As Senator Lindsey Graham stated about the GOP’s appeal to minorities, “We’re not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.” This couldn’t be more true, as Gary Younge reports, minorities are running away from the GOP in droves.

Black support for the Republican party literally cannot get any lower. A recent Wall Street Journal poll had 0% of African-Americans saying they intend to vote for Romney. At 32%, support among Latinos is higher but still remains pathetically low given what Republicans need to win (40%) and what they have had in the past – in 2004 George W Bush won 44%. As a result, the party of Lincoln is increasingly dependent on just one section of the electorate – white people. To win, Romney needs 61% of the white vote from a white turnout of 74%. That’s a lot. In 2008, John McCain got 55% from the same turnout. “This is the last time anyone will try to do this,” one Republican strategist told the National Journal. And Republican consultant Ana Navarro told the Los Angeles Times: “Where his numbers are right now, we should be pressing the panic button.”

In hindsight, Obama’s refusal to rise to the constant race baiting from the GOP over the past 4 years was an incredibly smart thing to have done. He’s managed to get the Republicans to alienate the center, irreparably damage ties to minorities and all without allying himself with the Al Sharpton/Jesse Jackson type political rhetoric that has scared away white voters. He has patiently watched the Republican party devour itself without dirtying himself in the process – and now it looks like he’s about to reap the reward.

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Yes, Bill Clinton gave a phenomenal speech at the Democratic Convention last week, and yes, he fired up the base and provided immeasurable help to Barack Obama’s campaign. But the theme of Clinton’s speech was “Republicans created the mess we’re in, and only Democrats can fix it”. Sadly, this isn’t technically true. As Robert Scheer points out:

Do those convention delegates, and the fawning media that were wowed by the former president’s rhetorical seductions, not recall that just before he left office Clinton signed off on the game-changing legislation that ended the sensible rules imposed on Wall Street during the Great Depression? It was Clinton who cooperated with the Republicans in reversing the legacy of FDR’s New Deal, opening the floodgates of unfettered avarice that almost drowned the world’s economy during the reign of George W. Bush.

How convenient to ignore the Financial Services Modernization Act, which Clinton signed into law to summarily end the Glass-Steagall barrier against the commingling of investment and commercial banking. Do the Democrats not remember that Citigroup, the first too-big-to-fail bank made legal by the law Clinton signed, became the $15 million employer of Robert Rubin, the Clinton treasury secretary who led the fight for the law that legalized the creation of Citigroup? Or that Citigroup—led by Sanford Weill, to whom Clinton gave one of the souvenir pens he used to approve that onerous legislation—went on to be a major player in the subprime mortgage swindles and had to be bailed out with more than $50 billion of taxpayer funds?

It’s easy to get caught up in the election hullabaloo, pick sides then cheer lead your candidate as if they could do no wrong. But that’s not defensible from an intellectual or moral point of view. Clinton was instrumental in creating the foundations for the economic meltdown in 2008 – a fact he is no doubt aware of. It’s good that Clinton has come back on the side of sanity and advocates the intelligent regulation of Wall St, but his glossing over of his record is pretty shameless.

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By Bob Cesca: You might have noticed how the Democrats last week weren’t afraid to ballyhoo the Obama administration’s tenacious pursuit and killing of Osama Bin Laden. This pivotal event in the president’s first term represented what could be the beginning of a major shift in the perception of the Democrats as an inept, wimpy faction that tends to mishandle foreign policy and national security endeavors.

In spite of the Bush administration’s ineptitude on this front, there continues to be a massive “strong on national security” polling gap in favor of the Republicans. Back in 2010, a year before Bin Laden was killed, the Republicans were crushing the Democrats on this front by a margin of 27 points, 59 percent to 33 percent. Even with the killing of Bin Laden and the ending of the Iraq war, the Democrats lag behind the Republicans by a full 10 points, according to Rasmussen (admittedly, a Republican-leaning polling outfit, but you get the idea).

So there’s still a lot of work to be done on this issue even though, by all empirical accounts and given the Obama record versus the dismal Bush record, the Democrats should be crushing it on the national security polling front. The difference is obviously not the actions and policies of the respective administrations, but specifically in how they talk about national security and foreign policy successes. If it was just successes minus a political PR effort, the Obama Democratic Party would be out-polling the Republicans but, as of right now, it’s just the president who’s leading Mitt Romney by around 9 points on this issue. Not enough, obviously, to change the broader party perception held by voters that still shows Republicans as stronger on nation security and foreign policy. I suppose eight years of “bring ‘em on” hubris, jingoism and lies from the Bush/Cheney’s PR apparatus regarding the false notion of “keeping us safe” has stuck with voters.

