Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Sunday, August 12, 2012

A Howard Dean Sighting


The usual "balance" on Sunday talk shows is to have one Democrat and two or three Republicans, plus some press people who are assumed to be liberal because facts have a well known liberal bias.

Howard Dean was on ABC and made an important point as one of the few people on those shows who actually ran for office.

Election campaigns are not opportunities to educate.  All the handwringing from Peggy Noonan about how that ole meany Obama is going to "demagogue" the Ryan budget is just more Beltway fainting couch nonsense.  ALL elections are about demagoguing.  George Snuffaluffagus pointed out that while everyone was decrying the Priorities USA "wife cancer" ad (which has never run on TV) the Romney PAC is running a plainly mendacious ad about Obama gutting welfare reform.  It's an outright lie with thinly coated racism to appeal to the angry, white blue collar voter.

So, yeah, the Democrats are going to paint Ryan's plan in the worst light they can because no shit they are.  That's what campaigns do.

All the hand wringing about how mean spirited this campaign has become is simply because for the first time in a long time, Democrats are fighting as hard and dirty as Republicans have since Nixon.

No comments: