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April 04, 2012 3:13 PM Romney Calls for “Sourcing” and “Quality Control”—Not For Himself, Of Course

By Ed Kilgore

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I wondered what tack Mitt Romney would take in following the president in an appearance before the newspaper editors association. But he really took my breath away:

In just the few years since my last campaign, the changes in your industry are striking. Then, I looked to Drudge or FOX or CNN online to see what stories were developing. Hours after a speech, it was being dissected on the Internet. Now, it’s Twitter, and instantaneous reaction. In 2008, the coverage was about what I said in my speech. These days, it’s about what brand of jeans I am wearing and what I ate for lunch.
Most people in my position are convinced that you are biased against us. We identify with LBJ’s famous quip that if he were to walk on water, your headline would read: “President Can’t Swim.”
Some people thus welcome the tumult in your industry, heralding the new voices and the unfiltered or supposedly unbiased sources. Frankly, in some of the new media, I find myself missing the presence of editors to exercise quality control. I miss the days of two or more sources for a story - when at least one source was actually named.

After reporting this remarkably hypocritical statement, Politico’s Alexander Burns blandly notes:

[I]f you look over the arc of the primary season, it’s hard to see him as one of the major victims of anonymous sourcing, overhyping of trivia, et cetera — especially when you consider that his campaign is as eager as anyone to engage in the sins of Twitter, not-for-attribution sourcing and shielding the candidate from direct questions.

Now I suppose when you have already developed a reputation for towering mendacity on subjects large and small, a medium-sized lie about your views on media accuracy is as easy as changing those jeans and a lot easier than changing your entire political persona on a regular basis. But you might think at some point the man would fear being struck down by a thunderbolt right on the spot if he lectures the media—old or new—about “sourcing” and “quality control.” Where’s the “presence of editors” when Mitt Romney opens his mouth each day? The mind reels.

Ed Kilgore is a contributing writer to the Washington Monthly. He is managing editor for The Democratic Strategist and a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute. Find him on Twitter: @ed_kilgore.
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Comments

  • boatboy_srq on April 04, 2012 3:23 PM:

    So.

    Mr. "not intended as a factual statement" personified, whose campaing advertising has been admitted to be fiction by design and whose policy-specific rhetoric changes more often than his wardrobe, expects press coverage of his campaign to be "not intented as a non-factual statement."

    Just priceless.

    Where's the popcorn? I ran out again.

  • Hedda Peraz on April 04, 2012 3:25 PM:

    "I find myself missing the presence of editors to exercise quality control."

    I feel the same way about your speech writers!

  • T2 on April 04, 2012 3:37 PM:

    "I find myself missing the presence of editors to exercise quality control." What Romney means is "I'm used to people doing what I say and not challenging me". That's what rich people get used to, what they expect. They don't like it, at all, when they are challenged.
    That is the reason Mitt gets prickly around the press so often. By the way, when was the last time the presumptive Republican nominee gave an open Press Conference?

  • SecularAnimist on April 04, 2012 3:37 PM:

    It is obvious that Romney's campaign strategy absolutely depends on getting the corporate media to not only overlook his blatant lies, but to bullhorn them to the American people -- in other words, to do exactly what the corporate media did for George W. Bush in the 2000 campaign.

  • RoughAcres on April 04, 2012 3:38 PM:

    "towering mendacity" - love it.

  • Robert on April 04, 2012 3:50 PM:

    "I wondered what tack Mitt Romney would take in following the president in an appearance before the newspaper editors association. But he really took my breath away:"

    What Tack? At-tack!

    Pretty easy to predict this if we stopped to give a shit. As "Sec An" says above, they are softening up the media to run what ever lies his campaign throws out once the echt-a-sketch is fired up.

  • T2 on April 04, 2012 3:58 PM:

    SecAn has it pegged. We'll see a repeat of the normal presidential elections with Bush...GOP lies go unchallenged by the Media, while running down every Rev. Wright/Ayers angle Citizens United money can fund (which is a lot). It's so predictable...and thats why they get away with it.

  • fry1laurie on April 04, 2012 4:05 PM:

    Karl Rove tactic No. 1, attack your enemy at its strongest point.

  • Robert on April 04, 2012 4:18 PM:

    One more thought: As all of us have said, these m...f.... are so easy to see through and their Bull Shit is soo transparent (I mean they brag that they will do it!) the fact that the MSM just plays along with it is clear and convincing evidence that it is 'in the bag' for the Republican Party.