The only way to overcome such a gap is for the Democratic Party — not just the Obama administration — to boast its national security posture. Hence all of the Bin Laden death talk last week. And when it comes to rank-and-file voters, you’re not going to find much sympathy for the deadliest terrorist in modern history.

Over the weekend, noted foreign policy reporter Jeremy Scahill appeared on “Up with Chris Hayes” and slammed the use of Bin Laden’s death “as a football to spike on the national stage.” Scahill and others on the left who tend to focus on the president’s national security and civil liberties record above all else have criticized the targeted killing of Bin Laden and especially the use of the mission for political purposes. I hasten to note that, yes, Scahill, Greenwald et al have an important role to play as the idealist, pacifist conscience of the far-left. They say Bin Laden should’ve been captured alive and granted due process in the courts, either in American courts or in a Nuremberg-style international tribunal. But this carries with it significant dangers, both political and practical that I’m not sure they entirely grasp.

The biggest mistake many Scahill types make is to somehow divorce politics from policy when, in reality, there’s a considerable Venn diagram overlap between the two. If, in some sort of fantasy scenario, you were to remove politics and public opinion from policy, leaders could make significantly more idealized decisions about such matters. But we have a system whereby the only means to accomplish certain goals is to compromise or outright sacrifice others. In this case, however, it’s probably a bit of a no-brainer. Kill Bin Laden, the most hated criminal in the world, potentially win re-election and therefore have an opportunity to further lock down a left-of-center agenda? Yes, please. This approach further calculates that the “due process for Bin Laden” crowd is miniscule and probably won’t find too much sympathy to make an electoral difference especially when compared to the colossal upsides that come with a “take him out” order.

Admittedly, this is a complex issue — the intentional killing of terrorist leader, but the upside could very well mean securing healthcare for 30 million Americans, preventing a 66 percent cut in Medicaid funds to mostly children and disabled Americans, the protection of reproductive rights, preventing a significant rightward ideological shift on the Supreme Court for possibly another generation and the further establishment of equal rights for LGBT Americans as well as undocumented workers. The list goes on and on. Yes, a life is a life. But the life of a known and admitted mastermind of the 9/11 attacks (as well as countless others) simply doesn’t compare with the potential for what a second Obama term as president could mean for millions upon millions of Americans. (During the healthcare debate, Harvard released a statistic regarding deaths due to a lack of health insurance. The number amounted to around 3,000 per month. That’s a new 9/11 every month.) And the only way to get there is to ballyhoo the accomplishment — a concept, by the way, that the Obama administration has been heretofore slow to embrace.

I’d be lying if I said I haven’t struggled with this point of view. How would I have felt if the Bush administration had killed Bin Laden? Would I be as supportive of the decision? Would I have pushed for due/judicial process? Regardless of who gave the order, I, like many Americans, probably would’ve reacted similarly. I would’ve greeted news of the death of Bin Laden with relief, just as I did when it was announced by a president I support. Relief is a realistic and human reaction, irrespective of who gave the order. But I also would’ve been critical of the Bush administration’s inevitable use of scare-tactics, which they surely would’ve incorporated into the announcement. It’s very likely they would’ve fabricated some new Toe Monster to frighten us into continued submission. I would’ve also been critical of the new powers they would’ve tried to attain given the post-announcement wave of support. It’s worth noting that there would’ve been a significantly higher bounce in approval numbers for Bush than there was for President Obama. Whenever the Bush team enjoyed some sort of polling bounce, they exploited the political capital with an egregious, over-the-top agenda that included the USA PATRIOT Act, the invasion of Iraq, warrantless wiretaps and the attempted privatization of Social Security.

Ultimately, whatever case Scahill might make, there’s simply no real precedent when it comes to someone like Osama Bin Laden. Has an American commander-in-chief ever confronted a scenario in which a rogue terrorist financier and mastermind orchestrated the killing of thousands of people in a trio of deadly, coordinated strikes on American soil, then repeatedly admitted to committing crimes on videotape? And has that commander-in-chief had to make a choice as to whether to kill the admitted terrorist or to arrest and detain him with a variety of potentially dicey legal avenues to pursue — any one of them leading to the possible release of the terrorist while the commander-in-chief is still in power? Not that I’m aware of.

