It’s official: Mitt Romney has decided this election is about the base, and not the center. From BuzzFeed:

Three Romney advisers told BuzzFeed the campaign’s top priority now is to rally conservative Republicans, in hopes that they’ll show up on Election Day, and drag their less politically-engaged friends with them. The earliest, ambiguous signal of this turn toward the party’s right was the selection of Rep. Paul Ryan as Romney’s running mate, a top Romney aide said.

“This is going to be a base election, and we need them to come out to vote,” the aide said, explaining the pick.

Another adviser, who also discussed strategy on the condition of anonymity, described the campaign’s key targets as Republican activists: “The people who are going to talk to their neighbors, drive them to the polls on Election Day, and hold their hands on the way in to vote.”

As Sen. Lindsey Graham observed, there aren’t enough angry white people to keep the GOP in business for much longer, so this seems like a pretty foolhardy strategy. George W. Bush won the 2004 election by driving out the base, but he had some charisma and actually resonated with his core constituency. Romney however doesn’t resonate at all with the base so it seems like a pretty silly strategy to build an entire campaign around getting them out to vote. Maybe if he had focused on the center by appearing rational, he would be in this election with a fighting chance. But he didn’t and he isn’t, much to the relief of anyone with a semblance of common sense.

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Say what you want about the President, the mans temperament is nothing short of astonishing. The current crisis in Libya has again demonstrated the difference between Obama and Romney.  One is a world class leader with a seriously cool head and the other a third rate buffoon playing at leader while wrecking everything around him. Romney’s behavior has been nothing short of disgusting, while the President has refused to jump the gun and has been reasonable and measured in his response to the mayhem.

Notes Andrew Sullivan:

I remain of the view – it has strengthened over these past four years – that while Barack Obama is obviously fallible, has made mistakes (blowing off Bowles-Simpson too soon), gaffes (“you didn’t build that”), and one critical miscalculation in the debt ceiling end-game (asking for more revenue just as Boehner was being cut off at the knees by Ryan and Cantor), he is also one of the coolest temperaments to have sat in that chair. What people don’t note enough is both the self-discipline (that we know doesn’t come easily) and the zen-like calm he exudes. Occasionally I ask some sources close to him how he reacted to some piece of news or the other. They almost all say that his range of emotion is about a tenth of the average human being – and that he is as intent on being a good father and husband as being a good president. He is cool not in the pop culture sense, but in the “old soul” sense. This is why so many wavering Americans still like him. In an ocean of drama, he is an oasis of public calm.

Without getting into the policy aspect of the Presidential race, you have to give it to Obama. He knows how to keep his head in a crisis.

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The poorhouse: Where most people will live under a Romney Presidency

By Ben Cohen: If you want to understand the type of country a politician wants to build, it is often a good idea to take a look into the life they built for themselves before stepping onto the national stage. Obviously it’s not the only indicator, but someone who has dedicated their life to public service would be more likely to have a more socially minded vision for the country as opposed to a businessman who has spent a lifetime dedicated to profit making.

Let’s take the two Presidential candidates this year. One of them, Barack Obama was a community organizer and a law professor, while the other, Mitt Romney worked exclusively in private equity and asset management.

During his tenure as President, Obama has to a degree reflected the life he led before coming into office. The President has fought to maintain the social safety net and provide support for the poorest people in America. His record on civil rights is not fantastic, but his commitment to using what is left of government to do good from an economic standpoint is fairly clear. He passed the stimulus package, reformed health care and extended unemployment, all in the face of an opposition that did everything in its power to stop him.

Mitt Romney on the other hand has spent most of his adult life making extraordinary amounts of money through private equity, and a short spell in government passing tax cuts for the wealthy.

The picture is obviously more complicated than this – Obama’s record on standing up to Wall St is pretty desultory and his policy is certainly not reflective of his social background or rhetoric, and Romney passed a widely praised health care plan in Massachusetts that did benefit the economically disadvantaged.

But as a whole, the difference is pretty clear – at least for office in 2012. The community organizer from a disadvantaged background is running on a platform to help the poor and middle classes, while the private equity rich kid is running on a platform to almost exclusively cater to the rich at the expense of everyone else.

