Hullabaloo

Friday, October 12, 2007

 
A Real Problem

by digby

Competence

Just a few weeks after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in August 2005, a veteran Republican strategist remarked to me, "I am really worried about whether we can hold our majorities next year."

He was the first person to suggest such a thing to me during the last election cycle.

"We're supposed to be the party of competence," this Republican professional explained. "When we look incompetent, it's a real problem."

Apparently it hasn't occurred to them that nominating the Village idiot might have been their first mistake.

And they're about to do it again:

Rudy wants you to know that he has read the brief, knows the facts, and could organize an orderly evacuation of the building if someone yelled "fire." When voters see him in command on stage, it's probable that they are reminded of his calm public face after the 9/11 attacks. The strong performances also help Giuliani's argument that he can beat Hillary Clinton. She's a polished and effective debater, too. He's showing he can match her.

But one secret to Giuliani's debate success is that he doesn't mind fudging all those facts he cites. In the Tuesday debate, Giuliani asserted once again that he had passed 23 tax cuts as New York mayor. This is an exaggeration. According to Factcheck.org and Politifact.com, he can rightly claim credit for about 14 of those cuts. One of the largest cuts for which he claims credit he initially opposed for five months before changing his position. He also claims to have added more cops in New York than he actually did and cherry-picks data to support inflated claims about the number of adoptions during his tenure. After the Tuesday debate, Factcheck.org found a host of new faulty claims.

I don't think Rudy cares about facts any more than George W. Bush does, and undoubtedly doesn't know them in the first place. After all, Bush lied repeatedly during both of his presidential campaigns, just as he's doing now when he claims that SCHIP will allow rich people to steal from the taxpayers. (Like he thinks that's a bad thing.) They just make things up because they don't care to know the truth ... and it doesn't matter.

John Dickerson, who wrote the above article for Slate makes an unintentionally telling observation:

The problem for Giuliani's opponents is that none of his exaggerations is immediately obvious, which makes it very hard to refute them. This will protect the mayor. Romney could initiate an attack, but he's changed positions enough on high-profile issues that his opponents can make a parody ad using Romney's own words. This gives him little standing to attack another candidate's honesty. (Plus, Romney has whitewashed his own tax record.) Fred Thompson can't compare executive records with Giuliani because he doesn't have one.

I don't suppose any of the alleged journalists present could say anything. They are, after all, just there to get in their tedious, pre-fab gotcha questions from 1978, and tell jokes. Correcting the debater on his facts on current relevant issues during the actual debate (or even after it when they are all getting as much TV face time as possible and subjecting themselves to media of all kinds) is obviously not part of their job description. And anyway, if a rival does manage to bring it up, it's presented as "politics" and "he said/she said" unless a snotty operative can successfully turn it into some kind of "gaffe" or the right wing drags out the fainting couch and stages a ritual humiliation kabuki. Fact-checking? How droll.

In any case, the bar has been set very low for GOP presidents. Yet they seem to be able to set it lower each time. If Giuliani wins we will not only have an idiot for president we will have a dangerously unstable idiot for president who is even more arrogant and malevolent than the one we have now. I have a sneaking feeling "competence" is going to be the least of our problems.


H/T to bb

.
digby 10/12/2007 09:20:00 AM |