The New York Times is at it again. In an otherwise worthwhile article about how the choice of Paul Ryan as vice president signals a shift of focus from the economy to hardcore Republican ideology for the Romney campaign, we find this example of "everybody does it:"
Mr. Obama has been responding in kind, opening a deeply divisive period in the race in which firing up hard-core partisans is taking priority over trying to pursue relatively small numbers of undecided voters in the middle. This week has unfolded in a series of harsh exchanges between the candidates, with the president mocking his rival’s character, and Mr. Romney accusing Mr. Obama of disgracing the presidency by waging a “campaign of division and anger and hate.”
Well, no,
Times. You are correct that Romney's vice-presidential pick says "Let's not talk about me any more. Let's talk about something else" where "something else' is Ryan's scorched-earth budget (not that the Romney campaign is doing any better with that than with any other message it has tried to communicate) but when the President calls the Republican campaign out for it,
this is not primarily a message to the Democratic base.
Below the great orange schnecken for more.
Let's do some parsing of this paragraph. First, "deeply divisive"? Who says? The google turns up a few instances of this.
From the Associated Press at Huffpo:
Stubbornly close and deeply divisive, the presidential race throttles into its last 100 days as an enormous clash over economic vision, with the outcome likely to come down to fall debates, final unemployment numbers and fierce efforts to mobilize voters.
From Town Hall
trying to say that the Romney campaign is NOT bad for women:
Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that President Obama and his supporters are waging a fact-free, deeply divisive presidential campaign centered on character assassination and class warfare.
Yeah, go ahead and parrot your leader.
From Front Page Magazine, in an "Obama-has-never-tried-to-be-the-President-of-all-America" piece:
The Obama campaign is not accidentally divisive. It did not stumble into divisiveness. It is not even divisive as a byproduct of its real aims. Divisiveness is its aim. Divisiveness is the only way that a divisive administration can hold on to power. The anger and the violence are not an accident, they are the whole point. Set one group against another, feed the hate, massage the grievances and very soon there is no longer a nation but a handful of quarreling groups being roped into a mutual alliance to reelect their lord protector whose appeal is that of the outsider becoming the insider.
The meme perpetuated, not really American, thus divisive. "Lord Protector!" This one is actively funny if you have the stomach for the great lie.
Second, the Democratic approach to campaigning. "Obama mocks Romney." Here, the google turns up some material from This Here Blog - diaries by HoundDog and Jed Lewison. And, from rawstory.com (with picture of Bo the dog):
President Barack Obama for the first time on Tuesday personally took a jab at presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney for strapping his dog to the roof of his car.
When a candidate like Romney stops talking about anything of substance and outsources his campaign to his vice presidential nominee, what is his opponent supposed to do. I know the Romney people would prefer Obama to just ignore the fact he has an opponent, but that's not going to happen.
Third, Romney's wildly inappropriate over-the-top response to Obama. Pretty much another example of a Republican projecting what his campaign is doing onto his Democratic opponent, but here (perhaps) taken at face value as an honest assessment. "Anger and hate?" Covering the big lie, I suppose. Here's the National Journal yesterday on how the Romney campaign is countering what it sees as Obama's abuse:
Romney’s campaign is running two ads accusing Obama of gutting welfare’s work requirements that Democrats, fact checkers and a few Republicans have labeled false. He is also running ads attacking Obama over a pro-Obama super PAC ad that implies Romney’s actions as chairman of Bain Capital led to a woman’s death from cancer. The Priorities USA Action ad, which fact checkers have debunked, has run online but not on TV except once by mistake, the PAC said.
Leaving Joe Soptic aside, "anger and hate" is also the classic response of a bully to his target striking back.
Seriously, I have to start questioning any effort to put Romney and Obama on an equal plane with regard to the honesty of their campaigns. It's just not true any more. Since Romney has no apparent message, it's rather moot.
And here's that cute picture of the President and his dog from rawstory.com:
I probably forgot a few tags. Feel free to add/edit.