Monday, September 3, 2012

It's Their Party



How do I love the Republicans?  Let me count the ways.  (This won’t take long.)

A party with a mission, they gathered in Tampa to present their candidate and themselves in the most favorable light possible.  Disciplined and determined, they planned, four years in advance, to show the country here and now they are infinitely more fit to govern than the candidate and the party the people had elected. You have to ask—at least I have to—if a party that plans four years in advance to hold such an all-important presidential-nominating national convention in a hurricane-prone region during hurricane season after its previous national convention was delayed by a hurricane in the same time frame is a party conceivably capable of planning the future of this country.
 
Sparing no expense, the RNC staged and scripted the proceedings ad nauseam, or possibly ad tedium.  They stifled spontaneity, silenced or ignored discordant opinion, and deemed their recent two-term president unmentionable and their last vice-presidential campaign darling persona non grata.  As if by fiat, they ruled out embarrassments.  A locked-down convention, with no surprises.  Until, that is, the gaff-master invited one for his crowning night.  Surprise!

Party luminaries came from all four corners of the nation to talk about themselves.  They made barely standard references to the party’s standard bearer.  The only one talking primarily about Mitt Romney was his wife, Anne.  In case you missed any of the solipsism, i.e. the self as the only reality, Santorum served Santorum, Christie boosted and boasted about Christie, and Newt and Calista, obliviously parodying a 20th century icon, “American Gothic,” babbled in responsive tongues about relatively little.

The star of the evenings was not Paul Ryan, as expected, not Mitt Romney, as longed for, and definitely not the “surprise guest,” as regretted, but a relative unknown, Susana Martinez, the Governor of New Mexico, who scored heavily by telling her unvarnished, and what I dearly want to believe was her true, story.

Which bring us to truth-telling.  Christie, a self-aggrandizing truth-teller, had a lot to say about it, so he certainly wasn’t talking about Governor Romney—or, as we now know, Representative Paul Ryan, who was supposed to be forthright and honest, a veritable paragon of virtue or, at the least, the Gentile equivalent of a mensch.  In only 23 days since becoming the person who could be the next vice president of the United States and only 35 minutes, give or take an untruth, of presenting that paragon to the largest audience he’s faced to date, he has become, unabashedly and unapologetically, MisRepresentative Ryan.

Ryan’s convention speech and subsequent lies have been well-documented by practically everyone on both sides of the political spectrum, so in lieu of repeating the indictments, I quote an admirable, brave truth-teller, Sally Kohn, a Fox News contributor and writer, “…to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to facts, Ryan’s speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech.”  I urge you to read her detailed accountwhich includes the enlightening, “And then there’s what Ryan didn’t talk about.”

On the whole, truth did not fare well at the GOP convention.  Nor was there as much as a visible,  honorable attempt to keep to the facts.  To the contrary, lying was condoned and encouraged.  Sound unfair and outrageous?  According to Mitt Romney’s pollster, Neil Newhouse, “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.”  According to Rudy Giuliani, in his attempt to justify Ryan’s lies, “Well, look, when people give speeches, not every fact is absolutely accurate.”  Apparently neither Newhouse nor Giuliani, believe it or not, a former Associate Attorney General in the United States Department of Justice, knows what “fact” means, or that it’s an antonym of fiction.

Lying is easy and gets easier.  Irresponsible politicians, inspired by “the stupidity of people in large groups,” easily lose sight, so it seems, of honor, principle and truth.  Seduced by the sonorousness of their own voices, they believe in the substance of their lack of substance, wallow in slogans, catch-phrases and rhetoric and think that saying something, anything!, makes it so.  Taking Goebbels’ famous dictum one step further: “Tell a lie often enough and it becomes the truth” for the liar.

Now consider: If lying works so well, their fabrications may be able to stick it to the Democrats and dupe undecided voters today, but given the power tomorrow, what falsehoods would they be telling the country, and to what purpose or profit?

It’s their party.  And they’ll lie if they want to.

13 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  2. Unfortunate for all of us, the Democrats will do no better. Everyone lies to protect their political tushes. We're caught between the proverbial rock and hard place. Sad.

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  3. "Tell a lie often enough and it becomes the truth” for the liar.

    From Barakonnochio

    I’ve done more for Israel’s security than any President ever.( After aiding Islamic extremists to smuggle weapons into the Gaza)

    I don’t Have Lobbyists

    Would have the most transparent administration in History

    Guantanamo bay to be closed within a year

    I am not somebody who promotes same-sex marriage.

    Unemployment rate will be 8.5% without stimulus. ( Post stimulus it was 9.2%)

    Health Care deals will be covered on C-span.

    Cut Deficit in Half by end of first term

    The health care bill will not increase the deficit by one dime. (CBO estimates it will be many trillions of dimes)

    ObamaCare Fee is not a new tax ( Of course the Chief Justice is naive)

    We will go through our federal budget – page by page, line by line – eliminating those programs we don’t need, and insisting that those we do operate in a sensible cost-effective way.