If you look more closely at Mitt Romney’s professional background, a very disturbing picture emerges. Matt Taibbi’s excellent piece in Rolling Stone takes a good stab at trying to understand Romney’s pre-political life and his world view, and it’s a pretty frightening account of his life as a modern capitalist titan. Writes Taibbi:

Romney was a prime mover in the radical social and political transformation that was cooked up by Wall Street beginning in the 1980s. In fact, you can trace the whole history of the modern age of financialization just by following the highly specific corner of the economic universe inhabited by the leveraged buyout business, where Mitt Romney thrived. If you look at the number of leveraged buyouts dating back two or three decades, you see a clear pattern: Takeovers rose sharply with each of Wall Street’s great easy-money schemes, then plummeted just as sharply after each of those scams crashed and burned, leaving the rest of us with the bill.

In the Eighties, when Romney and Bain were cutting their teeth in the LBO business, the primary magic trick involved the junk bonds pioneered by convicted felon Mike Milken, which allowed firms like Bain to find easy financing for takeovers by using wildly overpriced distressed corporate bonds as collateral. Junk bonds gave the Gordon Gekkos of the world sudden primacy over old-school industrial titans like the Fords and the Rockefellers: For the first time, the ability to make deals became more valuable than the ability to make stuff, and the ability to instantly engineer billions in illusory financing trumped the comparatively slow process of making and selling products for gradual returns.

Romney basically helped pioneer a horrific form of vulture capitalism that saw financial trickery and leverage as legitimate ways of creating inordinate amounts of wealth through massive amounts of debt. The trick at Bain was to buy companies with other people’s money, load them with debt, then get out before the house burnt down with a massive pay off for themselves. It worked brilliantly – at least for Romney and his fellow finance pals – but not so much for the companies that were often left crippled by the deals they made. As Jesse Eisinger at ProPublicanotes:

The Wall Street Journal found that many of the businesses Bain bought went bust, even when Bain reaped big financial wins. The paper analyzed 77 businesses Bain invested in while Mr. Romney led the firm from its 1984 start until early 1999, finding that 22 percent either filed for bankruptcy reorganization or closed their doors by the end of the eighth year after Bain first invested. An additional 8 percent ran into so much trouble that all of the money Bain invested was lost. .

It is stunning that a candidate running almost exclusively on reducing the deficit spent a lifetime accumulating debt for other people then walking away as they crumbled underneath it. But no matter for Romney who has always emerged unscathed from the looting his company engaged in. He’s a multi millionaire, and proof at least in his own head that anyone can make it in America.

Mitt Romney is running on a platform to codify this type of vulture capitalism, and astonishingly, he picked a running mate even more extreme than him. Writes Ezra Klein:

In picking Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney has doubled down on his own campaign promise to give big tax breaks to the wealthy, uniting himself with a candidate who goes even further to do so: While Romney would bring taxes for top incomes down to 28 percent, Ryan has proposed bringing the top rate down even lower, to 25 percent. Meanwhile, Ryan’s plan would actually increase the effective tax rate on the very poorest Americans by getting rid of tax breaks that benefit low earners.

So this is the world envisioned by Romney and his side kick Ryan – a bleak, cutthroat society where the poor are left to fend for themselves and the rich given more power and control over everyone’s lives with the explicit protection of the federal government. Says Taibbi:

Obama ran on “change” in 2008, but Mitt Romney represents a far more real and seismic shift in the American landscape. Romney is the frontman and apostle of an economic revolution, in which transactions are manufactured instead of products, wealth is generated without accompanying prosperity, and Cayman Islands partnerships are lovingly erected and nurtured while American communities fall apart. The entire purpose of the business model that Romney helped pioneer is to move money into the archipelago from the places outside it, using massive amounts of taxpayer-subsidized debt to enrich a handful of billionaires. It’s a vision of society that’s crazy, vicious and almost unbelievably selfish, yet it’s running for president, and it has a chance of winning. Perhaps that change is coming whether we like it or not. Perhaps Mitt Romney is the best man to manage the transition. But it seems a little early to vote for that kind of wholesale surrender.

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You’ve got to give it to Mitt – he never misses a chance to lie. From the Huff Post:

Romney, in a statement released Tuesday night, had called the president’s handling of the Libya and Egypt attacks “disgraceful.” Wednesday morning, Romney hastily scrapped a campaign rally in Jacksonville, Fla., dismantling a campaign stage, and instead held a small press conference in which he repeatedly defended his criticism of the administration, slamming embassy officials in Cairo and President Obama. “When our grounds are being attacked, and being breached, that the first response of the United States must be outrage at the breach of the sovereignty of our nation. And apology for America’s values is never the right course,” he said, slamming the Obama administration for “sympathiz[ing] with those who waged the attacks.”