So it’s very easy to take the pacifistic high road in a vacuum and without acknowledging the political realities involved. Scahill and like-minded critics of the president have the luxury of taking the high road, but without a nod to the political ramifications, it become merely idealistic (if not entirely contrarian) single pet-issue finger-wagging. Mitt Romney wants to not only amplify a reckless imperialistic posture on the world stage, but he also wants to roll back everything the president has accomplished on the domestic and economic front. Ordering the death of Bin Laden and sufficiently boasting its success goes a long way towards preventing Romney/Ryan from accomplishing their nefarious goals. I simply can’t find fault in the Democratic approach — morally or politically. I can’t justify the forgoing of this political “football spike” when inaction and silence means a greater chance for the Republicans to re-establish deadly limits on health insurance for struggling Americans or reversing the economic recovery with larger slash-and-burn cuts in government spending. It must be quite a luxury to take such a narrow view of presidential decision-making. In this context and with these consequences, it’s simply not possible or practical.

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The new figures from Gallup tracking poll shows Obama’s approval ratings jumping back up – a sign that his speech at the convention worked. At least for now:

Writes Andrew Sullivan on the bump:

…..a real breakthrough – especially sinc Gallup has been leaning a little GOP much of this year. more striking: that’s the highest approval rating for Obama since 2009. I’d call it the Clinton bump. Let’s see if it lasts.

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By Marjorie Cohn: The Obama administration has closed the books on prosecutions of those who violated U.S. and international laws by authorizing and conducting the torture and abuse of prisoners in U.S. custody.

Last year, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that his office would investigate only two incidents, in which CIA interrogations ended in deaths. He said the Justice Department “has determined that an expanded criminal investigation of the remaining matters is not warranted.” With that decision, Holder conferred amnesty on countless Bush officials, lawyers and interrogators who set and carried out a policy of cruel treatment.

Now the attorney general has given a free pass to those responsible for the deaths of Gul Rahman and Manadel al-Jamadi. Rahman froze to death in 2002 after being stripped and shackled to a cold cement floor in the secret Afghan prison known as the Salt Pit. Al-Jamadi died after he was suspended from the ceiling by his wrists which were bound behind his back.

MP Tony Diaz, who witnessed al-Jamadi’s torture, said that blood gushed from his mouth like “a faucet had turned on” when he was lowered to the ground. A military autopsy concluded that al-Jamadi’s death was a homicide.

Nevertheless, Holder said that “based on the fully developed factual record concerning the two deaths, the department has declined prosecution because the admissible evidence would not be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Amnesty for torturers is unacceptable. General Barry McCaffrey declared, “We tortured people unmercifully. We probably murdered dozens of them during the course of that, both the armed forces and the CIA.”

Major General Anthony Taguba, who directed the Abu Ghraib investigation, wrote that “there is no longer any doubt as to whether the [Bush] administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.” Holder has answered Taguba’s question with a resounding “no.”

Some have suggested that Holder’s decisions have been motivated by political considerations. For example, Kenneth Roth, director of Human Rights Watch, wrote that “dredging up the crimes of the previous administration was seen as too distracting and too antagonistic an enterprise when Republican votes were needed.” And closing the books on legal accountability for Bush officials may remove one more Republican attack on Obama in the next two months before the presidential election.

But the Obama administration’s decision to allow the lawbreakers to go free is itself a violation of the law. The Constitution says that the president “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” When the United States ratified the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, we promised to extradite or prosecute those who commit, or are complicit in the commission, of torture. The Geneva Conventions also mandate that we prosecute or extradite those who commit, or are complicit in the commission of, torture.

There are two federal criminal statutes for torture prosecutions — the U.S. Torture Statute and the War Crimes Act; the latter punishes torture as a war crime. The Torture Convention is unequivocal: nothing, including a state of war, can be invoked as a justification for torture.

By letting American officials, lawyers and interrogators get away with torture – and indeed, murder – the United States sacrifices any right to scold or punish other countries for their human rights violations.

Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and former president of the National Lawyers Guild. She testified before Congress in 2008 about Bush interrogation policy. Her book, The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse, was released this year in paperback. See www.marjoriecohn.com.

(Originally published on ConsortiumNews.com)

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By Bob Cesca: In a speech filled with misleading statements and nostalgic lines about how wonderful life used to be before President Obama was inaugurated, the single-most ridiculous line from Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech Thursday night was this:

“…Every president since the Great Depression who came before the American people asking for a second term could look back at the last four years and say with satisfaction, ‘You are better off than you were four years ago.’ Except Jimmy Carter. And except this president… This president cannot tell us that you’re better off today than when he took office.”

He absolutely can, and he should!

