Posted on 10/21/2012 2:04:30 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Romney stumbled on Libya because the GOP is reliant on a right-wing media machine that has no ideas, just scandals
Why did Mitt Romney embarrass himself on Libya in this week’s debate? One possibility: Because he, and the Republican Party in general, have opened up an alarming policy deficit between themselves and Barack Obama and the Democrats.
What I mean by that is that Romney, Republicans and conservatives have, in case after case, simply given up on crafting viable public policy. That wasn’t always the case. When Ronald Reagan took office, conservative think tanks were ready with a host of ideas for transforming what government did and the way it did it. As recently as the 2000 campaign, George W. Bush campaigned on, for example, No Child Left Behind and a faith-based initiative. Does Romney have anything similar he’s talking about during this campaign? Not that I’ve heard.
What he’s substituted for policy is scandal, on the one hand, and symbolism, on the other.
Republicans’ reliance on a scandal framework is most obvious in their attacks on Barack Obama. The stimulus is reduced in this point of view to “Solyndra.” Energy? One pipeline to Canada.
Most of the time, there’s almost no real attempt to construct an argument against actual policies, to treat government programs proposed by the president as policies that one might agree or disagree with. That’s not always true – a lot of the arguments against the Affordable Care Act, and some of the case against the stimulus, really were policy-based. But more often Republicans have tried to frame their attacks around scandal.
The other frame they’ve used, especially on foreign policy and national security, is pure symbolism. Often, as Paul Waldman pointed out this week, that’s reduced down to the level of individual words. It’s bad to apologize. It’s important to speak up for Iranian protesters.
It’s imperative to never, ever disagree with Israel. And Waldman missed the big one: It’s absolutely critical that the president always, always, no matter what, and in every possible way, refer to the United States as “exceptional.” Don’t forget: Many of the present generation of Republicans were trained by Newt Gingrich and Frank Luntz to believe in the power of certain words. They may sincerely believe that public policy really does only consist of finding the words that will “force” opponents to fear them and allies to be comforted.
And so, scandal and symbolism became a trap that turned the disaster in Benghazi from an opportunity to score points for Mitt Romney into a fiasco.
How? First, because instead of questioning the policies – including the initial intervention – that brought the Obama administration to the death of an ambassador, the immediate instinct of the Romney Republicans was to turn it into scandal. A coverup! Barack Obama and the State Department said one thing in the immediate aftermath, but some of those things turned out to be wrong. Now, a less scandal-obsessed party might have either moved quickly past that seemingly unimportant discrepancy and focused on how the problem happened in the first place, or investigated whether initial chaos was a sign of mismanagement. But neither of those fits the scandal frame as well.
Meanwhile, the focus on symbolic words in lieu of policy played right into the scandal frame in this case. The administration was denying terrorism! Because, er, they didn’t use the word “terrorist.” Sure, they said “act of terror,” which to most of us sounds about the same, but that’s because most of us aren’t obsessively focused on the symbolic importance of using the correct words all the time as the main responsibility of the president with regard to foreign policy and national security.
Most of us, that is, who are not trapped within the conservative closed information feedback loop, where Solyndra and Fast and Furious were major Obama administration scandals, and where, as Paul Ryan put it in his debate with Joe Biden, it’s obvious that Obama’s foreign policy is unraveling “before our eyes” and “as we turn on our television screens these days.”
Of course, figuring out what any of that really means would take, well, some serious policy analysis. But that’s exactly what Mitt Romney and the Republicans just don’t have these days.
But at least they know they shouldn’t apologize for it!
Bernstein needs to put down the Bong... he is seeing things..
Talk about projection. Liberals never want to argue about policy, everything is scandals and “gotcha” to them.
And Watergate and Abu-Grapes wasn’t the Democrats reliance on scandals ?
Have I missed a debate?!
Thanks for posting. It’s good now and then to keep abreast of what the lunatics on the left are saying to one another.
This will be all a moot point anyway when Romney wins the election ( God willing ).
Imgaine!
Romney-Ryan merely have to use one or two words to point out that the president is a liar and his administration’s scandalous policies are bubbling to the surface.
All the hotair is escaping from Leftists’ “Hope and Change” Policy balloon.
Perhaps the Liberals suffer from projection because their actions are so low and despicable that even they cannot bear their actions; ergo, they claim their action on the opposition (us).