    Whew, now I feel better.

  • Tired Liberal on April 04, 2012 5:33 PM:

    Poor Mitt. Everyone is against him. Notice how quickly PolitiFact leaped on Romney's statement that Obama had "ended Medicare as we know it." I'm sure it will be the lie of the year. Oh, wait! They only do that when Democrats accurately describe the Ryan plan to change Medicare from a government-funded program to an insurace voucher program as "ending Medicare as we know it."

  • TCinLA on April 04, 2012 5:37 PM:

    I've been watching and/or participating in politics since Eisenhower's re-election, and I have never, not ever, seen a politician lie as blatantly and mendaciously as Willard. (And yes, I am including Lyndon Bastard Johnson and Richard Mofo Nixon in my list of comparisons). Never ever have I seen any politician care less whether anything he says has any connection to truth and reality than this guy. It's almost like he dares them to call him the bullshitter he is. You think they have trouble calling him a liar? Trying calling him a bullshitter in public. It's what he is.

  • Texas Aggie on April 04, 2012 6:17 PM:

    Does anyone have any acquaintances who are knowledgeable about Mormon culture and attitudes? I would really like to know what they think about deceit, lying, that sort of thing. I'm sure they don't condone it at all, but how much do they really disparage it? Is it something high on their list of forbiddens like drinking alcohol and smoking, or is it more like chewing gum in class?

  • Bleh on April 04, 2012 6:36 PM:

    Oh fergawdsake. The media are hoist on their own petard of becoming a cult of celebrity rather than adapting journalism to a one-in-a-hundred-years shift in technogy, so they're NOT gonna call Romney on his BS, at least not until he's dead beat and there's more papers
    to be sold ganging up on him than giving him oxygen. And he knows this perfectly well, and he wlll use the media like a grimy rag until he's done with 'em.

    I really wish "journalists" would do actual journalism about the state of journalism, I stead of the same reality-TV "feature"-style coverage they do on everything else...

  • Joe Friday on April 04, 2012 7:37 PM:

    Willard "Sketchy" Romney told the editors:

    "The President came here yesterday and railed against arguments no one is making, and criticized policies no one is proposing".

    Obviously he hasn't actually READ the Ryan budget he has wholeheartedly endorsed !

  • boatboy_srq on April 04, 2012 8:15 PM:

    @Texas Aggie:

    I dunno about Teh Buk'o'Mormon, but there are some older documents it supposedly references that have a few short words about "not bear[ing] false witess."

  • smartalek on April 04, 2012 10:28 PM:

    @boatboy:
    But it's perfectly clear -- by the wording itself ("bear[ing]... witness") -- that the Biblical injunction is not a prohibition of generally spinning the truth a bit (such as an honest and forthright Governor might -- reluctantly, of course -- find it necessary to do in campaigning against a corrupt and treasonous usurper with the lamestream media in the tank for him, and rampant voter fraud making it possible to steal the election), but rather of specifically testifying untruthfully in a legal matter (such as a high officeholder perjuring himself about having sex in the Oval Office).
    See the difference?

  • Joe Friday on April 04, 2012 11:02 PM:

    "...but rather of specifically testifying untruthfully in a legal matter (such as a high officeholder perjuring himself about having sex in the Oval Office)."

    Unfortunately for YOU, none of those three ever occurred outside the feeble minds of the American RightWing.

  • boatboy_srq on April 05, 2012 8:19 AM:

    @smartalek:

    That's just a longer way of saying IOKIYAR: it's only lying if a Democrat does it.

    Romney, reluctant to "spin the truth"? I'm waiting for him to announce and then contradict his own policy planks in the same speech.

    Oh and speaking of Multiple Position Mitt (sounds like a sex toy, doesn't it?), has ANYONE given ANY thought over there in RightWing Wasteland what a disaster he would be for international relations? How are our allies (or foes, for that matter) supposed to maintain relations with the US if our positions on global matters vary even with the time of day? Say what you like about Santorum's conviction that anyone but True Believing Catholics and Their Less Misled Conservative Fundamentalist Protestant Brethren deserves to be justly and mercifully nuked, at least he's consistent on his foreign policy points.

  • toowearyforoutrage on April 05, 2012 2:07 PM:

    Huzzah.
    Let's insist on this.

    I'll be fascinated to see what two sources Fox News calls upon.
    I imagine it'll be a disturbing new experience for them when their usual source of material is within arms reach at all times.