The dishonesty is just breathtaking. The difference between Obama and Mitt Romney, so far as the text of this ad is concerned, is that if Romney said the words, they would be exactly what he believes. Like Democrats everywhere, Obama only says the words because they are what needs to be said to be elected.
And once again I was tonight with a number of highly educated people who are generally well informed but who had never heard what Obama had said. There is, so far as I can tell, no way for anyone who depends on the usual media sources to have ever heard Obama say what has now become a sensation across the web. But Obama’s ad can make no sense to anyone who doesn’t know the back story. Whether they will care when they find out what the president said is another matter, but slowly but surely they are going to have to find out if only so they can understand more clearly what Obama is trying to explain away.
And now the reply: This is not an official Romney ad but does have its interest.
It really does remain incredible that no one who gets their news from the ancestral media alone has no idea about any of this. I aometimes wonder whether it is possible for anyone on our side to remain as uninformed about major issues as those on the left routinely are who, in many cases, even seem to prefer it that way.
[With thanks to sdog]
What a dishonest prick he is. Maybe if he had the balls to make an honest retraction, admit what he said, admit he was mistaken, and restate the position, he might be believable.
But this? No.
perturbed
26 Jul 12 at 1:44 am
There are those who look at a variety of news sources, and those who only look at those which are considered “safe.” I regularly bring up things with my friends who have never heard of the issues, and either dismiss them as nonsense, or unimportant, since they would have otherwise heard of them.
Tregonsee
26 Jul 12 at 1:57 am
Obama was a member of the Far Left New Party until only a few years ago. There is no way he wasn’t basically calling for business to be nationalized or taxed into extinction.
Fisky
26 Jul 12 at 2:06 am
“Is Obama a Marxist?”
Wrong question.
“When did Obama stop being a Marxist?”
Much more illuminating.
Oh come on
26 Jul 12 at 2:08 am
Like the slapper he was only doing secretarial duties for the New Party. That’s all.
JC
26 Jul 12 at 2:09 am
The other point is this. Did anyone notice the incredibly aggressive tone of Obama’s speech? There is no way he wasn’t trying to drag private enterprise down. And no American President in history has ever come up with a formulation of words so extreme.
Fisky
26 Jul 12 at 2:21 am
It’s a good question though, posed first by Paul Marks over at Samizdata. For those who whine about people bandying about the term “Marxist” in a purely pejorative fashion when it comes to Obama, well both his parents were lifelong Marxists and Obama certainly was in his youth. Following that, there’s this big pixellated period of his life where nothing is known nor can be discerned. When did his perspective change? When did he stop being a Marxist? This is hidden from public view.
The coverup here’s at least part of the story.
Oh come on
26 Jul 12 at 2:32 am
Note the sly shift from second-person pronoun “You didn’t build that” to first-person “we‘re all in this together”
slimy little shit
Oh come on
26 Jul 12 at 2:41 am
He is very dangerous and must be removed from office at once.
Fisky
26 Jul 12 at 2:48 am
Yep , It’s what I have basically been saying about the Romnster. He has to be able to close the deal by explaining himself to the voters.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/07/25/to_move_polls_romney_needs_to_go_positive_114903.html
JC
26 Jul 12 at 2:50 am
Obama sounds like he’s channelling THR with some of his statements. Really extreme, frightening stuff.
Fisky
26 Jul 12 at 2:51 am
For Fu*ks ‘Sake’
They all read the same script.
Globbal Warming, Hi Speed (trains), piss a countries money against the wall of fixing problems, edjumacaition will fix it, electricity is evil, suck up to 7th centry barbarians.
Basic tenant of the Australian (next country to go down)Labor (who do they represent when they do not even spell that word as WE do) Party (it’s been a great party.
Now give me another $million) of (here it comes)because I will destroy your economy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=OlNXKOChi8w
NoFixedAddress
26 Jul 12 at 3:34 am
Oh come on
26 Jul 12 at 2:08 am
If any of the persons that read and post on this blog are not cynics then it, the blog, is not worth a pinch of goat shit
NoFixedAddress
26 Jul 12 at 4:15 am
Team Romney’s already got another ad out countering this one. Good stuff.
BOOM.
sdog
26 Jul 12 at 4:58 am
He reminds me of the Goon Show’s Major Bloodnok, who’ll “do anything to anyone, and they just don’t care”.
The Old and Unimproved Dave
26 Jul 12 at 5:52 am
He was only elected at all because the voters were sold a pup by the media. We have the same problem here. Our leader was on the telly just last night saying how she has a reformist heart (Nobel train soundin louder, ride on the peace train!) when power play is the real game.
Blogstrop
26 Jul 12 at 6:30 am
They don’t get to even be candidates unless they are already corrupted and owned. It concerns me that you seem to think Romney is somehow any better than Obama. If he was he wouldn’t have been allowed to get this far. Their (more-so than ours I think…still) Right vs Left politics is just a media circus show. The man (still a man for now) who gets to play President is just a PR creation who in the end does as he’s told.
Paul
26 Jul 12 at 7:59 am
Another rapid-response ad, this one from the RNC itself.
Krauthammer just said Romney should run this ad in an endless loop until the election. He’s right. –> http://youtu.be/rwWW2DQS_DU
sdog
26 Jul 12 at 8:52 am
As I mentioned in another thread on this, I think you’re off-base on that one. Polling from a few days ago showed that not only have a lot of Americans heard of this one, they’ve got very strong opinions about it.
