his own defense secretary has said will be devastating to our national defense.

CROWLEY: Point taken. And I didn't mean the president, I meant the governor, He is your nominee, presidential nominee at this point. But it is not just the president and the Democrats, here is something that Bill Kristol, from the Weekly Standard, a conservative, a Republican, had to say, "what about the civic propriety of a presidential nominee failing to even mention in his acceptance speech, a war we're fighting and our young men and women who are fighting it? Has it ever happened that we've been at war and a presidential nominee has ignored in this kind of major and formal speech the war and our warriors? I doubt it. It has been since 1952, I read, where a Republican did not mention troops serving overseas."

Do you think it was an oversight -- in hindsight, should he have said something?

FEHRNSTROM: Well, again, he spoke to Afghanistan in a big speech before the American Legion the night before his convention speech, that was an invitation...

CROWLEY: Sure, but this is a huge, big audience.

FEHRNSTROM: President Obama declined. But Governor Romney's convention speech was an opportunity for him to introduce himself to millions of voters who were seeing him for the first time and in that speech he accomplished what he set to do, which is to talk about his better vision for America with more jobs and increasing wages, he talked about the failures of the Obama presidency over the last four years. And he talked a little bit about the personal side and what motivates him.

And we thought that speech was a home run.

Obama wondered why Romney would just overlook the role of President in the Afghan conflict:

"Gov. Romney had nothing to say about Afghanistan last week," Obama said at a campaign rally in Iowa on Saturday. "Didn't mention it. Didn't offer a plan in terms of how he might end the war or, if he's not going to end it, he's got to let people know."

Republican Bill Kristol blasted Romney in an Weekly Standard column:

What War?
The United States has some 68,000 troops fighting in Afghanistan. Over two thousand Americans have died in the more than ten years of that war, a war Mitt Romney has supported. Yet in his speech accepting his party's nomination to be commander in chief, Mitt Romney said not a word about the war in Afghanistan. Nor did he utter a word of appreciation to the troops fighting there, or to those who have fought there. Nor for that matter were there thanks for those who fought in Iraq, another conflict that went unmentioned.

Leave aside the question of the political wisdom of Romney's silence, and the opportunities it opens up for President Obama next week. What about the civic propriety of a presidential nominee failing even to mention, in his acceptance speech, a war we're fighting and our young men and women who are fighting it? Has it ever happened that we've been at war and a presidential nominee has ignored, in this kind of major and formal speech, the war and our warriors?

The Fierce and "Decent" Harry Reid

Who would have thought that the Democrat who would finally throw down the gauntlet and not back down an inch on Romney's taxes would be the usually reticent Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid? And this story is getting bigger and bigger almost by the hour.

Harry Reid to Huffington Post

"His poor father must be so embarrassed about his son," Reid said, in reference to George Romney's standard-setting decision to turn over 12 years of tax returns when he ran for president in the late 1960s.

Saying he had "no problem with somebody being really, really wealthy," Reid sat up in his chair a bit before stirring the pot further. A month or so ago, he said, a person who had invested with Bain Capital called his office.

"Harry, he didn't pay any taxes for 10 years," Reid recounted the person as saying.

"He didn't pay taxes for 10 years! Now, do I know that that's true? Well, I'm not certain," said Reid. "But obviously he can't release those tax returns. How would it look?

"You guys have said his wealth is $250 million," Reid went on. "Not a chance in the world. It's a lot more than that. I mean, you do pretty well if you don't pay taxes for 10 years when you're making millions and millions of dollars."

On Wednesday, Reid spoke out again on the Senate Floor, repeating his accusation that Romney hasn't paid any taxes in ten years.

So, the word’s out that he hasn’t paid any taxes for 10 years. Let him prove that he has paid taxes, because he hasn’t. We already know from one partial tax return that he gave us, he has money hidden in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and a Swiss banking account. Mitt Romney makes more money in a single day than the average middle-class family makes in two years or more.

Then he told reporters that he has more than once source to back up his claim.

LA Times Story

In a conference call with Nevada reporters on Wednesday, he broadened what he said were his sources for the contention that Romney was able to avoid federal taxes.