Yes, I agree that there are still people who are hurting. Unemployment remains unacceptably high, and, ultimately, the depth of the Great Recession is still playing itself out in the difficult task of mitigating it and returning the economy to a place of steady prosperity.

But when it comes to the question of whether we’re better off, there’s no doubt that everyone is better off now than we were when, for example, the economy was collapsing with no end in sight; when we were engaged in two wars with no end in sight; when healthcare was less affordable; when mutual funds, IRAs and 401(k) retirement plans were losing value as the stock market crashed; and so forth. More of this presently.

By the way, this is a risky question for Romney since a Republican president with a strikingly similar economic agenda was in office four years ago, and he was navigating his way around a worsening economic freefall. Why would Romney even dare to bring this up? I’m sure the question the president and the Democrats will be asking this coming week in Charlotte is whether we should continue the policies that ended the disaster and sparked an economic recovery, or whether we should revert back to the policies that were in place prior to the recession — policies that John McCain and Sarah Palin were proposing in 2008 and which Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are proposing today. On one hand we have an administration that’s responsible for policies that have proven to be effective given the dire circumstances, and on the other hand we’re hearing about Republican boilerplate policies that absolutely failed.

So how effective were the policies of the Obama administration?

Insofar as the Republicans have blamed the president for everything that’s bad, it’s only fair then to credit him for the things that have significantly improved, and many of the following things are, in fact, a direct result of the president’s actions.

1. Several weeks after the president was inaugurated and before any of his policies had taken effect, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached its bottom: 6,626. This was the low point in a slide that began as far back as October 2007 when the Dow surpassed 14,000. From that day onward, it dropped. Since its low point and under the watch of the Obama administration, however, the Dow has climbed back to 13,090 as of Friday. That’s a massive recovery in just three-and-a-half years, and this resurgence began in earnest just after the president signed the dreaded stimulus, which pumped over $700 billion back into the economy when no one else, from consumers to corporations, were prepared to do the same.

2. When the president took office, the gross domestic product — the pulse of the American economy — was contracting by 8%. In other words, the last time the economy was shrinking to this degree was 1947. In early 2009, no one knew how deep the contraction was, and we’re still discovering the true depth of the crisis. Regardless, by the third quarter of 2009, the economy was growing again. To this day, it continues to grow by around 1-2% per quarter.

3. The economy hemorrhaged 800,000 jobs during the month the president took office. 700,000 the month after. 750,000 in March of 2009. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the stimulus) was signed in that same month, March, and following the measure, fewer and fewer Americans were fired until November 2009 when the private sector began to add new jobs for the first time since December 2007. In terms of new job creation, we’re actually better off now than we were nearly five years ago. Obviously, more jobs need to be added, but we also have to examine why job creation isn’t more robust. Primarily, corporations are inexplicably sitting on record cash assets. $2 trillion, in fact, according to the Wall Street Journal — the highest level of cash assets since 1959. Furthermore, public/government sector jobs at the federal, state and local level have dropped off for the first time in recent history. Experts assert that this has hurt job growth and the unemployment rate.

These are three of the biggest indicators of economic health in America. But what about the deficit and the debt — the crazy scary numbers the Republicans were screeching about last week?

4. According to the CBO, the president inherited a 2009 deficit of $1.2 trillion from President Bush’s final spending request back in 2008. I’m not talking about 2009 spending authorized by President Obama but fiscal year 2009 spending requested by Bush, which somehow President Obama has become responsible for in the eyes of many Republicans. Actually, the Obama administration only added an additional $400 billion to the deficit for the remainder of 2009. That’s still a big chunk of money, but bear in mind the stimulus and other measures that were necessary as a means of breathing life into the economy when no one else would. Add to that a seriously constricted level of tax revenue due to layoffs and reduced incomes. By the end of the president’s first year, the deficit was $1.4 trillion. Huge by ordinary standards, but that economic era and the colossal recession was hardly ordinary. Since then, the deficit has been reduced nearly every year (the deficit increased by $6 billion in 2011 from $1.293 trillion to $1.299 trillion, then dropped to $1.1 trillion for 2012). Fact: the president has reduced the deficit from $1.4 trillion to a projected $977 billion in the last fiscal year of his first term, 2013. $500 billion in total deficit reduction in four years. While I personally would have preferred more spending given the depth of the recession, from the perspective of deficit reduction, this can be considered a considerable achievement and far from the big spending, big government myth the Republicans have created. Meanwhile, the national debt continues to grow, but the year-over-year growth of the debt has slowed from 15% in the president’s first year to 4% in his third year. Likewise, the year-over-year growth in the size of government is the lowest since the 1950s.

What’s next?