From 23 July –
sdog
26 Jul 12 at 8:59 am
One of these days the US population will have a collective ’How did we do that?” moment when they wonder about just how and why an unknown Obama was ever elected president. If he scrapes through to a second term I suspect this will become universal a lot quicker than if it is in the aftermath of a qualified president being elected in November this year, because an Obama second term unfettered by any fears about re-election could be a very destructive one for the USA (and Israel, peace, the US economy, US energy etc).
It is amazing as most would know, that such a secretive figure could get there and have a fighting chance of being re-elected.
M Ryutin
26 Jul 12 at 9:04 am
The similarities between Obama and Gillard are quite extraordinary…. and both are destroying their country.
Fleeced
26 Jul 12 at 9:13 am
Speaking for myself, King Barack only hoped to slow the rise of the oceans.
So, in fact he clearly demonstrates great humility – as he constantly reminds us.
JamesK
26 Jul 12 at 9:27 am
Pinko Green Occupy poofo lezzo latte BA Dip Ed Fitroy Balmain bookshop owner alert!!
Tom
26 Jul 12 at 9:45 am
Take it easy Steve. Elections are not won because everyone gets the message. They are decided by quite small percentages. I’d say Obama will lose narrowly and it won’t matter that plenty of people who voted for him have no idea what a lying turd he is.
DavidLeyonhjelm
26 Jul 12 at 9:45 am
And if that happens, then what?
RT @JamesTaranto: Harold Meyerson calls for rebellion in the event of a close Romney win. The left is really going nuts.
sdog
26 Jul 12 at 9:58 am
Dog, calling effective voter identification laws racist disguises a fascist anti-democratic totalitarianism in the left – we won’t accept the election result unless we like it. Meyerson:
FMD.
Tom
26 Jul 12 at 11:01 am
Like the Beach Boys, I’m picking up a good vibration with the whole Olympics thing. Particularly when our candidate helped turn around an Olympics.
This is Romney’s gift this year.
Alex Pundit
26 Jul 12 at 12:22 pm
Ain’t that the truth, Fleeced!
It’s wilful, and both have so easily weakened practices and institutions to the extent that, at the next opportunity, their successors will be able to complete the job. Given the apathy and ignorance of the electorate and the efforts of a partisan press I believe Labor will spend only two or three terms in opposition.
We went down the wrong path in Australia when we shifted from cabinet based management to leader based management, and to leader focussed election campaigns. I find it staggering that self evidently uneducated drongos like Comrade Dear Leader (in exile) and then Comrade Bogan Broadasks have been permitted to dominate the government agenda.
If Hawke had tried that, as widely popular as he was, the likes of John Button, Dawkins, Keating, Mick Young or Lionel Bowen would have fronted him and put a stop to it. Just about any Top 50 corporate board functions similarly – there’s a canvassing of intelligent views, discussion on all possible scenarios and a collegiate decison to go this way or that. No successful board permits the chairman to alone embark on his own adventure, mounted on the corporate assets and income.
During these past few years I have become quite despondent about our political and financial future. We’ve wasted three years on world leader / global cooking / African despot courting fantasies during which we should have been assiduously cementing our economic partnerships with Asia.
As to that bludging, sub-mediocre galoot squatting in the White House – how he floated to the top of the porcelain bowl will forever be a mystery to me, as will the reasons why Americans found him to be worthy first time around, let alone for a second time.
Mick Gold Coast QLD
26 Jul 12 at 10:12 pm
the reasons why Americans found him to be worthy first time around,
Hypothesis: because the blacks who voted for him wanted “one of their own” in the White House (but missed the point that he’s first-generation American and not slave-descended), the whites wanted to flagellate themselves over their slavery guilt (and again missed the point that he’s not slave-descended), and both wanted revenge on Bush (which they could only get by taking it out on a hapless McCain, since Bush was constitutionally out the door).
Then there are the other minorities (gays, etc.) which voted for him in the earnest belief that he would give them what they were sure the Republicans wouldn’t (except they missed the point about Dick Cheney’s lesbian daughter and her girlfriend – now spouse – being welcomed by the Bushes, etc.)
Wherever the word “missed” appears, feel free to substitute “chose to ignore” as you deem appropriate.
In short: a large part of the electorate stopped thinking and exclusively started feeling. And whether it’s hope, change, hate, guilt, rage or greed that motivated them, it’s fair to argue that the feelings motivating the people who elected him are the least appropriate on which to base the choice for the most powerful man in the world. He should have been Hillary’s veep for eight years. That was the Democrats’ big mistake, and I somehow do not think we will see another black President in Obama’s lifetime because of it, certainly not a Democrat one.
perturbed
26 Jul 12 at 10:33 pm
Oh you are quite right perturbed.
Rampant prosperity brought that on, as it did in Australia. We enjoyed the most prosperous decade in my 40 odd adult years, whole generations came to believe that was normal and just knew it would continue with no further effort required. That left them free to go all gooey about stuff they knew nothing about.
About five years back, visiting Auckland museum, I encountered a wealthy black businessman and his scientist wife from West Coast USA – he and my dark skinned Latina wife joked how they merged with the dark timber cabinet display cases to became almost invisible.
He explained facts to me about the slave trade, of which I knew nought, and opined that the blacks and whites in the USA had been fed a fabulous con job which ignored the factual history and sustained the massive victimhood industry.
He suggested his country was headed for a mighty fall on the issue of funding the unproductive (manufacturing industry contraction, unviable cost of fighting other people’s wars, the tremendous challenge of Asia’s march to economic dominance and other things forcing across the board social services cuts). He set me some further reading which bore his story out.
Mick Gold Coast QLD
26 Jul 12 at 11:47 pm