Our tribe is forced to misstate facts again!

FRIDAY, AUGUST 17, 2012

Chris Hayes has Harry Reid’s back: It’s getting very hard to believe that our tribe isn’t just lying.

Last night, Lawrence read Harry Reid’s latest statement about Mitt’s tax returns. Just like Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Harry was misinformed:
O’DONNELL (8/16/12): Harry Reid issued this statement today after Mitt Romney`s unprovable claim that even if true is embarrassing enough that he hasn`t paid less than 13 percent in income taxes in the last 10 years.

"We’ll believe it when we see it. Until Mitt Romney releases his tax returns, Americans will continue to wonder what he’s hiding. Romney seems to think he plays by a different set of rules than every other presidential candidate in the last 30 years, all of whom live up to this standard set by Mitt Romney’s father and release their tax returns."
Surely, Reid understands that Candidate McCain released only two years of tax returns, just as Candidate Romney is doing. Candidate Palin also released only two years of returns.

Surely, Reid knows these facts by now. For that matter, even Lawrence may know them! But hold on! Christopher Hayes was Lawrence’s guest. And we all agree that Hayes is smart and just extremely sincere.

Hayes let the bullshit go too. Neither he nor Lawrence nor Karen Finney cleaned up Harry’s misstatement. Our tribal story works a lot better if we persist with our lie.

(This just in from your lizard brain: The Others are making us do this!)

You may not think two years is enough. But as the misstatements keep piling up, we think it might be good for the soul to know what our tribe-mates are doing.

33 comments:

  1. I think it was on Wednesday O'Donnell smirkelly stated that he thinks Romney is refusing to release more returns because they would show a felony.

    Something the IRS would have missed I guess?

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  2. The Anonymous IdiotAugust 17, 2012 at 1:47 PM

    Correcting mis-statements by Reid is the same thing as supporting Romney.

    Asking Chris Hayes or Lawrence O'Donnell to correct a Democrat?!??!?!!

    You are just in the tank for Romney and upset that they aren't.

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  3. hey bob

    we are winning. we are winning. and we are winning because we are using the tactics that you told us not to use. now that has to chap your hide.

    the people who are convinced by rational, reasonable arguments, well, we already have their votes. yes, we call them "liberals". now we need the rest.

    again, to quote charlie sheen: "Winning!"

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  4. This will be included in The Daily Howler's upcoming online book "Politics, as it happens, IS Beanbag."

    This falls somewhere between hairsplitting and modest relevancy, but the rather obvious bedrock truth (MItt Romney is a rich bastard out to make life easier for other rich bastards) tends to overshadow the crime of Harry Reid's refusal to account for John McCain.

    Could be wrong, though. Voters couldn't get enough of those classy, honest Dem campaigns like Stevenson, Mondale, Dukakis and Kerry. My lizard brain is telling me: I think it would be better if Obama won. And if you write about the political coverage and never look at Fox News or the rest of the right, it might be hairsplitting to consider you relevant.

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    1. Exactly!

      There shouldn't be JUST ONE GUY on the left who self-examines liberals this way...

      There should be none.

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    2. It's hard to fathom which is the most detrimental to us. To justify things on the basis of someone's badness, or upon our own goodness.

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    3. Cecelia, get thee to a less boring Nunnery. Also, little or no evidence is presented that such things hurt us at all. But that's O.K., as soon as Saint Bob stops running the left into the ground for playing rough he will run us into the ground for being polite.

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    4. And if you mean examines liberals in a silly and inconsistent way, there are plenty but none are useful. On Romney's taxes, by the way, great minds think alike: you can get this take here or from Ann Coulter.

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    5. "Also, little or no evidence is presented that such things hurt us at all."

      Greg, to suggest that you lack the judgment to understand what really constitutes a "bedrock truth" would be an understatement.

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    6. As usual, no substance with the empty claim of higher ground. You are quite taken with yourself, yes, we have established that. You have also established a rather Randian take on things in general (don't bother the poor rich, that's surfdom!) that is very, very stupid. But let me ask you straight up, who are you going to vote for?

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    7. Telling the truth is one of those outdated Marquess of Queensbury rules that would handicap real progressives in getting and keeping power.

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    8. Make up your mind, Einstein.

      Am I a "boring" goodie-two-shoes who should be in a nunnery, or a "Randian"?

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    9. "Surfdom"? That's gnarly, dude.

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    10. Cecelia,

      "Nunnery" was Elizabethan slang for a brothel, which not only casts Act 3, Scene 1 of Hamlet in a different light, but gives an extra meaning to "Randian."

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    11. Interesting spin on "Nunnery".

      Elizabethan noblewomen had one real duty; get married and produce sons for their lord.

      Hamlet sees Ophelia as unfit for this role, doomed to breed sinners. The only allowable alternative was to become a nun and renounce sex and motherhood altogether.
      Hamlet refers to this alternative several times, but never mentions prostitution.

      Nice try, though.

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    12. "let me ask you straight up, who are you going to vote for?"


      Apparently, everyone who believes Obama is the better choice should act as though they are part of the campaign, and tolerate dishonesty as long as it is on Obama's behalf.