One million unemployed Americans found jobs in the first six months of 2012 alone. Inflation is 1.4% — a full point below its all-time average and four points below its 5.6% rate in July, 2008. Home sales are up. Home prices are up. Consumer debt is down. Income tax rates remain at an all-time low. The Medicare prescription donut-hole is closing, with 5.2 million seniors and people with disabilities having saved $4 billion on prescription drug costs because of the evil, evil Affordable Care Act. Preventative medicine is now fully covered by both Medicare and private insurance without deductibles or coinsurance. Millions of Americans in their 20s are now insured under their parents’ health insurance. Medicaid and SCHIP have been expanded, making it easier for struggling families to get healthcare. Women are closer than ever to paycheck equality. The war in Iraq is over. Bin Laden was hunted down and killed.

Are you better off than you were four years ago? From a national perspective — from the perspective of life becoming a little bit easier and the future a lot brighter, the answer again is a resounding yes.

Adding… By way of a post script, I’d like to add that several Obama campaign surrogates turned up on the Sunday shows and actually avoided the obvious answer to this question. Clearly they were worried that answering “yes” would appear insensitive to the Americans who are still struggling. The governor of Maryland, Martin O’Malley — a Democratic supporter of the president — actually answered, “No.” What the hell? Astonishingly self-defeating and weak. Perhaps a response to the effect of, “Without a doubt the nation is significantly better off than it was four years ago, and it will continue to get better and stronger when the president is re-elected,” would completely thread the politically sensitive needle without giving Romney a major win on this too-important question. But to run away from the answer undermines the entire basis for the campaign. I suspect Governor O’Malley will end up in numerous Romney ads. Unfortunately and stupidly.

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Don't you make fun of my brother!

By Bob Cesca: Yes, I get it. Among the children of Barbara and George H.W. Bush, Jeb Bush is considered the “smart and reasonable” one. But that’s sort of like saying, Lotsa’ hammers in that tool box, but this hammer doesn’t hurt as much when you bash it into my skull.

Make no mistake. When challenged, Jeb Bush is capable of being as petty and nearsighted as just about any Republican you can name. He might do it with a smile on his face, but as the famous Shakespeare quote goes (say it with me), “That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.”

On Meet the Press yesterday, Jeb insisted that President Obama should stop blaming his brother, George W., for the condition of things, “I think it is time for him to move on. I mean — look, the guy was dealt a difficult hand, no question about it. But he’s had three years. His policies have failed, and rather than blame others — which I know we were taught that that was kind of unbecoming over time — you just can’t keep doing that. Maybe offer some fresh new solutions to the problems that we face.”

Totally smart and reasonable, yes?

No way.

This is typical Republican behavior with overtones of the “starve the beast” strategy. Typically, the Republicans set a nasty table filled with disasters, and then, when the new guy comes along, they blame the new guy for their own disasters. When the new guy defends himself by saying the previous guy set a nasty table filled with disasters, people like Jeb Bush and the others bark at the new guy, telling him to stop playing the blame game. It’s a no-win for the new guy.

Specifically, the Bush team rocketed through eight years of unchecked spending on trillion dollar wars, trillion dollar tax cuts, corporate bailouts and continued deregulation — it was responsible for the final measures that precipitated a massive recession that further bloated the deficit and debt. They did all of this knowing full well that when the bill came due, they’d be long gone. And, bonus, if the new guy was a Democrat, Barack Obama, they could just blame the him for the deficit, the debt and the nightmarish economic collapse. Furthermore, the Obama team would become handcuffed and unable to totally resolve the problem due to all of the spending/deficits/debt that occured under the Bush administration, thus sabotaging the Obama policies and agenda. The “starve the beast” strategy.

When the Obama team rightfully points out that, for example, it inherited a $1.2 trillion deficit for fiscal year 2009 based on spending requests from the Bush White House, Republicans either deny the reality of how the budget process works, like hack liar Dinesh D’Sousa did with Cenk Uygur the other day, or they wave their open hands in our faces and say, “Baaaah! Blame game! Bush derangement syndrome! Not listening!”

But it’s an empirical fact that the current deficits and debt are a direct result of Bush era policies. It’s an empirical fact that in spite of what ought to be done about the recession and recovery — massive government spending over and above the March 2009 stimulus — the Obama White House has actually presided over the lowest year-over-year increase in government spending of any modern president going all the way back to Eisenhower. The Obama White House has also presided over an (inexplicable) reduction in government employees, while Bush 43 and other presidents were responsible for considerable increases in public sector jobs. The deficit under President Obama has slowly been reduced following the massive deficit he inherited in 2009, and every spending bill he signs is required to be fully paid-for due to “paygo” rules he authorized.

Meanwhile, contrary to the myths floating around in both conservative and liberal circles, this president made history by, yes, rescuing the world economy from a second Great Depression. I’ve written this many times before, but it can’t be stated often enough or with enough emphasis. He rescued the economy from a second Great Depression that could have crushed U.S. and other western nations. Since his policies took effect, the GDP is growing again. The Dow has nearly doubled. The economy is creating jobs. And, ultimately, we’re all still kicking around in a relatively stable nation (compared to what could have happened under, say, John McCain and Sarah Palin).

So when the Republicans shout and screech and their eyes bug out of their tiny heads about the deficit, the debt and “failed policies,” it’s perfectly reasonable and understandable that the president would want to correct the record. Jeb Bush, in particular, seems to think the unmitigated shithole that President Obama inherited can and should’ve been resolved in three years. It’s just that easy to — POOF! — obliterate record deficits, debt and economic disasters, especially when those three things can’t necessarily happen at the same time. You can’t cut the deficit to zero in a slow growth recovery following the deepest recession since Depression. As for the debt, the only president who cut the debt in the last 30 years was Bill Clinton, and it was during an incredible economic boom. Nevertheless, how else is President Obama supposed to respond to these charges? Should he accept the blame for something that’s not his fault? Not a chance. And should he accept the blame for not entirely rolling back the deficits and debt, not to mention the status of the economy, to 1999 in three years even though it took 10 years to get here? That’s a totally unrealistic and unfair expectation.

But the Republicans aren’t fair players. They’re liars and superficial marketing gurus who can come up with zingers that fit conveniently onto bumper stickers, but they’re nowhere near capable of debating empirical reality and accepting rational explanations for our current state of affairs.

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Ryan on the House floor pitching stimulus during the post-9/11 recession.

The Daily Banter Headline Grab (via TPM):

Rep. Paul Ryan is a vocal critic of President Obama’s stimulus bill. As one of the GOP’s most outspoken critics of government spending, he has not only argued that the stimulus did not work, but that the entire premise of deficit spending to jump-start the economy is flawed.

But in 2002, Ryan sang a different tune.

When President George W. Bush pushed a stimulus package in 2002 in order to shore up the staggering economy, Ryan urged his Republican House colleagues to pass the bill. In a floor speech dug up by MSNBC host Chris Hayes, Ryan made the case for deficit spending in order to extend unemployment benefits and stimulate job creation.

“What we’re trying to accomplish today with the passage of this third stimulus package is to create jobs and help the unemployed,” Ryan said. “What we’re trying to accomplish is to pass the kinds of legislation that when they’ve passed in the past have grown the economy and gotten people back to work.”

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Bad television and bad politics. Perhaps MTV should stay out of the 2012 elections.... (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Chez Pazienza: I’m probably going to sound like the stereotypical old guy in the room here, but bear with me.

The first time I voted for president was in 1992 and, like many my age at the time, I voted for Bill Clinton. The reason should be obvious to anyone who lived through the presidential election of 1992: Clinton and his optimistic vision for America spoke to me as a young adult; he was the first president in my lifetime to truly reach out to the youth in a meaningful way and value their involvement in the political process and in building the country’s future. Later, of course, we’d find out that the hand he was extending to the female youth of America was aimed mostly at their breasts, but it’s not like I knew that at the time. Clinton got me excited about politics, about America, and about my role in our democracy in a way that no one had before; he made me believe that I mattered; that the course the nation would take depended on me and those my age; that I indeed had a voice and a responsibility to use it — and so I rewarded him with my support and my vote.

While the Clinton campaign will always be remembered for its canny use of youth-oriented media in its effort to mobilize young adults — the Arsenio Hall sax solo is still the stuff of pop culture legend — it was actually the juxtaposition of Clinton’s treatment of MTV’s political coverage versus his opponent’s that hammered home the reason I needed to not only put my vote behind Clinton but deprive the incumbent of another term. While Clinton treated MTV like a useful tool in his goal of bringing his message to a new generation of American voters and its audience as brimming with potential political savvy, George Bush showed aloofness, arrogance, and visible disdain for the network and the fact that he was expected to pay it any attention whatsoever. In one particular interview with MTV News’s Tabitha Soren, who was the face of the network’s “Choose or Lose” campaign of the early 90s, I’ll never forget the expression on Bush’s face, the pissy, irritated condescension he heaped on Soren — who was, as much as Bush didn’t want to believe it, an actual journalist worthy of his respect — for forcing him to suffer through such an indignity. Watching that interview was what made me say, out loud, “Fuck this guy.”

