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Go Home Romney’s Secrecy: Did He Get Away With It?

PLANK OCTOBER 31, 2012

Romney’s Secrecy: Did He Get Away With It?

BY ALEC MACGILLIS

In January, in a South Carolina debate just before that state's primary, Newt Gingrich hit Mitt Romney hard for releasing barely any of his tax returns: “Look, he’s got to decide and the people of South Carolina have to decide. But if there’s anything in there that is going to help us lose the election, we should know it before the nomination. And if there’s nothing in there, why not release it?” The audience applauded, and when Gingrich proceeded to trounce Romney at the polls the following Saturday, voters told me that Romney’s secrecy about his tax returns was part of their decision—they didn't necessarily care what tax rate Romney paid, but they didn’t like his declaration that it wasn’t any of their business.

Back then, it seemed only a matter of time before Romney would buckle to pressure and release a critical mass of returns—if not the 12 years worth that his father released when he ran for president, then at least, say, five or six. But here we are, with just five days until the election, and Romney has released no more than the two years he agreed to release back during the primaries. This has left voters in near-total darkness about basic questions about his very recent past. As tax experts have noted, there are any number of reasons why Romney doesn’t want to release more of his taxes—it’s possible he participated in an IRS amnesty program for secret foreign bank accounts; it’s more possible he gamed the system to avoid taxes on his huge retirement account and his sons’ $100 million trust fund, or that he paid very, very low rates these past couple years as a result of a tax code that favors people like him whose income is mainly taxed as capital gains. (In releasing his belated 2011 returns in September, Romney asserted, without providing any evidence, that he had not paid an effective rate lower than 13 percent during the past decade.) Just this week, Bloomberg News offered a new shred of insight, into the way that Romney used the Mormon church to shelter some of his investment gains from taxes. But the fact is, barring some future leak, we're simply not going to find out what was so worrisome in Romney’s taxes from only a few years ago.

Not only that, Romney has—unlike candidates Barack Obama, George W. Bush and John McCain—refused to identify his “bundlers,”the hundreds of people who have each raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for him. This has, among other things, spared him the sort of stories that Obama's had to contend with, looking at the unsavory connections and interests of his fundraisers. And, of course, Romney has provided exceedingly scant detail on basic elements of his platform, such as how he proposes to replace the Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank law, both of which he says he will do away with, and how he plans to make up the revenue lost from cutting tax rates by 20 percent across the board. The candidate has not answered any questions from reporters in the past three weeks.

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In essence, Romney has managed to make it through an entire presidential campaign having openly flouted longstanding norms of disclosure by candidates. This raises some important questions, ones I'm surprised are not being asked more widely in the campaign’s closing days (among the few to do so was veteran political correspondent Tom Edsall, with this sharp critique last week). For the campaign press: how could it have allowed Romney to get away with stiffing it, and has it allowed him to establish a damaging precedent for future candidates? For the Obama campaign: could it have done a better job of prodding Romney into disclosure? And for Romney himself: was the secrecy really worth it?

To help answer these questions, I turned to a couple political strategists not involved with the presidential campaign: Jim Jordan, who helped run the early stages of John Kerry's 2004 campaign, and Tad Devine, who co-directed Ted Kennedy's successful 1994 Senate campaign against Romney. I’ll go through each question in turn.

1. Has the press fallen down on the job? A reporter who’s spent time traveling with Romney confirms what I suspected, that the pack gave up a long time ago trying to get the campaign to cough up the bundler lists and additional tax records. It’s not hard to see why: at some point, the campaign’s refusal to disclose comes to be seen as an old story, and a reporter risks being seen as a pest for persisting in the demand. Still, it seems like the press—not just the traveling pack, but everyone—could have done more to stay on the case, to be, as Grist's Dave Roberts argued for a few months ago, “prosecutors for the truth,” constantly pressing the case for transparency on the public’s behalf. Devine recalls a time the 1988 presidential campaign when someone very high up at the New York Times -- he thinks it may even have been the then-publisher, the recently deceased Arthur Sulzberger —sent Devine a letter at the Dukakis campaign and demanded the release of all of running mate Lloyd Bentsen’s financial and health records, beyond the little the campaign had put out. The campaign called back and said it was reluctant to do so. As Devine recalls, the Times executive “said, ‘We’d like the records and if we don't get them, it’s going to be a problem, okay? Bye.’ I was like, ‘Oh, shit.’” The campaign got the records together and released them. Why isn’t anyone doing the equivalent today? “Maybe there’s nobody like that anymore,” said Devine. “But maybe if everyone got together, the TV networks and the major newspapers, and demanded it...”

2. Should the Obama campaign have done more? The press almost certainly would’ve stayed on the case of the tax records and bundler list if the Obama campaign had kept making an issue of them. It did so for much of the summer, releasing hard-edged ads such as this one, and getting a hand from Harry Reid and his declarations that a well-placed source had told him Romney had paid no federal income taxes to speak of for the past decade. But while the campaign has picked up its attacks on Romney’s lack of policy details, it has said virtually nothing in recent weeks about Romney’s lack of tax and bundler disclosures. Obama brought up Romney’s low tax rate at the second debate, but did not bring up his paltry disclosure (nor did any moderator at the three debates bother to ask about it.) Seen one way, this looks like a mistake by the Obama campaign: while Romney’s personal approval rating fell during the summer attacks on his tax murkiness and record at Bain Capital, it surged following his strong performance at the first debate. Why not bring the tax records back into the conversation for the home stretch? 