      Delete
    13. The Real Unknown GregAugust 18, 2012 at 12:59 PM

      "Apparently, everyone who believes Obama is the better choice should act as though they are part of the campaign, and tolerate dishonesty as long as it is on Obama's behalf."

      +1

      Delete
  5. Depends on what you mean by "this way."

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  6. The This Or That Goblin claims another victim.

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  7. No Greg it's not playing tough, it's playing dumb. But hey, it just feels so good. Who cares about progressive values and real change?

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    1. Real progressives, my silly friend, want a full vetting of anyone who is going to be President, including those tax returns.

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    2. And if they have to lie to get those returns, it's Jake.

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    3. Well, if somebody in the know actually told Harry Reid that the Mittster paid no federal income taxes for a decade, that's not exactly lying, is it?

      In other words, let's apply the standards to Reid that Somerby applied to G.W. Bush and his famous "Sixteen Words" in the 2003 State of the Union.

      Bob spent much of the next two years explaining how Bush was telling the Gospel truth when he said there were British intelligence reports that said Saddam was trying to buy enriched uranium from Africa, and what a horrible human being Joe Wilson was for saying the British intelligence report that he attempted to make the purchase from Nigeria was forged, bogus, and untrue.

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    4. Anon 10:43
      Good point.
      I wouldn't say Somerby claimed Bush was telling the "gospel truth" with the sixteen words in SOTU, but he kept insisting that the words were technically correct, a very mealy-mouthed position.

      What Somerby wouldn't admit is that the Bush Administration KNEW the British intelligence report was bogus, and that George Tenet flat out told Bush and his speechwriters that the earlier Cincinnati uranium oxide story did not meet the credibility standards of a State Of The Union address.

      This was virtually proved during a press conference on July 22, 2003, where Steve Hadley (NSA) blames the speechwriters for changing the wording, and himself for "not recalling" that George Tenet told him there was a "controversy" over the uranium ore issue.

      Dan Bartlett, White House Communications Director, backed up Hadley's convoluted version.

      Bob also implied Joe Wilson was not credible, without explaining why.

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  8. Are you absolutely sure Bob that Chris Hayes did not correct him because Hayes does not know which presidents released which years tax returns?

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  9. It certainly would be good for the general discourse, and wouldn't hurt dems' immediate electoral chances or long-run success, to get straight on the facts in the way Bob Somerby is asking. But that doesn't mean pundit-guests have to take EVERY opportunity to correct EVERY factual error. Think of a classroom discussion, a lively and generally informed one. The good teacher lets lots of things go uncorrected along the way -- not everything, but lots of things -- in the service of learning which is both more basic and more lofty than nitpicking on very detail could achieve. You're always only engaged in process, and an overall good process will take care later of mistakes made previously. I don't watch O'Donnell's show (how many people do?), but I do attend to Hayes, who IS a huge breath of fresh air, and someone (whatever his imperfections -- are people allowed to be less than perfect at every moment?) Bob S. should be happy about, it seems to me. I don't know if Hayes maybe could have or should have corrected O'Donnell here. I suspect he just thought the conversation, with its pressures of time, was better served if he focused his remarks elsewhere than Bob would have had him.

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  10. The "McCain Standard"? When has John McCain set the bar on anything in this nation besides picking the worst VP candidate ever? In addition, McCain's returns didn't set of warning bells that he was parking money off-shore or planting it in a strangely over-valued IRA. We have seen ONE year of Mitten's returns, and that should be enough to send most Americans fleeing en masse from this idiot.

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    Replies
    1. You are right on the money, anon. 12:35 a.m. - Bob is nearsightedly nitpickingly not seeing the forest for the trees. Romney is different than all previous candidates, with his master of the universe, gordon gecko wealth and career. given what he wants to do to the tax system, it is obviously appropriate to demand he produce more tax returns. Bob is right, however, in the sense that the moronic media fails to focus on the substance of the returns he has already filed. AC/sharon ma

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  11. Go ahead and keep railing on about those tax returns. But just remember, you are not changing one damn mind (we do go through this tax return BS every single election right?) and the continued wealth extraction from the middle class will continue, Social Security and Medicare will still be under assault and progressive values will never see the light of day.

    I know, I know. It just feels so good being tribal. By all means, continue with the dung throwing.

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  12. Go ahead and keep railing on about those tax returns. But just remember, you are not changing one damn mind (we do go through this tax return BS every single election right?) and the continued wealth extraction from the middle class will continue, Social Security and Medicare will still be under assault and progressive values will never see the light of day.

    I know, I know. It just feels so good being tribal. By all means, continue with the dung throwing.

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  13. Just a point of semantics... you claim that Romney is releasing 2 years. He hasn't even released one. Not fully anyway. And I guaran-damn-tee you, he will delay 2011 as long as possible and not fully release it either.

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  14. tl;dr

    It's OK to mis-state what "every" other candidate did, cuz it's all done in the important service of getting more returns from evil Romney.

    Reporting on what the returns we already have tell us? Shut up, shut up, shut up!!!!

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