But 20 years later, MTV has changed — drastically. Its programming is now the worst kind of noxious crap and any hint of actual social or political consciousness has long since been abandoned in favor of consistently vulgar stupidity; where there once were music videos and a surprising variety of passionate, creative and independent voices being mainlined into the pop cultural blood stream, there are now marathons of Jersey Shore and Teen Mom. And before anyone points out the irony, no, this opinion doesn’t stem from my having morphed, over the past two decades, into George Bush. MTV’s nearly-all-reality format acts as a kind of cancer on youth culture, incessantly dumbing it down rather than adding anything meaningful to it. If you’re a kid and you watch a lot of MTV, chances are you’re a fucking idiot.

With that in mind it’s no surprise that MTV has just announced, presumably for the benefit of the audience it’s helped to turn into a bunch of chimps pounding at buttons and throwing feces, that its contribution to getting out the youth vote this election will be a fantasy football-style online game, only with politics. In fact, the game is actually called “Fantasy Election 2012″ and will involve the user joining a “league” and putting together a team of potential political leaders who’ll then be regularly scored according to their behavior by, God help us, Politifact, as well as Project Vote Smart. Clever? Somewhat. Completely pointless as an exercise in helping American kids get serious about politics? Oh hell yes.

The Huffington Post nicely sums up the WTF-edness of it all:

The gamification idea came after extensive research revealed how game culture has infiltrated most aspects of younger generations’ daily lives — from how many “likes” a picture got on Facebook to comparing who has more Twitter followers to use of phrases like “winning” or “fail.” MTV’s goal is to draw the already-politically minded of the 18-29 year-old demographic, but also those who might not otherwise keep up with the news or vote in the election.

Under normal circumstances I’d say that MTV deserves a certain amount of credit for thinking outside of the box in an attempt to get young people who might not be interested in politics involved in the process. Unfortunately, by creating the path of absolute least resistance for its audience between 16 and Pregnant and the White House the network is doing more harm than good. Politics isn’t a game and doesn’t deserve to be treated as one. No one’s saying that MTV’s get-out-the-vote campaign has to be staid and dull — or bear any resemblance to the coverage tactics of supposedly mainstream outlets, which are by and large ridiculous on their own — but to willfully refuse to even try to elevate the discussion of something as important as who’s elected to the presidency for the next four years does nothing but make a bad situation worse. Yes, young people live in a world of Facebook “likes” and internet memes and “winning” and “fail” — it doesn’t mean that MTV should once again mirror and perpetuate that kind of lowest-common-denominator anti-thinking in an effort to introduce American kids to one of the most substantial subjects in the world.

MTV has been handed an opportunity to, for once, not feed the cycle of complete ignorance on the part of its audience — and of course it’s going to “fail” miserably. The network used to take politics seriously, with real news specials and real journalists providing real information to help young people make one of the most important decisions of their lives. Now, it’s literally playing games.

Of course given how devoted MTV has been over the past several years to ensuring that the next generation of voters is clinically brain dead, maybe it’s a good idea if MTV’s audience doesn’t get anywhere near a voting booth in November anyway.

I voted for Clinton 20 years ago thanks in part to MTV’s political coverage. Today, if I watched a lot of MTV, I’d probably try to vote for JWoww. Although, come to think of it, so would Clinton.

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Romney vs Bush: Which one is worse?

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Daily Banter Mail Bag! Today we talk about boycotting Chick-Fil-A, whether it’s acceptable not to vote for Obama this fall if you’re a Democrat, and whether Romney is as bad as George W. Bush as a Presidential candidate.
The questions:
I like chick fil a and as much as I like gay rights…help me out here. What do I do?

Jason (ps I’m gay…)

Bob: Abandon Chick-Fil-A, if not for yourself, for others in the LGBT community who will be hurt by Chick-Fil-A’s donations to various “pro-family” groups. I assure you, there are thousands of other places in which to get some decent chicken that’s way better than that place. Check the phone book or Yelp or Chez’s Facebook page for various restaurant suggestions. Seriously, fuck those people. Their chicken isn’t *that* good.

Chez: Yeah, I kind of had the same problem. I’m not gay but obviously I don’t want to give money to an organization that will then turn around and give it to groups like the Family Research Council, who basically work for a biblically approved America and who want to see homosexuality specifically stricken from society. I made the personal decision not to eat at Chick-fil-A. I’m not suggesting that anyone else abandon the restaurant and I’m certainly not ambitious enough to lead some kind of boycott, but it’s just how I feel personally. Sorry, man, but you have to make the call for yourself. I’m a big fan of those chicken salad sandwiches, but for all I know it’s the homophobia that makes it taste so good — ergo, I’m out.