Steve Kornacki at Salon clears up the gigantic distortion:

That’s not at all what happened, of course. The actual chronology goes something like this: As anti-American protests inspired by a crude Terry Jones video began gathering steam, the U.S. embassy in Cairo – and not the Obama White House — put out a statement condemning “the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims — as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions.”

The obvious intent was to cool the passions of the protesters. As Marc Ambinder explained, it was “exactly what Americans inside the embassy who are scared for their lives now and worry about revenge later need to have released in their name.”

Protests were also building in Libya, and sometime later the U.S. consulate in Benghazi came under siege, with news breaking late Tuesday night that a State Department official had been killed. It was around this time that two major American political figures released statements. One came from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and read: “I condemn in the strongest terms the attack on our mission. We are heartbroken by this terrible loss. There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.” The other was Romney’s.

It has since been learned that a total of four people – the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and three of his staff members – were killed in the attacks. President Obama has now issued a statement condemning the assault, praising Stevens, and pledging “all necessary resources to support the security of our personnel in Libya, and to increase security at our diplomatic posts around the globe.”

Romney’s willful misrepresentation of the President’s position is a disgusting and shameful attempt to paint Obama as an anti American terrorist sympathizer. This time the lie is so blatant it makes Romney look distinctly un Presidential and could serve as another turning point in the election. As BuzzFeed notes:

“They were just trying to score a cheap news cycle hit based on the embassy statement and now it’s just completely blown up,” said a very senior Republican foreign policy hand, who called the statement an “utter disaster” and a “Lehman moment” — a parallel to the moment when John McCain, amid the 2008 financial crisis, failed to come across as a steady leader.

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President Obama at the 2012 Democratic Convention

By Ben Cohen: I live blogged Obama’s speech last night and was left a little underwhelmed by it and couldn’t quite put my finger on exactly why. Jonathan Chait has a very insightful piece in the New York Magazine that sums up my feelings on the speech that was a bit of a let down but still did what was necessary to define the election in terms favorable to the Democrats. He writes:

The speech came, by and large, as a disappointment to political journalists and other campaign junkies. We have heard almost all of it before. The speech was probably aimed at undecided voters, who spend almost no time following politics. They received the paint-by-numbers outline of the election choice.

And I think this was pretty much exactly the strategy – a calculated play that aimed to cash in on the Obama of 2008.  But while the speech contained a lot of flowery rhetoric, it was a little less than four years ago and there were bolder definitions of the struggle most Americans face on a day to day basis and the choice they have this election – and that was a good thing. Obama basically told Americans: You are not alone, you can make a difference, and you decide how you want your government to operate. He said:

You’re the reason there’s a little girl with a heart disorder in Phoenix who’ll get the surgery she needs because an insurance company can’t limit her coverage. You did that.

You’re the reason a young man in Colorado who never thought he’d be able to afford his dream of earning a medical degree is about to get that chance. You made that possible.

You’re the reason a young immigrant who grew up here and went to school here and pledged allegiance to our flag will no longer be deported from the only country she’s ever called home; why selfless soldiers won’t be kicked out of the military because of who they are or who they love; why thousands of families have finally been able to say to the loved ones who served us so bravely: “Welcome home.”

The President rammed home this theme over and over again, highlighting the stark difference in philosophy between the Republicans and the Democrats. He basically offered a full throttled defense of the philosophy of liberalism with no apologies. And it seems to me that this is a crucial measure needed to box Romney in over the coming months. Writes Chait:

Obama poured vast swaths of American society and history into the communitarian frame – soldiers, teachers, public-spirited business owners, and so on – all in some sense emblemizing shared responsibility…..This theme appeared in Obama’s rhetoric four years ago, too. If there’s a difference between now and then, it is this: During his first campaign, Obama saw the blend of individual and communal responsibility as the obvious, shared belief of the entire country. Now he has come to see it as the belief of an embattled half of America.

Look, there’s not a huge amount of policy difference between the candidates or parties – enough to make a difference in the real world, but its not as if it’s socialism vs capitalism. It’s basically unfettered capitalism with no safety net vs slightly regulated capitalism with a bit of a safety net. There is however a serious divide when it comes to the underpinnings of their philosophies, and the Democrats clearly feel that this can make or break the election. As Bob Cesca writes:

This might not have felt like the Iowa speech from 2008, but it will be remembered as an historic one because it defined the new Democratic Party — it defined the composition of government and the significant role it can take in American life.