    The man is a three card monti inveterate liar who wouldn't know the truth if his mama told it to him.

    His latest and most egregious falsehood is to blame his wife and children for his inability to break the political gridlock in Washington. UNTHINKABLE!


    Any Jew, Christian or Muslim that votes for this occupant will assure the end of the existence of Israel.

    The masses are indeed asses and get exactly what they deserve!

    The Judge





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  4. What is GOP Plan for the future?

    Did I miss it completely?

    Did anyone notice the difference between the RNC and DNC attendees? The DNC had relaxed clothing and DIVERSITY.

    The RNC had "AMBOTS", nearly ALL WHITE WITH tight fitting suits and ties.

    The RNC major complaint about the DNC was religion? Pray tell what and whose religion, GOP?

    My biggest concern for the DNC is that they MUST state their strong conviction to defend Israel and reiterate, as they did in their 2008 DNC, not allow Jerusalem be divided.

    President Obama can start by condemning the attack of a Viennese Rabbi. After-all, Vienna was the starting point to the rise of Hitler.

    Thank you, Ray, for such a great blog, SON OF THE CUCUMBER KING.

    BTW, anonymous, "Obamacare is 99% the same as Romneycare except, "Romneycare care has more penalties than Obamacare. Romney agreed that the Affordable Healthcare Act was NOT a TAX; then, his puppeteers, convinced him to say, "yes it is a Tax".

    The Affordable Healthcare Act provides to cover over 21 million Americans that were previously uninsured. What is the GOP alternative, Vouchers, which would give more tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and kill over 21 million Americans with Pre-existing conditions and those that exceeded their life time CAP limit.

    I can say more about his GOP's ideas providing only for their "exclusive white country club GOP";
    but,this is Ray's blog.

    Sincerely,

    Barry Rulnick

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  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  6. What concerns me is that it might work. Never in the history of our political process has so much money and influence converged with such earnest disregard for truth or reality

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  7. Guess who said: "Dogmatic ideological parties tend to splinter the political and social fabric of a nation, lead to governmental crises and deadlocks, and stymie the compromises so often necessary."

    Hint: He walked out of the GOP convention in 1964 when Barry Goldwater was nominated for President during Goldwater's speech against Civil Rights.



    Ans: 43RD Gov. of Michigan, George W. Romney, (Mitt's Father)

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  8. Ooooh...guess who said!!! I love this game. Guess who said"

    You Americans are so gullible. No, you won’t accept communism outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism. We won’t have to fight you. We’ll so weaken your economy until you’ll fall like overripe fruit into our hands.

    It was inept futurist Nikita Kruschev

    And this.......

    The market will take care of everything,” they tell us…. But here’s the problem: it doesn’t work. It has never worked. It didn’t work when it was tried in the decade before the Great Depression. It’s not what led to the incredible postwar booms of the ’50s and ’60s. And it didn’t work when we tried it during the last decade. I mean, understand, it’s not as if we haven’t tried this theory.

    The inept current occupant of the White House.

    Get over the Black Guilt. We are in a post racial world where electing the guy just because black is cool isn't important anymore. Jay Z,Russel Simmons, or P Diddy would make better presidents because they understand the Great American business model and make use of the same tax codes Mitt Romney does. Take your heads out of the sand or the current occupant of the White House will be coming after YOUR trusts and estates if we are unfortunate enough to see him re-elected.

    The Judge

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    Replies
    1. Barry, you were able to put more thoughtfulness into one question than all the thoughtlessness "The Judge" put into his racist tirade.

      At times, I wonder if George Romney would have even approved of his son's candidacy.

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  9. superb article sir! loved it.

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  10. Racist tirade? If calling the current occupant of the White House inept is racist; I am Guilty as charged. If suggesting that African-American entrepeneurs Like Russel Simmons, P Diddy and Russel Simmons would make better presidents because they understand the FREE enterprise system better than the current occupant of the White House is Racist; I am guilty as charged. If outling the incredible mistruths that the current Occupant of the White House has uttered in the last four years is racist; I am guilty as charged. The bar for being called a racist is very low when you are too blinded by party loyalism and revisionist history to recognize the truths about the failed Messianic vision of the current occupant of the White House. Or perhaps I am a racist because I AM African-American.

    Judge

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  11. Darn! Mitt Romney sure was a racist last night wasn't he? Without a teleprompter and compliant Jim Lehrer the current occupant of the White House looked like a three card monti dealer who just had his table taken away from him. Besides being disinterested and petulant Mr. O looked dazed and confused. It almost seemed like he didn't care. I guess the left spin is going to be he was so depressed about not being able to celebrate his anniversary with Big Mama that he couldn't concentrate. Don't worry about him though. He'll make a great replacement for Chris Matthews whose tingle up his leg became a load in the back of his pants. Congratulations America! The blush is off the rose and we're going to get an adult President again!

    Judge Dreaded Locks

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