"I have had a number of people tell me that," said Reid, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, while refusing to elaborate. "I don't think the burden should be on me," Reid told the home-state reporters. "The burden should be on him. He's the one I've alleged has not paid any taxes. Why didn't he release his tax returns?”
On Thursday morning, Reid said that a nominee for a Cabinet position couldn't get confirmed by the Senate if he made as limited a release of tax information as Romney has thus far.
"Let him prove that he has paid taxes, because he hasn't," Reid declared, then adding that “Mitt Romney makes more money in a single day than the average middle-class family makes in two years or more

This is throwing the Romney camp for a loop - and as we know, it doesn't take much to get them into a tizzy of alleged victimization by the mean old Democrats. Romney said on Sean Hannity via Mediaite:

Well, it’s time for Harry to put up or shut up. Harry’s going to have to describe who it is he spoke with, because, of course, that’s completely and totally wrong. It’s untrue, dishonest, and inaccurate. It’s wrong. So I’m looking forward to have Harry reveal his sources, and we’ll probably find out it’s the White House.

Also on Thursday, Romney spokesperson Eric "Etch-A-Sketch" Fehrnstrom accused Reid of "McCarthyism," which is rich coming from a campaign that has ignored the witch hunts of Michelle Bachmann and her pals.

Harry Reid's statements are baseless and untrue, and I would ask him one simple question - 'Have you no sense of decency, Sir?' Is there nothing that you won't do to debase yourself and the office you hold, in the name of dirty politics? . . . This reminds me of the McCarthy hearings back in the 1950s.

From Huffington Post

"I don't think there is anything behind it. He hasn't produced any evidence," Fehrnstrom said Thursday in an interview with Fox News. "I'm telling you speaking on behalf of the governor that those charges are untrue, they are baseless and there is nothing to back them up."
"This reminds me of the McCarthy hearings back in the 1950s," he added.
Fehrnstrom's line, "Have you no decency, sir?" is a paraphrase of what Army lawyer Joseph N. Welch asked Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy in 1954, when he famously stood up to the powerful, witch-hunting senator who was falsely accusing people of being Communists.

On this issue, not only is Reid standing fast, but he is practically begging the media to keep talking about Romney's taxes, and especially to investigate people at Bain who would know the truth.

The elegant flourish of the whole thing is that Romney can't complain that people are picking on him because he is a Mormon, since Reid is also a Mormon. Ann Romney tried to play that card in the "You People" interview in which she mentioned tithing to the church, and how that meant they could be trusted on the tax issue. But it doesn't really work when another Mormon is saying it, plus where are all the other Mormons out there who should be speaking out on Romney's behalf? *crickets*

Tonight both CNN and MSNBC covered the tax return issue for hours. Lawrence O'Donnell offered a Romney-tax montage and discussion, while CNN's Dana Bash told Anderson Cooper that Reid's sources are good or he wouldn't be standing firm.

Mitt Romney could "shut up" Harry Reid. Mitt Romney could "shut up" all of us by doing what every presidential candidate does and show his tax returns. Every day that Mitt Romney refuses to show his tax returns costs him politically and therefore logically casts more and more suspicion on why he is not releasing his tax returns.
~ Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC


Tax Montage & Discussion from Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell

 

Transcript: Dana Bash on CNN's Anderson Cooper, August 2, 2012

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. We now have a couple of responses, Anderson. Let me read you the first one, that is, "Senator Reid stands by his comments. Governor Romney's continued refusal to release his tax returns raises legitimate questions about what he is hiding and whether he paid any taxes at all. Governor Romney can easily end this debate by following the precedent set by his father and releasing his tax returns."

And as you were coming on the air, Anderson, I got a follow-up like the statement, which also stands by what they call his credible source that Romney has not paid taxes for 10 years, and he's calling Romney playing tricks, many tricks at his disposal for avoiding taxes. So not backing down at all.

I got to tell you, covering Harry Reid for a lot of years, there are times when he says things off the cuff that make his aides wince, like talking smelly tourists in the capitol. I'm not making this up. This is not one of those times.

This is one of those times where he knows exactly what he's doing. He's doing it on purpose. He's doing it for political reasons because he wants this issue, Romney's taxes, to be talked about on programs like yours, and wants it to be headlines in newspapers, and wants Mitt Romney to respond on this issue, which they think is a negative for Romney as opposed to issues that Romney wants to talk about.

. . . But this is -- when Harry Reid doesn't like somebody, he goes for the jugular. And that is what he is doing now. He is an old boxer and he still likes to be a political street fighter. He knew full well that he was going to be questioned over and over again on who his source was. And he said -- he's told people close to him who I have spoken today that he didn't care. He's not telling going to tell who his source is.

But I did speak, I just have to tell you, that I did speak to one source who's very close to Senator Reid who claims to also know who this Bain investor is that Reid spoke with, and insists that this is a credible person and this person if we knew the name we would understand that they would have the authority and the ability to know about Romney's tax returns. Whether we'll find it out ever, who knows. But they're doing this on purpose so that this is the discussion.