It was basically a beliefs speech that drew a line in the sand between Liberalism and Conservatism, and it dared Romney to up the ante over the coming months. This, I think, was an excellent strategic move because Romney has chosen to denounce literally everything Obama believes in and present himself as a stark alternative to the President’s ‘socialistic’ ways. This means Romney has to present a nastier, meaner vision for America, and the Democrats are betting on voters not buying into it. Obama laid out a vision for an inclusive America where citizens help each other and government does good rather than bad – a brighter future for a country ravaged by the excesses of corporations and banks that cannot afford to go back to its old ways.

And it seems like a good bet to me.

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As much as Glenn Greenwald irritates me, his scathing break down of the US Presidential elections is right on the money:

The reason I write so little about the presidential election is that it’s the ultimate expression of the CNN-ization of American politics: a tawdry, uber-contrived reality show that has less to do with political reality than the average rant one hears at any randomly chosen corner bar or family dinner. That does not mean the outcome is irrelevant, only that the process is suffocatingly dumb and deceitful, generating the desire to turn away and hope that it’s over as quickly as possible….

Strong and rational though it may be, the temptation to ignore entirely the election year spectacle should be resisted. Despite its shallow and manipulative qualities – or, more accurately, because of them – this process has some serious repercussions for American political life.

The election process is where American politicians go to be venerated and glorified, all based on trivial personality attributes that have zero relationship to what they do with their power, but which, by design, convinces Americans that they’re blessed to be led by people with such noble and sterling character, no matter how much those political figures shaft them.

Part of me feels ashamed to write endlessly about the horse race that pits the leaders of two corrupt political parties against each other in what mostly resembles a fashion show, and I agree with Greenwald about it’s increasing irrelevance to reality. What Obama and Romney say on the campaign trail does not correlate to action when in office – the relentless sound bytes are repeated only to attract particular demographics, not as a precursor to actual policy.

However, the seriousness of the outcome is enough to keep me going – every election cycle is another opportunity for disaster, with the Democratic Party being the only bloc of power left to prevent the disintegration of government and the potential for more disastrous war in the Middle East. I would love to write about the intricacies of policy difference between the two parties, the nuances in their proposed foreign policy, and the ins and outs of their economic agenda. But the sad truth is that while one side is still engaged with reality, the other exists in cuckoo land where simple things like adding up are ignored, and evidence dismissed as conspiracy. I occasionally sift through Republican policy proposals, but they are so ridiculous they are never worth taking seriously.

The main stream media has no interest in objective reporting or facts, and yes it is slowly but surely aiding the destruction of the democratic process. These are all huge problems that deserve our attention. But right now, keeping the Right out of power should be priority number one, and for that reason, I’m going to keep writing about the elections, no matter how maddening it is.

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I’m still currently on vacation, so won’t be posting lengthy pieces on the Banter till next week. Given election season really is warming up, it’s a shame not to be diving into this stuff full throttle, but I’ve been working flat out without a single break for almost a year so out of necessity had to take a bit of time off.

Anyhow, despite trying to isolate myself from anything political, I was sent a video clip of Mitt Romney making his birther joke (video above) and felt obliged to weigh in on the debacle. Said Romney on a campaign stop in Michigan:

“I love being home, in this place where Ann and I were raised, where both of us were born… Ann was born in Henry Ford Hospital, I was born in Harper Hospital. No one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate; they know that this is the place that we were born and raised,”

The Romney camp tried to pass it off as their candidate paying homage to his birth place, but anyone with half a brain could see that it was a dig at Obama and an attempt to rile up the conservative base that still does not accept Obama as a legitimate President or American citizen.

It probably had the desired effect, just as Romney’s subtly racist language has in the past. But from a strategic point of view, it was a very, very bad move.

Writes Greg Sargent:

Maybe this will get chalked up to Romney’s awkwardness and get dismissed, but it looks to me like a major mistake. Coming just after days spent debating Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” remark, this is again a reminder of the extreme voices in the GOP, which Romney has at times been slow to denounce. And it seems less than presidential, to put it mildly. The fact that uncomfortably large numbers still believe Obama has perpetrated an elaborate plot to fake his birthplace and ascend to the presidency illegitimately is a pretty damn big deal.

