It was a grand moment when the Des Moines Register endorsed Mitt Romney. The battle cry, "First Republican Endorsement since Nixon". Huh? That's supposed to be a great thing? Yeah, it's a great thing. Everyone says so. Howard Fineman, in his confused tweets thinks it means that President Obama is toast. Howie, I try not to be mean in writing, but seriously, you have been pissing me off for so long, I am done with you. Go drink some micro-brews with Chris Cilizza, Chuck Todd and David Gregory. Or did you do that already 'cause your tweets were a bit Chuck Grassley, if you know what I mean? More about this endorsement following my rant about reporters and following my rant.
I am thoroughly sick of you "journalists", the above mentioned and others like you. I get more accurate journalism from GED bloggers (no offense to GED folk since both my really smart kids are GED graduates who just couldn't stand school). What should you lot have been reporting on - 'scuse the dangling participle and lousy grammar, but I'm good and pissed off. But not pissed off enough that I can't offer you a few suggestions .
1. How about you report Romney's latest lie about Jeep moving jobs to China? Did it ever occur to you that this lie may have caused a bunch of people some sleepless nights? Romney is still perpetuating that lying story line as of today, Oct. 29, with that toady Chaffitz saying "It's true, it's true". Naturally the toad was not pressed since he appeared on Andrea Mitchell whose kiss could maybe turn him into a prince.
2. How about rather than praising the lying waste-bag Romney for 'moving to the center' in the debates, you focused on the multitude of lies he told. Steve Bennen already does your work for you if you took a few minutes to read his daily Mendatious Mitt rundown. But, hell no! You think it's better to keep telling us all that Romney really just went back to being his moderate self. And good for him,you say, because that's the way it's always done if you want to win, right? No, not right. Moving to the middle never used to mean having absolutely no scruples, no convictions, and no conscience. Romney can get away with "Lying for the Lord", but journalists are not supposed to enable it and basically give it a thumbs up because hey, everyone does it. No, everyone does not do it, so fuck you and your eternal false equivalencies.
3. Maybe Romney's moderate debate self is his real self, because who the hell knows what that man believes at any given moment. Nothing, is my guess. But you could have done your job and explained to the public - some of whom are not very involved in the details of politics - that Romney is a completely empty vessel who will be beholden to a mean, ignorant Tea Party who will take no prisoners, Romney included, maybe most of all. Yeah, you could let us all know that no matter who Romney wants us to think he is, the truth is that he will be dragged into every decision and policy by the hateful cretins who have bought and paid for his campaign. They own him and he will not be allowed to do anything except use his sufficient number of 'digits' to sign their hateful laws.
4. You could have educated us about Romney's awful record as Governer. He never worked in a bi-partisan way as he keeps telling us. The record disproves his lie. He signed hundreds of vetoes which were then overridden (750 times) by the Democratic legislature. You could have told the whole country what a dismal record he had as a Governor. How he increased taxes, blew a hole in the budget, decimated higher education - you know, those things that matter to the rest of us. The only thing he did which he should be proud of is now something he wants to hide from - healthcare.
5. You could have spent more time on Paul Ryan and his readiness to be Commander in chief besides his claim that he is ready because he, you know, signed off on sending young men and women to war. He's the one who passed 2 bills during his 14 years as a Congressman, remember?. What were they? Oh yeah. One was to name a post office in his district and one to do with arrow heads - bows and arrows being a favorite pastime of his. How about you inform the public that neither he nor Romney have a lick of foreign policy experience, barring Romney's knowlege of international tax havens. But hell no. Better to talk about Ryan's blue eyes and buff bod. You keep telling me he's so good looking. Hey, his looks don't matter. But if they did, I see him looking a bit like a well groomed rat whose nose always points to the cheese. You tell us that only the top of the ticket matters four years after you lot just couldn't foist enough Sarah Palin on us, you bunch of hypocrites.
6. You could have given a lot more reporting on Romney's Bain adventures. We know quite a bit through Romney's primary clown rivals, David Corn (a real journalist) and the Obama campaign. But there's a whole lot more to Romney and Bain that you could have covered. What about Bain's involvement in private health care industries and chain drug stores which were so over-leveraged that they were pressured into over-treating and overbilling to satisfy their investors? What about Sensata which is a current story? I could go on, but I'm not here to do your job.