Team Romney Preaches to the Choir

With all of Mitt Romney's media gaffes, it's no wonder that Rupert Murdoch has been tweeting that Romney needs a new team. In fact, his words seemed particularly prophetic yesterday when Mitt's man Eric Fehrnstrom, the etch-a-sketch guy, insisted in an interview with Chuck Todd of MSNBC that the tax connected with Obamacare was a "penalty," which is the same spin used by the White House. That interview has thrown the right-wing blogosphere into a hissy fit.

But Fehrnstrom is only one of Mitt Romney's problems, and I think Dark Lord Murdoch was referring to another interview - this one on Breitbart - in which two Romney advisors say they will only communicate through the "Center-Right Media," which to them does NOT include Fox News.

And that's a big problem, because Murdoch isn't going to back a Republican candidate who shuns Fox News. In fact, he hints on his twitter that he doesn't even see Romney as a viable candidate, and he certainly has the power to weaken his chances in November just by ignoring him. Romney has appeared on Fox, but mainly to spout agreed-upon talking points. But I really don't understand why Team Romney would rely mainly on the "Far-Right-Out-There-Goofy-Extremist Media" when the vast majority of independent or low-information voters wouldn't be reading the Drudge Report or Breitbart anyway.

So in a bizarre way, I agree with Murdoch. The Romney guys seem to think that preaching to the far-right choir is the answer, instead of attacking Obama in the mainstream media. I honestly doubt this will help him win anything except more enemies - and they don't need Rupert Murdoch as an enemy. And while they tout Twitter as important to their message, it can hurt Romney as much as help him - Murdoch proved that this weekend.

Breitbart: Romney Team Relies on Drudge and Breitbart

Drudge is the single most powerful force in the media today,” said Zac Moffat, Digital Director of the Romney Campaign. Lenny Alcivar, campaign spokesman

In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, Moffat and Alcivar discussed how websites like Breitbart and Drudge influence the way their campaign receives and delivers the news.

When this election is over, one of the lessons that will be learned by the mainstream media is that they no longer have a toe-hold on how Americans receive their news. Never before – in a way that has taken Democrats off stride – have we seen the confluence of an aggressive online community, led by Breitbart, and an aggressive campaign team not willing to cede an inch of ground to Democrats. This combination has created a new political reality. We no longer allow the mainstream media to define the political realities in America. The rise of Breitbart, Drudge and others, combined with an aggressive Romney campaign is a powerful tool in the arsenal of the conservative movement.
If I talk to Breitbart about an issue, thousands more will hear our message than if we give a quote to one of the hill rags.

Moffat revealed, “I have two windows constantly up on my screen all day long, Twitter and the Drudge Report.”

*snip*

“The governor will no longer allow the mainstream media to dictate the terms of this debate. This is just the beginning... We are witnessing the rise of the center right media.”

Yeah, right - how's that working for you so far? *scratching head*

Obamacare Chaos as Republican Talking Heads Disagree

Health care is a big hot-button issue in light ofthe Supreme Court ruling so surely the Republicans had some agreed-upon talking points ready, right? At the very least, they could all get on board with the idea that the health care mandate is a tax - Obamatax - because at least their own Tea-publican base loves that idea, right? Am I right?

Wrong. They cannot get on the same page. Confusion reigns. They have a few memes like "Repeal and Replace" but beyond that each talking head seems to not know what the others are saying, so they are like a cross between a mythical Chimera with several heads and Dr. Dolittle's Push-Me-Pull-You. If what they babble about seems chaotic, what the public hears is mostly crickets chirping. There is no there there. They got nothin'.

Mythical Chimera = Republicans on Health Care

Mitch McConnell: Diabolically unable to show compassion, but also no plan.

* Repeal and Replace ~ Message Fail ~ Crickets Chirping ~ Empathy Fail *

Via Mother Jones ~ Mitch McConnell on Fox News

WALLACE: One of the keys to "Obama-care" is that it will extend insurance access to 30 million people who are now uninsured. In your replacement, how would you provide universal coverage?

MCCONNELL: Well, first, let me say the single the best thing we could do for the American health care system is to get rid of Obamacare....

WALLACE: But if I may, sir, you've talked about repeal and replace. How would you provide universal coverage?

MCCONNELL: I will get to it in a minute. The first step we need to take is to get rid of what is there....

WALLACE: But respectfully sir, because we are going to run out of time and I just want to ask, what specifically are you going to do to provide universal coverage to the 30 million people who are uninsured?


MCCONNELL: That is not the issue....

WALLACE: You don't think the 30 million people that were uninsured is an issue?

MCCONNELL: Let me tell you what we are not going to do....