It will be easy for the Obama campaign to seize on this to raise questions about Romney’s judgment, temperament, and character. Wow.

Romney has a huge problem on his hands this election, and that is how to simultaneously appeal to the GOP base that doesn’t trust him, or to the center that doesn’t like him. It seems that Romney has opted, at least for now, to go for the base – hence the Paul Ryan VP pick and the ‘joke’ about Obama’s birth certificate. The problem is that the base is now so far out to the Right that by the simple virtue of engaging with them, Romney isolates himself further from the center. No reasonable, educated person in America would have found Romney’s joke funny, or bought that he didn’t mean it. They would have found it offensive, snide, and unnecessary. Compared to Obama’s consistent tone of rationality and civility, Romney is coming across as a mean spirited frat boy who believes he is entitled to the Presidency because he is rich and white.

As Sargent notes, this behavior is distinctly un-Presidential and it will cost Romney in terms of credibility. Obama has an ability to rise above the fray and not get embroiled in bitchy back and forths with his adversaries. In the short term, this doesn’t always bode well for the President, but in the long term, he wins. Romney may have won a few cheap laughs in Michigan with his insinuation that Obama isn’t really an American, but he will lose when it comes to the opinions of the majority of Americans who still value honorable conduct in their leaders.

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by Ari Rutenberg

Editor’s Note: Ben Cohen is on vacation for a few days, so I’ll been posting in his stead.  If there are any topics of particular interest to readers that have not been covered, please let me know and I’ll do my best to get something going.  Also I love conversation and discussion, so please comment and engage!

Over the past few days, there have been two instances of what I would call accidental honesty on the part of the GOP.  The first was Todd Akin’s comment that women who have been legitimately raped rarely get pregnant (on which you can read more here from the great Oliver Willis).  The second is Ohio elections official Doug Priesse’s statement that “I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban — read African-American — voter-turnout machine” (more here from the Columbus Dispatch). Every politically active person in this country is aware that many on the right agree with Messrs. Akin and Priesse, even if the GOP won’t always come out so forthrightly a state these positions.

Aside from my fundamental disagreement, and no small amount of disgust at such blatantly discriminatory statements, what really bothers me about this is the media’s reaction to it, and to any other event where they are actually given the information they ask for.

For months, the media (in this case the MSM and left-wing press) have been talking about the awful voter discrimination that is taking place in states like Florida and Ohio.  They have been very accurately pointing out that its because many GOP voters and pols feel that  black people and other minorities are likely to commit voter fraud, despite the complete lack of evidence to support such statements.  Yet when these statements actually come out, rather that reacting seriously the media feigns surprise and starts freaking out.

Kind of like Romney’s tax return.  We all know that he’s paid very little taxes.  Whether its 5%, 3%, or 0% I don’t care, and I don’t think most voters really care.  Yet if he were actually to release the rest of them, rather than taking it as an opportunity to seriously examine the iniquity and insanity of our tax code (like why is income above $110,100 exempt from payroll taxes?), the media would spend a month going “holy shit Mitt Romney hasn’t paid any income taxes”, despite the fact that we all already know that and have already been discussing it for a year or more.

I’m really sick of stupid media game because none of it contributes to solving these problems.  Even from journalists I generally agree with.  I want to see a serious discussion of these issues.  Yes its a problem that Romney has been such a stingy bastard, but the problem is that the system allows him to do so.  In the same way, yes its an issue that the minor schmuck in Ohio doesn’t want to let black people have extended voting hours, but the real problem is that the GOP has a real problem with equal protection of the law when it come to people who disagree with them, and minorities in general.  Its not just voting law, and we need to have a serious discussion about why Republican’s don’t think equal protection means equal protection.

What do they think it means, and how can we educate them on sectors of the population they don’t understand and thus don’t trust?  Rather than just saying “ha! see you guys really are racist, sexist assholes” (which is true but irrelevant), we need to engage them and figure out how we’re going to live together.  If the great experiment that we all call home is to survive and flourish, we need to try engaging, discussing, learning, and educating rather than waiting for accidentally honest gotcha moments and shallow factual victories to give the MSM an excuse to feign shock and horror at things they already know to be true.

What do you think?

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Paul Ryan pick announced via twitter

The Daily Banter Headline Grab (via the Guardian):

Mitt Romney has confirmed his selection of Paul Ryan as his vice-presidential running mate, stating that he is “proud” to have the Wisconsin congressman on the Republican White House ticket.

