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A lot of this is just a frantic effort to generate some sort of counter-example to Mitt’s Boca Moment for the benefit of other conservatives and of MSM types looking for “balance,” but it’s striking how much wind is in the air today regarding “revelation” about Barack Obama’s words and deeds of the distant past.
Most prominently, of course, is the 1998 Obama speech that positively mentions “redistribution” (and also, in a section nobody on the Right is talking about, praises “markets” and “competition” and “innovation”), which Romney is talking about and will soon, I gather, be featured in ads. But we’ve also got a mammoth Washington Examiner “expose” of “Obama’s past” its reporters have been beavering away on for four months. And I guess you know that the Breitbartian wing of the wingnutosphere has as its foundation the belief that Obama’s past is the key to all his nefarious schemes to rob us all of our priceless birthright of freedom.
That all this digging around is being done for a Romney/Ryan ticket that exhibits vast amnesia about its own past words and deeds should be discussed a bit more often. At what stage of his ideological evolution or devolution or whatever you want to call it was Mitt Romney at in 1998 when state senator Obama was speaking at Loyola? I sure don’t know, other than being aware that this was after his fighting-Republican-liberal campaign against Ted Kennedy yet before his let’s-have-universal-health-insurance stint as governor. Do we need journalists to vet him a bit more?
And then there’s young Mr. Ryan, who would have us believe his famous 2005 speech at the Atlas Society’s “Celebration of Ayn Rand” was in a distant era, presumably before he became a student of St. Thomas Aquinas (just today the Catholic magazine America reported on un-transcribed portions of that speech which turn Ryan’s admiration of Objectivism into a practical agenda for dismantling the “collectivist” heritage of the New Deal).
In any event, it’s increasingly laughable for our friends on the Right to hold Barack Obama strictly accountable for everything he’s ever said (along with everything said by anyone he ever associated with), while Romney and Ryan shouldn’t be held accountable for what they’ve said the day before yesterday (or more accurately, in May, when Mitt played Boca). The Wayback Machine is not very friendly to their case.
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martin on September 20, 2012 12:59 PM:
And I guess you know that the Breitbartian wing of the wingnutosphere has as its foundation the belief that Obama’s past is the key to all his nefarious schemes to rob us all of our priceless birthright of freedom.
And PRECIOUS BODILY FLUIDS!
OKDem on September 20, 2012 1:00 PM:
Republicans edit the Ten Commandments for the 1%:
Thou shalt ... kill ... brown people.
Thou shalt ...commit adultery.
Thou shalt ...steal.
Thou shalt ... bear false witness...
Thou shalt ... covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt ... covet thy neighbour's wife, ... his manservant, ... his maidservant, ... his ox, ... his ass, ... any thing that is thy neighbour's.
Come on it's just one word left out.
Josef K on September 20, 2012 1:04 PM:
Here's the problem they're going to run into: nearly everybody has access to a Wayback Machine of their very own these days. R/R aren't likely going to be allowed to forget what they've said.
Still, could the GOP's strategy be effective at this point? I'm not sure, but then I'm biased towards rational thinking on this one (and that doesn't always apply).
c u n d gulag on September 20, 2012 1:29 PM:
Republicans, please help me with something:
Back in 1998, when President Obama said he was for redistribution, was this back when Mitt was still adamently pro-abortion, or afterwards, when the became a late-to-life hyper-advocate of "life"; and was this when he was strongly pro-Gay rights, or after he became vehemently anti-Gay?
I have a tough time with the Mitt's 'Belief Time-line' - which resembles an Etch-a-Sketch after a monkey, having swallowed some blotter acid by downing a bottle of tequila, gets done with the dials.
LAC on September 20, 2012 1:31 PM:
I made a point a while ago to call folks at the "Washington Examiner" and ask that this POS paper never darken my doorstep. If you cut out of that paper the amount of anti-obama angry spittle laden propaganda in it, it would be less than 5 pages long.
Mitch on September 20, 2012 1:47 PM:
@gulag
"I have a tough time with the Mitt's 'Belief Time-line' - which resembles an Etch-a-Sketch after a monkey, having swallowed some blotter acid by downing a bottle of tequila, gets done with the dials."
Holy FSM, gulag! You made me shoot coffee out of my nose!
And not only is your statement 100% hilarious, it is also 100% accurate. You are truly a master of the English language.
c u n d gulag on September 20, 2012 1:56 PM:
Mitch,
Thanks.
As much as Paul Ryan loves and worships Ayn Rand, I have a much more worthy and greater idol - Hunter S. Thompson.
I also have more recent demi-gods - Charles Pierce and Matt Taibbi.
g on September 20, 2012 3:05 PM:
It's gotten so that all it takes is one word that they deem to be "unspeakable" and if, god forbid, you were ever recorded utter that one word, it's a gotcha.
today's word is "redistribution" - no matter the context. He could be talking about redistributing the mail, or some box lunches, they'd jump on it.
apt Captcha word: spinning
boatboy_srq on September 20, 2012 3:12 PM:
@OKDem:
Well done. The Come on it's just one word left out line is particularly rich - and true.
I'm wondering how the GOTea would rewrite the Beatitudes.
I'm also wondering when it was that the GOTea decided that the "kiss of death" to any of their proposals was when it achieved the bipartisan support they continually demand. You'd think that, after getting the Dems to support welfare reform, tort reform, DoD budget expansion, global intervention (if not precisely preemptive warmaking), increasingly regressive taxation, at least some degree of union busting, cap and trade, and (now) market-based healthcare reform, they'd be chortling with delight. BHO 2012 is little more than GHWB 1992 or Gingrich 1994 when it all boils down. It's still an interesting thought exercise to imagine what would happen if Obama, Pelosi, Reid et al suddenly endorsed the entirety of the Teahad/Bircher/Tenther platform without reservation: would the Teahad declare victory, or would they find some far more Reichwing set of policy positions to grasp in their bitter claws?
Equal Opportunity Cynic on September 20, 2012 3:40 PM:
The "redistribution" thing strikes me as yet another case where Romney's entire team has spent so long in the right-wing echo chamber that they think the "6%" swing voters think like they do.
Working- and middle-class white voters in swing states are the true remaining battleground. Is there any evidence that they think redistribution is a bad thing? There's all kinds of polling that independents don't think the rich pay their fair share. How exactly do you turn this issue into a winner if, like Romney, you're the only major candidate who would redistribute anything away from the middle class?
Doug on September 20, 2012 5:01 PM:
EOC, it's only my personal opinion, but I don't believe that the "only" voters still up for grabs are that 6% or so. There's an awful lot of Republican voters who AREN'T batsh*t insane.
It would be just awful if they decided to sit this election out...
Rick B on September 20, 2012 9:53 PM:
@Equal Opportunity Cynic 3:40 PM:
Redistribution is what has happened since Ronnie broke the Air Traffic Controller Union. Since that time there has been a massive increase in worker productivity with ALL of the financial gains from that productivity going to the top 5% in the income ladder. The working people who actually created the goods and services that increased in value so much have not received a real wage increase in over three decades.
For the Republicans to decry income redistribution is nothing more than the thieves demanding that no one take away the money they have used their power to steal.
Thieves these days to not steal from banks. Today the thieves own the banks and corporations and use the politicians they have bought to let them steal from the workers who create almost all the value the value.