Ben Cohen: I have never actually heard of Chick-Fil-A, but after the whole anti gay hullabaloo, I won’t be going there. However, I’m not sure if I would do the same for a restaurant I do like going to – and I’m trying to be honest here. A lot of companies are engaged in some horrifically shady behavior. I’m writing this on a Mac computer, and we all know how they treat their factory employees. I buy Nike shoes on occasion, and they aren’t exactly good when it comes to paying their workers either. Everyone’s a hypocrite in some regard, and I don’t want to start lecturing people on what they should and shouldn’t buy. I agree in concept with ‘ethical buying’ but it can become so complicated and difficult to discern exactly what that is, that the only way to be sure is to go and live in a forest and eat berries. And I’m not up for that.

Mitt Romney behavior abroad has seriously woken me up. This guy is such a f****g clown. How the hell can any American with the vaguest sense of civic responsibility not vote for Obama? It’s so embarrassing as an American to see this type of behavior from a supposedly serious politician. Are there any reasons left to sit at home in November? Seriously? Please, let me know if there are any.
Sean P.

Chez: Don’t even get me started.

Bob: Drone strikes! Sit at home because of drones! Then watch Romney get elected and use drones — and real soldiers instead, so we’re not just racking up collateral damage, we’re also losing more soldiers. Get it? Anyone who thinks that staying home will change things is insane and should probably be ignored.

Ben: Um, no. I really can’t think of any. I would urge anyone deep inside the Glenn Greenwald/Jane Hamsher militant anti Obama club to seriously think about what they are advocating when it comes to boycotting him this fall. I’m not a fan of many of Obama’s policies, but there’s a lot of stuff I do agree with him on. And there’s literally nothing in Romney’s ‘Believe in America’ plan that I find even mildly acceptable. It’s basically a radical series of policies to completely dismantle what’s left of government infrastructure and hand it over to private interests, destroy welfare and severely screw up an already highly dysfunctional healthcare system. Obama and the Democrats are literally the last thing left in America preventing the complete corporate take over of the country, and as much as they suck, they can still stop a huge amount of damage. Want to know how bad it could get? You already do. Look at what happened from 2000 to 20008.

I don’t know why everyone is calling Romney the worst GOP candidate ever. The guy is a tool, but compared to GW, he’s a saint. Do you seriously think it could get worse than 2000-2008? I’m not saying I’m voting for the guy but I think everyone’s going a bit over board with the apocalyptic predictions. Romney is from Massachusetts for heavens sake. Hardcore Republicans don’t even exist there.
Mike Lowell

Ben: The only reason I’m sounding the alarm bells when it comes to Mitt Romney is the state of the economy and fragility of the Middle East. He may not be the worst candidate in history, but he’s highly dangerous given the current economic/political climate. In terms of charisma and talent, then yes, he’s probably about the worst I can think of. Dubya was an idiot, but he was at least entertaining.

Bob: He’s not the worst GOP candidate ever. Are you saying “worst” as in most dangerous or “worst” as in the most idiotic and pathetic? I think he’s the most cynical and jittery candidate ever, but not the worst in either category. However, he could be the worst president ever, that’s for sure, especially when he overturns every Obama achievement and turns the Supreme Court fully to the right for another generation.

Chez: I wrote a Banter piece this week that pondered whether Mitt Romney was one of the worst candidates the GOP has ever run. The thing is, I’m talking about him as a candidate — not as a president. As I said in the column, Romney is an epically privileged former college bully and an established, unapologetic corporate raider who seems incapable of actual human empathy and who can’t go a full week without telling at least a half-dozen lies — this is the guy the Republicans have nominated for president during an era of unprecedented financial inequity in this country. I’m not saying he can’t win — only that he’s a terrible, terrible candidate. The GOP leadership doesn’t like him. The people for the most part don’t like him. There isn’t a Republican alive, aside from the asshole aristocracy just like him, who truly wants this guy to be his or her first choice to go to the prom. As for how he’d be as president, the issue is that he’s the blankest of blank slates, completely shallow and superficial and without the slightest possession of a backbone; he would do whatever he was told to ingratiate himself to the Republican base and the super rich who elected him — and that’s a frightening thought.

Got a question for the mailbag? Email us at TheDailyBanter@gmail.com and we’ll get to it next week!!

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