In a tweet sent out ahead of a formal announcement Saturday, the presidential candidate said: “I am proud to announce @PaulRyanVP as my VP. Stand with us today.”

Via his newly created Twitter handle @PaulRyanVP, the vice-presidential candidate tweeted: “I’m honored to join @MittRomney on America’s Comeback Team. mi.tt/Romney-Ryan #RomneyRyan2012″

The surprise pick comes after months of speculation over who the former Massachusetts governor would pick as his running mate ahead of November’s election.

Ryan, a 42-year-old conservative who has become the leading Republican voice on spending cuts, was earlier confirmed by a Romney campaign app.

“Mitt’s choice for VP is Paul Ryan. Spread the word about America’s comeback team,” it stated.

It confirmed rumours that had been circulating since late Friday, when it was announced that Romney’s VP pick would be made public today.

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A match made in heaven?

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Daily Banter Mailbag! Today, Bob, Ben and Chez discuss the insider secret that Obama’s victory is almost guaranteed, whether the latest edition of ‘The Newsroom’ was in bad taste and how crazy Romney would be to pick Newt Gingrich as his running mate.

The questions:Did you read Michael Tomasky’s piece in The Daily Beast about Obama’s virtually assured victory via the electoral college? It seems like a fairly airtight argument. Do you think that’s why Romney just lies and lies and lies? Maybe it’s because he’s panicking. They just don’t stop even when caught out with a whopper. The just move on to the next lie and hope something sticks. It looks desperate to me. What do you guys think?
Amanda Shelby

Chez: Yeah, I read it. It does seem like a pretty airtight argument and I really appreciated his contention that the reason you’ll never hear anybody in the political press talking about it at this stage of the campaign is that it takes all the fun and drama out of it — all the phony it’s-a-tight-race nonsense that drives ratings and page views. I’ve said before that I think Mitt Romney is the worst candidate the GOP has produced in, well, maybe ever; he’s certainly the wrong guy at this stage in our history (although, more than that, he’s a completely inept as a politician gunning for the White House). But the one place I worry is when I look at how much money he’s raising. Yeah, it’s true that money won’t technically buy you the presidency when you’re a candidate nobody likes, but it can do a lot of damage — as we’ve seen. I think if things keep going as they are, Obama should be fine and Romney should be a historical footnote in a couple of months, but it’s true that anything can happen.

Bob: Romney’s strategic lying is the natural extension of cynical Rove-style politics of the previous decade. They’re calculated that the upside of getting people to believe the lie outweighs the downside hit they’d take when the lies were debunked. Meanwhile, the Tomasky piece was interesting but I’m not counting on anything right now. Anything can happen and it’s only August. The worst thing that could happen would be for Democrats to get complacent — and that sort of thing always happens. Romney could absolutely still win, and Democrats should be extraordinarily vigilant until all of the votes are counted.

Ben: I blogged about this earlier in the week Amanda. While I think Tomasky is probably right, I’m not ready to call it a day just yet. And while there is a lot of truth to the notion that the media are making this into a two-way race to get ratings, it is still worth getting very worried just because of how much money Romney is accumulating. I cannot overstate just how dangerous a Romney Presidency would be at this stage in history, and as long as the guy still has a heart beat, I’m worried. I do think Romney is panicking a bit and that’s why he is saying pretty much anything to anyone, but he represents the interests of extreme wealth and power so he will remain dangerous due to the insane amount of money he can get his hands on. I’m pretty cynical about politics and the media in general, but when you have one political party that would be considered fascist extremists in any other country outside of Saudi Arabia, I’m all for the dog and pony show if the other side is winning it.

Why did everyone go gaga over the latest episode of ‘The Newsroom’? It was typical ‘Go America!’ BS. Celebrating killing anyone is pretty sick regardless of what they have done. Imagine an Iraqi had managed to kill George Bush after he fucked their entire country up. How would Americans feel about the Arab world dancing in the streets? Would Aaron Sorkin be making sappy tv shows idolizing Iraqi patriotism? I don’t think so.
James

Ben: I was at the White House the night they announced the death of Bin Laden, and I felt pretty confused about it as a Brit. I didn’t know anyone who was killed during 9/11, so didn’t feel so emotionally connected to it as the people out on the streets celebrating. If I’m honest, I did feel a little uneasy about cheering the death of someone, even though it was a psychopathic mass murderer. Perhaps it would have been different had something that colossal happened in my home city, London, but it didn’t, so I don’t know. We had 7/7, but it paled in comparison to 9/11. I saw The Newsroom episode and that it was pretty crass. I don’t get that type of American patriotism – I’m a Brit so I guess we just process things differently. However, I’ve been in America so long that I understand that that’s just the way Americans are. I’m not a fan of it, but a part of me now gets where it comes from. Not sure if that answers the question, but I’m just being honest.