Cricket Chirping.MP3


Also too . . . Talking Point Chaos - Tax or Penalty, Penalty or Tax

WSJ: Is the Mandate a Tax or a Penalty

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) attacked the new law, saying it amounts to a “middle class tax increase” that’s largely going to affect Americans making less than $120,000 a year.

“It will cost the economy between 800,000 and a million jobs,” Mr. McConnell said on “Fox News Sunday.”

. . . White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew hit back, saying that the new health-care law was a “penalty” that only 1% of the population who can afford insurance, but decide not to purchase it, will pay.

“The law is clear: it’s called a penalty. Second of all, what the Supreme Court ruled was that this law was constitutional,” Mr. Lew said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “Everyone who has insurance–everyone who chooses to buy insurance–will not pay it.”

The Romney Campaign Agrees . . . with the White House???

* surrogate confusion *

CHUCK TODD (MSNBC): What you just said is that Governor Romney agrees that it's not a tax. But you guys call it a penalty.

ERIC FEHRNSTROM (TOP ROMNEY AIDE): The governor disagreed with the court. He agreed with the dissent that was written by Justice Scalia which very clearly stated that the mandate was not a tax.

TODD: So ... I think we're talking around each other. The governor does not believe the mandate is a tax, that's what you're saying?

FEHRNSTROM: The governor believes that what we put in place in Massachusetts was a penalty and he disagrees with the court's ruling that the mandate was a tax.

TODD: But he agrees with the president that it is not, that you shouldn't call the tax penalty a tax, you should call it a penalty or a fee or a fine?

FEHRNSTROM: That's correct.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

John Boehner: Unable to explain anything about the Republican health care plan, or which parts they will keep or discard.

* Repeal and Replace ~ Message Fail ~ Empathy Fail ~ It's a Tax! ~ Crickets *



CBS Transcript - Face the Nation, July 1, 2012

NORAH O'DONNELL: But access to affordable health insurance, but you're not saying you would be for a law that would prevent discrimination of those individuals?

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER: No, we just believe there is a better way to make sure that they have affordable access to quality health insurance.

NORAH O'DONNELL: So when you repeal this, what are you going to replace it with?


REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER: I just started pointing out. We're going take a common-sense, step-by-step approach that puts in place the kind of policies that will make our-- our health insurance system more what I call patient-centered and lower cost. The only proposal out there last year that would lower the cost of health insurance came from Republicans. Why? Because we've got policies that really will help bring down the cost of health insurance. It's clear that Obamacare is increasing the cost of health insurance for all Americans and making it virtually impossible for small employers to hire new workers.


Cricket Chirping.MP3

NORAH O'DONNELL: How does it make it hard for small employers to hire more workers?

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER: Because they're being required to either provide health insurance or pay a fine. Well, I'm sorry, a tax. It's now a tax since the court said it was a tax.

NORAH O'DONNELL: Chief Justice John Roberts said it was a tax.