I prefer to get my news unfiltered and uncensored by conservatives who fear that it might undermine my morale or that we conservatives have no persuasive reply. It is vital to the effectiveness of this forum that we take these things head-on and rebut them.
Thanks for the courage to post this, you render a service to the conservative cause.
We have now entered a weird Orwellian world where the honest recording of reality is called “the conservative information feedback loop”. The liars in the MSM have created an alternative universe of false narratives that they brag about. We have reached a point where the media is so corrupt they argue that lying is morally superior to telling the truth.
As always with Marxists and Progressives, the end justifies the means.
The writer’s dripping contempt and emphasis on conservatives’ insistence that America is exceptional, is so telling and descriptive of progressive “thought.”
They absolutely hate the idea of America as a superpower and world leader.
June 2000 - David Horowitz: "Hillary Clinton and the Third Way" Progressive Narcissism
"...........It is Primary Colors’ insight into the minds of these missionaries that is striking. They see Clinton quite clearly as a flawed and often repellent human being. They see him as a lecher, a liar and a man who would destroy an innocent human being in order to advance his own career (this is, in fact, the climactic drama of the text). Yet through all the sordidness and lying, the personal ruthlessness and disorder, the idealistic missionaries faithfully follow and serve their leader.
They do it not because they are themselves corrupted and bought off through material rewards. The prospect of material return or fame is not what drives them. Think only of Ickes, personally betrayed and brutally cast aside by Clinton, who nonetheless refused to turn on him, even after the betrayal. Instead, Ickes kept his own counsel and protected Clinton, biding his time and waiting for Hillary to make her move, then joined her staff to manage her Senate campaign.
The idealistic missionaries in this true tale bite their tongues and betray their principles, rather than betray him. They do so because in Bill Clinton they see a necessary vehicle of their noble ambition and their chiliastic dreams. He, too, cares about social justice, about poor people and blacks (or so he makes them believe). They will serve him and lie for him and destroy for him, because he is the vessel of their salvationist hopes. Because Bill Clinton can gain the keys to the state, he is in their eyes the only prospect for advancing the progressive cause. Therefore, they will sacrifice anything and everything to make him succeed.
But Bill Clinton is not like those who worship him, corrupting himself and others for a higher cause. Unlike them, he betrays principles because he has none. He will even betray his country, but without the slightest need to betray it for something else – for an idea, a party, a cause. He is a narcissist who sacrifices principle for power because his vision is so filled up with himself that he cannot tell the difference.
But the idealists who serve him -- the Stephanopoulos’s, the Ickes’s, the feminists, the progressives and Hillary -- can tell the difference. Their cyncism flows from the very perception they have of right and wrong. They do it for noble ends. They do it for the progressive faith. They do it because they see themselves as gods, as having the power -- through correct politics -- to redeem the world. It is that terrifyingly exalted ambition that fuels their spiritual arrogance and justifies their means.
And that is why they hate conservatives. They hate you because you are killers of their dream. You are defenders of a Constitution that thwarts their cause. They hate you because your “reactionary” commitment to individual rights, to a single standard and to a neutral and limited state obstructs their progressive designs. They hate you because you are believers in property and its rights as the cornerstones of prosperity and human freedom; because you do not see the market economy as a mere instrument for acquiring personal wealth and stocking political war chests, but as both means and end.
Conservatives who think progressives are misinformed idealists will always be blind-sided by the sheer malice of the left -- by the cynicism of those who pride themselves on their principles; by the viciousness of those who champion sensitivity; by the intolerance of those who call themselves liberal; and by the ruthless disregard for the well-being of the poor on the part of those who preen themselves as their champions.
Conservatives are surprised because they see progressives as merely misguided, when they are, in fact, morally – and ontologically -- misdirected. They are the messianists of a false religious faith. Since the redeemed future that justifies their existence and rationalizes their hypocrisy can never be realized, what really motivates progressives is a modern idolatry: their limitless passion for the continuance of Them."
And it is also good preparation for all the dirt that is going to be thrown from the MSM and districts to the left thereof from the morning of the 7 November and at least for four years on.
Yes that’s right and some Republicans are following stupidly the “Dhimmocrap’s” way to rely on made up “scandals”.