Chez: What I liked about the last episode of “The Newsroom” was the way it very authentically depicted the drip-drip-drip nature of what happens when a very big story breaks and what it feels like to cover a story that honestly changes history. Granted, Sorkin couldn’t help but throw in all those little subplots that have often distracted from the main thrust of the show, but the way he related the tension, frustration and exhilaration as each little detail came into focus was right on the money. Now, as for your issue with the tone of the show, you’re of course entitled to your opinion — the same way that I’m entitled to tell you that you’re a fucking idiot. Spare me the aloof, hyper-liberal moral relativism, James. Having worked at Ground Zero following the 9/11 attacks — and as an American in general, and one who’s incredibly proud of his country despite its many faults — yes, I teared up, broke down, hugged my friends and even did the Snoopy dance when I learned that our Navy SEALS had put a bullet through Bin Laden’s head. And so I very much appreciated Sorkin — who by the way is liberal to a fault — relating the various emotions that went through most Americans’ heads and hearts on that night, including the satisfaction and relief that the guy who had killed thousands of our people had himself been killed. There are times — provided you’re not some patronizing asshole — when you stop analyzing every little goddamn thing and just accept that you’re going to FEEL things that may be somewhat questionable but that that’s just the way it is. I was thrilled the night we killed Bin Laden — and I still am. But by all means, you go right on lecturing.

Bob: Sorry, James, but the killing of Bin Laden was significant and, honestly, I didn’t lose any sleep over it. This is the reality of world affairs and American politics. There was no other viable option and, if nothing else, it offered some sense of closure for the victims of 9/11. When Bin Laden orchestrated those attacks he stepped onto a global battlefield and all bets were off. And regarding “Go America BS” I would recommend that liberals embrace a little patriotism once in a while. There’s nothing that’s exclusively conservative or right-wing about recognizing the history and significance of the United States, and yet they’ve practically branded the flag as their own. That’s a travesty and we let it happen.

Hey guys, do you think Gingrich is really trying to get on the Romney ticket? The dude went psycho on Romney during the primary and barely gave him the seal of approval after he burnt out and lost all his money. Is Gingrich really that mental? On what planet would Newt be a good pick for VP? Maybe I am not seeing it but are there demographics he can reach that Romney needs? help me out here.
Jeff Kowalsky

Bob: Of course he is! Gingrich’s primary goal is for political power. At this point, he’d steamroll a busload of Young Republicans to get to the White House. Besides, primaries are always brutal. In 1980, George Bush referred to Reagan’s economic plan as “voodoo economics” and so forth, and yet they ended up on the ticket together. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were merciless on each other and she went on to endorse Obama, speak at the convention and accept the nomination for Secretary of State. It’s all politics.

Chez: Gingrich is one of the most conniving politicians the right has produced in recent memory — a guy who wants power for power’s sake and would do anything to attain it. He may hate Romney but oh how he’d love to be one step away from the Oval Office. I’m assuming, though, that Romney knows this and would never in a million years pick him for VP because if he did his first cabinet appointment would have to be a royal food-taster, like the kind kings used to have centuries ago, since I’m pretty sure Gingrich’s days would be consumed by Buster Keaton-style plots to kill Romney by poisoning his lunch, pushing him down a well, dropping a piano on him, etc. etc.

Ben: I hope to God Romney picks Gingrich as his VP. It would make for fantastic TV and a hilarious Presidential election. Can you imagine the spats between Gingrich’s handlers and Romney’s people? Gingrich is limitlessly narcissistic and ambitious and I would bet money he’d stage a coup at some point arguing Romney wasn’t up to the job and that only he, emperor of fantasy moon colonies, would be capable of rescuing America from the grip of the Satanic Muslim Obama. In reality though, Romney’s people aren’t stupid and there’s no way they’d risk their candidates chances by adding a loose cannon like Gingrich onto the ticket.

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