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER (overlapping): He-- even though, the President had tried to admit for, you know, over a year that it wasn't a tax and nobody believed it and now we know it. But it-- it's getting in the way of employers hiring new workers. Because of these increased costs of government-run health insurance and the fact that, if they don't, they have to provide a tax, so employers--

~~~*snip*~~~

NORAH O'DONNELL: Why not, then, if you like some of the provisions in the Affordable Care Act, why not work with it rather than ap-- repeal the whole thing.

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER (overlapping): No, no, no.

NORAH O'DONNELL: Even Mitt Romney said--

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER (overlapping): No, this has to be-- this has to be ripped out by its roots. This is government taking over the entire health insurance industry. The American people do not want to go down this path. They do not want the government telling them what kind of insurance policy they have to buy and how much they're going to pay for it and if you don't like it, we're going to tax you. It has to be ripped out and we need to start over, one step at a time.

NORAH O'DONNELL (overlapping): And so you say so-- so-- so to heck with all these provisions like additional preventative care for children, for women--

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER (overlapping): All of them. All of-- we can-- we can replace. While we replace this, we can have a common-sense debate about which of these provisions ought to stay and which ought to go.

Paul Krugman Demolishes the Ryan Plan

Remember Eric Fehrnstrom, the hapless surrogate for Mitt Romney who made the etch-a-sketch gaffe? Well, today he was out of his depth once again on ABC's "This Week" trying to debate economics with the master, Paul Krugman, who deftly squashed the idea that the Paul Ryan budget makes economic sense, referring to it as a "fraud" and "imaginary."




And what's so delicious is that George Will also pushes and gets Fehrnstrom to admit that Romney backs the scorched-earth Ryan Plan. You'll recall that last weekend, the conservative Will expressed frustration with Romney for cozying up to "bloviating ignoramus" Trump, for which The Donald called him the "most overrated journalist alive." George got a little revenge today, helping to put Fehrnstrom on the hot seat so that Krugman could move in for the coup de grace. Politics really does make strange bedfellows these days. Who knew that George Will and Paul Krugman could be a tag-team?




Read and learn, children. This is how we do it:
Transcript from Crooks and Liars:

KRUGMAN: Well, the economy is weak. It's not terrible, but it's weak. The bitter irony here has to be for Obama, certainly for people like me, is that if the Republican answer is "let's slash spending, let's have low taxes," that's actually the policy we've been following. It's amazing, actually. Especially if you look at the last couple of years, what we've actually seen is sharply...

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me show you -- we have a chart in your blog this morning.

KRUGMAN: Yeah, this is...

STEPHANOPOULOS: We created it. It shows the point you're making.

KRUGMAN: Yeah, this is real government spending, so it's federal, state and local combined, deflated, you know, adjusted for population growth and inflation, and it is plunging. It's plunging mostly because of cutbacks at the state and local level, because the aid that they were receiving in the stimulus has run out, but also because unemployment benefits have been expiring because Congress won't -- you know, Republicans in Congress won't extend them.

So in effect - and, by the way, if you extend that chart backwards, there's been nothing like this since the demobilization after the Korean War. We're actually practicing government austerity on a scale that we haven't seen in 60 years. It's not the president's policy. In effect, we've already got the policies that Republicans say they will impose if they take the election, and yet, of course, it may lead to the defeat of this president.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And that's the point Stephanie was making, so bringing it back to you, what would Governor Romney do right now -- not in the future -- right now, to get the economy moving again?

FEHRNSTROM: Well, it's not just, as Paul says, tax policy. That's part of it, of course, but it's also spending policy, it's regulatory policy. It's confronting China on their unfair trade practices. It's -- it's a whole -- it's labor policy, George.
The governor has laid out very detailed plans. People can go to mittromney.com and learn about them for themselves. But I think what we really have here...

(CROSSTALK)

KRUGMAN: ... ...I know from detailed plans and there is nothing there. There is not...

CUTTER: ... he's going to deregulate Wall Street, which we know how that turns out. We're going to go back to risky financial deals that crashed our economy. And on China, you know, we've been hearing this blustering on China for quite a while now. What exactly is the governor going to do? There's...

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... I want to bring in George Will.

FEHRNSTROM:  He'll do what this president has failed to do in China, which is to declare that China is a currency manipulator. Look, we're all in favor of free trade. In fact, we don't think this president has done enough to reinvigorate trade talks -- trade talks with our friends, but China is -- is robbing us blind. They're stealing...

(CROSSTALK)

KRUGMAN: I was very much for that. I've been demanding that we declare -- but the window for that has passed. Right now, the Chinese economy is tanking. So if you were thinking you were going to get a big boost out of beating up on the Chinese now, two years ago I thought was really a good time to do that. But my god, now that is totally out of date.




WILL: On another matter, I didn't hear a robust answer to George's question. Where does the governor stand, Governor Romney, on the Ryan plan? Does he endorse it?

FEHRNSTROM: Oh, he's for -- he's for -- he's for the Ryan plan. He believes it goes in the right direction. The governor has also put forward a plan to reduce spending by $500 billion by the year 2016. In fact, he's put details on the table about how exactly he would achieve that. So to say he doesn't have a plan to -- a plan to restrain government spending is just not true.

KRUGMAN: Can I say, the Ryan plan -- and I guess this is what counts as a personal attack -- but it isn't. It's not an attack on the person; it's an attack on the plan. The plan's a fraud. The plan is a big bunch of tax cuts, some specified spending cuts, basically for poor people, and then a huge magic asterisk which is supposed to turn into a deficit reduction plan, but, in fact, if you look what's actually in it, it's a deficit-increasing plan.

And so to say that -- just tell the truth that there is really no plan there, neither from Ryan, nor from Governor Romney, is just the truth. That's not -- if that's -- if that's being harsh and partisan, gosh, then I guess the truth is anti-bipartisanship.

FEHRNSTROM: So may I ask you, Paul, do you prefer the president's plan? KRUGMAN: Oh, yeah. I mean, the president -- at least it's -- you know, I don't approve of everything, but there are no gigantic mystery numbers in his stuff. We do know what he's talking about. His numbers are -- you know, all economic forecasts are wrong, but his are not -- are not insane.

These are -- these are just imaginary.