7. PBO won the final two debates, but that was not as fun of a story as Obama 'losing' the first, which I still believe only became true because you lot never took on Romney's lies and the substantive issues addressed by President Obama. First debate, endless Obama doom. Next two debates, well, maybe a tie, maybe not that important, maybe, who cares.
8. You could have stopped your 'Romney Surge' bullshit when it was clear to everyone who pays attention that whatever surge there was ended soon after it happened. One quick stop at fivethirtyeight.com could have given you a heads up, but that's not the story you wanted.
9. What about Romney's history and commitment to the Mormon Church. His admission to baptising dead people, his role as a Bishop, his family history of polygamy, his roots in Mexico. It's not fair to talk about someone's religion, you say? Huh. I seem to remember never ending diatribes about Reverend Wright and you journalists were all over that day after day, week after week. See how I might get the idea that you are all a bunch of hypocritical hacks?
It matters not to you if your shitty reporting gives our country a Romney presidency, even if that means we are done for decades. But, hey, you bloviating blowhards will have had your fun while it lasted, suckering the ill informed, keeping your faces on the teevee, right? You lot make me sick. If Romney were to win, I will not blame him for destroying the soul of this country, which he will, but I will blame you for your reckless abandonment of good reporting throughout this whole process. It's you lot that remind me of Stalin and Hitler and other monsters who made the media dance to their tune. Yeah, I made the Nazi reference because such huge things begin when the public is misled one step at a time by those they are supposed to trust, including journalists. It's maybe not "First they came for the Jews", but instead, 'first they came for the Muslims, or the immigrants, or the women, or the poor', and bad journalism makes it more likely that that there will be no one to fight for them. The loss of a larger truth than that which I possess could break the collective American heart. But this is America, and we have Twitter, and facebook, and Tumblr, and smart phones, and we have D KOS and Nate Silver. And we have an honorable President whose policies and vision shine a light on our better selves. We don't need you lot. Oh, more on the Des Moines Register below.
Back to the Des Moines Register's endorsement of Romney. As I already said, they have not endorsed a Republican since Dick Nixon. It's also worth noting that one of the Democrats they endorsed in the past was John Edwards during the 2004 primary. So, maybe the DM Register does love lying bastards.
Their reason for endorsing Romney? Because of what he did in MA - his whole bi-partisan schtick. Really? The DMR believes that Romney could forge compromise just as he did in MA (I hope the Dems never, ever compromise with the R's again because no good will come of it). But, forge compromises? Romney has no history of this magical compromising of which the DMR speaks. But hey, Romney does tell us now that he will work with the Dems. But only the good ones, he says, if they exist, but if they don't, then who knows about what's to compromise?
Maybe the DMR endorsed Romney because he did an in person interview with them (ass kissing) while PBO did one over the phone - initially off the record until the paper publically complained and PBO agreed to let them publish the interview. Question. What kind of newspaper agrees to an off the record interview then publically complains about that to which they agreed? A newspaper which endorses liars. Also, I would say that you have to be up close and personal if you want to kiss ass with feeling and no one knows that better than Romney.
Or the endorsement could be because Bain Capital is part owner of the paper. I'm really not a great believer of conspiracies, although I will admit that I would love if aliens visited the earth. But this is what I know about the DMR and Bain. DMR is owned by a company called Gannet. In May 2010, Gannett entered into a contract with WSI, a broadcast meteorology company for the Gannett owned teevee stations. WSI is a member of the Weather Channel. The Weather Channel is owned by a consortium made up of NBC Universal, the Blackstone Group, and yep, Bain Capital.
In 2011 Gannet laid off 700 U.S. employees, but increased executive salaries and bonuses. I haven't checked how well the shareholders made out, but it seems that multi-million dollar executive salaries would not be approved if the shareholders were unhappy with their 'share'.
I really don't believe in conspiracies - or it takes a lot to get me to consider them. But, it seems to me that Bain and the Romneys have tentacles into practically every money making enterprise you can name. Then there's Bain's investment in Clear Channel, a gigantic media enterprise, and Tagg Romney's connection to voting machines. Conspiracy? I'm beginning to feel a little creepy about this whole election thing and what invisible entitities are pulling the strings of the visible entities pulling the strings.
Unrelated, but please, everybody vote, even if you're in a safe state. Let's give PBO the electoral college and the popular vote!!!!!!
Off topic, I am a New Orleanian who survived Katrina, Rita, Gustav, and Isaac. You guys on the East coast do everything you need to do to stay safe and remember that this is still the America where we take care of each other.