What is more obvious and blatant is the Obama’s ideology which explains all his foreign AND economical policy .
That’s it that must be targeted, hit and destroyed in front of people fed up by medias
I rank Salon up there (or down there) with WND, no need to worry, It’s just a rag that regurgitates second hand opinion ... Except for Joseph Farah who I think is good.
They are trying to rewrite history that literally just happened. Amazing they think they can get away with it.
I guess Big Bird, Binders and free condoms is real viable “policy”??
When the MSM tries to trip someone, they still call it a “stumble” even if their target manages to leap over their assailant’s outstretched foot and land a crushing karate chop to the throat.
That of course is impossible unless you personally observe every event you consider newsworthy. You are always subjected to the filter of the publisher & author, whether it be conservative or liberal. Most stories in the media consist of some stated facts and commentary on these facts. The key is to seperate the two (often no easy task) and determine the credibilty and reliability of what is presented as fact. Then one can draw their own conclusions and determine if the commentary presented is reasonable.
Malice...and deviousness. All's fair, in their minds, because their cause is so righteous.
From Stalin and Mao to the local Dem party worker, every one of them has always viewed their every horrible action through this defective moral prism.
That of course is impossible unless you personally observe every event you consider newsworthy. You are always subjected to the filter of the publisher & author, whether it be conservative or liberal. Most stories in the media consist of some stated facts and commentary on these facts. The key is to seperate the two (often no easy task) and determine the credibilty and reliability of what is presented as fact. Then one can draw their own conclusions and determine if the commentary presented is reasonable.
Romney lost the debate but rises in the polls. Don’t let these people have matches or sharp pointy objects.
Mitt won... kind of takes the wind out of this piece doesn’t it?!
LLS
Jonathan, one part of the debate Romney surely won was foreign policy. He bombed obama 2 to 1 in various polls.
Huh? What planet is this guy on?
"MOST"
___________________________________________
"Republicans’ reliance on a scandal framework is most obvious in their attacks on Barack Obama"
"Sure, they said “act of terror,” which to most of us sounds about the same, but that’s because most of us aren’t obsessively focused on the symbolic importance of using the correct words all the time as the main responsibility of the president with regard to foreign policy and national security."
"Most of us, that is, who are not trapped within the conservative closed information feedback loop,..."
It’s often interesting to see how the other side views things. Good post. I do believe, however, that it is customary to put “Barf Alert” in the title to warn off those who don’t have strong stomachs.
:)
If you’re on FR and don’t have thick skins or strong stomachs, you need to get ‘em fast.
Fox News cost Mitt the debate
Are they talking about the debate that has not yet taken place? Isn’t it a bit early to call it for Obama?
I can’t believe I clicked on that link. I was turned off from the point this hack wrote “...that Romney, Republicans and conservatives have, in case after case, simply given up on crafting viable public policy.”
Could this guy ever figure out that government is not the panacea and answer to all ills in the world and maybe “public policy” is not the answer in the first place?
I guess such a thought can not cross the mind of the “statist”.
JoMa
But, Mitt was accurate, OBAMA lied. The self-adoring Crowley screwed things up and admitted she was wrong - but the next morning when most of the previous night’s viewers didn’t hear her.
Crap like this is why liberals are perverse and evil.
Mitt was right, they were wrong. Post debate analysis of the incident is devastating for the libs. Candy looked to be a lame stream media JounrOhack who likely was in on the Obama scheme to spin his Benghazi failure with this laughable lie should Mitt give him an opening.
Did classy Michelle really break protocol by cheering when the "trap" was sprung?
I kind of feel sorry for this guy.
You think that maybe a colleague could have pulled him aside and said “geesh buddy, put some ice on it. Are you sure you shouldn’t only send this to your mom and grandma or sumthin”?
He is actually describing himself and his Dear Leader slipping in conservatives in the place of progressives.
Alternate universe? Delusional? Projection? sore loser?
Terrible qualities, all.
The answer to any progressive that cares to ask “Why is America exceptional, silly conservative?” is...
...the Bill of Rights. Freedom of speech, from religious persecution, and the right to bear arms, among other rights, seperate America from the rest of the world.
To this writer and his followers, it’s all about the UNION - labor, civil and European.
