Booing Bobby Valentine: Lies as Coin of the Realm

Tues. April 24, 2012:

Dear Readers, today please dig deep, for more reading than usual.
Republicans' booing of Obama [who has made plenty of cowardly & rookie mistakes!] makes no more sense than Fenway Park booing Bobby Valentine for a bullpen that gives up 14 runs in 2 innings.  Alas, in U.S. politics, half-truths & lies are the Coin of the Realm [especially Romney's platform so far].
Let us count the ways:

1.  Paul Krugman, "The Amnesia Candidate," in NYT April 23, 2012.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/opinion/krugman-the-amnesia-candidate.html
Particularly notable is that someone finally calls out Republicans for their Alice-in-Wonderland argument that President Obama has "not led" in improving our economy.  In Krugman's words:  "Mr. Romney wants you to . . . forget both the role of Republican-controlled state governments and the fact that Mr. Obama has faced scorced-earth political opposition since his first day in office.  Basically, the G.O.P. has blocked the administration's efforts to the maximum extent possible, then turned around and blamed the administration for not doing enough."

2.  Mitt Romney's Enviable Ability to Lie:       http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mitt-romneys-enviable-ability-to-ignore-the-truth/2012/04/16/gIQACwTUMT_story.html  [Gratitude to "New Fiddler's Crotch" blog, for this item].

3.  The lies do come from both sides.  Check out Charlie Savage's lead story yesterday, "Shift on Executive Power Lets Obama Bypass Rivals," in NYT April 23, 2012:  "As a senator and presidential candidate, he had criticized George W. Bush for flouting the role of Congress . . . But increasingly in recent months, the administration has been seeking ways to act without Congress."
Welcome to the club, Obama -- a club consisting of presidents going back at least as far as FDR.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/us/politics/shift-on-executive-powers-let-obama-bypass-congress.html

4.  Edward Rothstein, "Go West, Young Religion: Mormonism on Exhibit," NYT April 23, 2012.
The good news is that finally a major newspaper starts a serious front-page discussion about Romney's Mormonism.  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/arts/design/in-salt-lake-city-museum-shows-how-mormons-see-themselves.html
The bad news is that Rothstein falls into the current "liberal media" pattern of bending over backwards to be neutral about a scary aspect of conservatism within the man who has a 50-50 chance to be the Leader Of The Free World.  Rothstein is right to suggest that Mormonism's 1820's origins -- in golden tablets buried beneath the soil of upstate New York, and revealed to a 14-year-old farm boy, along with polygamy and secret temple rituals -- are no more crazy than any other faith-based religions.  But what he misses is what every other 21st-century journalist has so far missed:  The reason New York State, and Ohio, and Missouri, and Illinois kicked Mormons' headquarters out towards Utah was NOT primarily its polygamy -- it was Mormons' frightening advantage, in agrarian frontiers, to conduct business and to vote as a "corporate" bloc.  And, look at Bain's Boardroom when Romney was there.
Would he bring this to the White House?


5.  Ann Romney's Bloomfield Hills friends arrive at Trump Towers, birther opinions in tow.
Watch & weep.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/18/ann-romney-birthday-fundraiser_n_1432833.html -- [Again, kudos to "New Fiddler's Crotch" blog, for this discovery].