Is this guy for real? I’m reading his words in stunned amazement. Romney was embarrassed? When Obama lied his way through the debate and virtually everybody but dimwits like Bernstein refuse to acknowledge Obama’s lying? Republicans don’t have a plan? I can’t believe libs are this stupid. Bernstein and Dem like him are the reason this country is in the mess it is.
“Meanwhile, the focus on symbolic words in lieu of policy”
Like the word “binder” perhaps?
get real.
blessings, bobo
Ah, yes, we yearn for the good old days of the Clinton Administration and "move on, nothing to see here".
As if Obama has any policies to run on...
He’s flat-out lied in two debates about the last four years.
LOL
Amazing that this administration goes out its way, sometimes way way out its way to tell a LIE..
Its like ALL news from these people in the White House is agitprop.. or propaganda...
Not only the White House but the entire Executive branch..
This White House and executive branch is so cold war “Russian-like” its scary..
With Commissars(Tsars) and everything..
Its SOoo similar its uncanny.. meaning totally on purpose..
More amazing than that is so many republicans completely ignorant of it.. or feigning ignorance..
I can see no other explanation that a big part of republican hierarchy IS COMPLICIT with it..
Its like the John Birch Society fell in a black hole..
Since almost everything they predicted has come true AND even MORE THAN THAT..
John Birch did not have the internet... or an in your face proud Ultra liberal progressive(communist) President..
Kennedy, Johnston, Carter and CLintoon slowly converted Americans into Socialists.. it appears..
If your not worried about this election you should be..
AMerica may not have its nose full of Zero YET..
IF a fair election is even POSSIBLE NOW...
>>Being progressive means never having to live in Realville.
So true. I have to wonder which debate this author saw.
As far as stumbling goes, I’d say that after being ganged up on and blindsided with a rabbit punch, Romney “stumbled” but did not fall down. Anyone who was blindsided like that would be momentarily stunned. He recovered quickly and went on to win.
Sorry, Dems, saying things over and over doesn’t make them true.
IMHO if Romney goes at this from the Position that this is the result of the Presidents Ideology it will Nail Obama to the wall,My point is that Anyone who has been paying any attention to This administration over the past 4 years KNOWS he is Sympathetic to the Muslims.
Romney should give a Brief Synopsis of all Obamas Actions that demonstrate this,Fort Hood Shootings,Failure to Call it Islamic terrorism,Trying Combatants in Civivlian Courts,The release Of Prisoners who go back on the Battlefield and Kill Americans,The Censoring of all Government documents that Mention Islamic Terrorism, They Refuse to Call out who we are Fighting against.
Then you go to the Main FACTS that have emerged from the Stevens “sensitive” Documents sent from Bengahzi in the Weeks before his Murder, The ones that Mention that the recent attacks have NOT been Random but Organized and Coordinated,the statements That ISLAMIC EXTREMIST elements are GAINING strength and Security is NOT sufficient,THE ALQUEDA flag has Been Flying over Govt Buildings. The American Red Cross attacks were done by Extremists.
Then State that did you hear the President Mention Alqueda ,or Islamic Extremists in the Rose Garden statement?
All youm hear is The Intelligence we Had AT THE TIME! How about the Documents Labeled “Sensitive” From Ambassador Stevens HIMSELF On the Ground, The one In the Heat of the Battle and Living and seeing him for himself? He mentions Alqueda,Islamic Extremists over and Over,But Neither the President, The Secretary of State, The UN Ambassador in appearance after appearance never ONCE mention Alqueda or islamic Extremists ONCE. This IS the Presidents Ideology, Censor what doesnt fit HIS narrative.He has Lied to the American People,He said in the last debate he was offended that anyone would suggest that he would Mislead the american People about this. Well Mr. President you owe at the Very least an Apology to the American People for Misleading them and at worst,Intenionally withholding pertinent information that does not fit you reelection Narative.
Pathetic drivel, this kid must be a recent English major. He must be one of the budding young geniuses of the left. An emerging talent we
The first stage of the “filtering” process is the choice what to report and what NOT to report.
When you don’t hear/read stated facts and commentary at all, there can’t even be a personal vetting process.
People who get their news solely from a DBM newspaper or DBM TV news are woefully uninformed.
Example: The day after the Congressional hearings on Libya, the NY Times did not even have a report about the hearings on the front page.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/10/nyt-eds-no-shame-in-libya-hearings-138425.html
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