The strategists I spoke with said it was clear why the campaign had not done so: it was too late in the game. “I assume the Obama guys feel it’s a little small-bore for the close,” said Jordan, who spent this campaign season working with a SuperPAC backing congressional candidates. “They go in big at the end, with more thematic matters. The dots have been assembled and now it’s time to get the American people to pull back and see what the dots add up to.” Not to mention, he said, that bringing the tax returns back up would probably not work with the remaining undecided voters. “It’s also about your audience,” he said. "The sliver of Americans you’re still talking to are not political and are not particularly attentive and probably wouldn’t even get it if you went back at it.” Devine agreed: “After the first debate, [Obama] probably figured it would look whiny and little and Romney was looking big for a couple weeks there. For them to go down that road would've diminished them when they already seemed diminished.” And even now, with Obama having regained some momentum, it didn’t make much sense, Devine said, to bring the issue back up, when there are “bigger things” such as Sandy and the improving economic indicators to talk about.

3. Did Romney really get away with something? On one level, the answer clearly seems to be yes: Romney has managed to get through an entire campaign for president without having to give up the basic information his predecessors did, information that could have been seriously damaging to his prospects, and now finds himself a lucky break or two from the White House. But the strategists are quick to argue that this elusiveness came at a cost. Romney’s secretiveness about his taxes, they say, was a major element of the unflattering frame the Obama campaign managed to construct around him for most of the campaign, of a self-interested plutocrat who was not to be trusted. “He paid a price,” Jordan said. “When these issues were front and center, as he was becoming known to the American public, this oddness, this secrecy, this penchant did help to shape his image in significant ways....The image of him as being secretive and behaving in sort of unprecedentedly plutocratic ways has sunk in.” Again, Devine agrees. “He’s gotten away with it, but it’s hurt him,” he said. He noted that Obama's stubborn polling lead in Ohio is almost surely due in part to effective attacks over on the summer on Bain Capital and the few things that have emerged about Romney's taxes, including his accounts in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland, which were so memorably targeted in this ad. “In terms of getting away with it,” concludes Devine,“it’s only something can get away with if...you’ve won the election.”

Which brings us to the final question, whether Romney’s evasion of the norms has exploded them for good. Jordan says the answer to that is quite simple: check the results on Tuesday. “Whether it’s a precedent that others follow depends on whether he wins or loses,” he said. If Romney loses, part of the explanation will be “that he was an odd man who insisted on doing things no one else tried to do —and that will be an object lesson.” Devine, though, hopes that regardless of the outcome, there would be a general reckoning after the election with what had been allowed to occur. “In the future, to run for president of the United States and not disclose your personal finances is a real travesty,” he said. “We’ve got to insist on this.”

But we just had a year to insist on it, and when it came down to it, no one really did, not anywhere near loudly enough to make it matter.

Follow me on Twitter @AlecMacGillis

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138 comments

"Which brings us to the final question, whether Romney’s evasion of the norms has exploded them for good. Jordan says the answer to that is quite simple: check the results on Tuesday." Exactly. And since he's going to lose, no worries.

- AaronW

October 31, 2012 at 9:04pm

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I think the media will turn out to have a lot to answer for. Like newspapers (Des Moines Register perhaps), endorsing Romney, using the logic that voters should accede to the Republican Protection Racket. And the effect of how profitable close horse races are, and how this influences for-profit media (and Chevron et al supported PBS). Add the effects of the influential, advertisors, and subscribers. What's the effect of large news media's effort to keep up with memes, stay above the fray, and never acknowledge bloggers? Also, even if President Obama wins, Romney's Republican platform is as Potemkim as his disclosures on donation bundlers and taxes, and potentially more damaging to our ability to become informed voters. Especially when the news most people count on gives this a pass. If Fox News had not called Paul Ryan's RNC speech history's most mendacious, or Bill Clinton had not made Romney's tax and debt math so risible, wouldn't even these two stories have been as fleeting as the rest of the unquestioned, but questionable GOP platform? The consolidation and nationalization of media has other effects making it less invested in reporting news voters can use, like local court and governance precedents. Sandy may become a good example of this, too. There is plenty of news coverage of Obama shoulder to shoulder with Christie, and Mayor Bloomberg vowing that Sunday's marathon will demonstrate the resilience of New Yorkers. But what's the scope of vulnerable trapped in high rises without waters, toilets, electricity, or mobility? On the working poor without transportation or pay? What's the plans for them? Lastly, how soon and well will big media convince citizens, as Scientific American explains, that ignoring climate change's effects, whether in governing or politics, compares to quitting your job tommorrow, with a plan to buy lottery tickets to depend upon for your basic needs? And how do paywalls, media balkanization and consolidation, and politics affect this news that we all could use? Like clear reporting on our need for real gun control, will it always be too soon, in our current political and media world?

- JCAtwood

October 31, 2012 at 10:03pm

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According to MSNBC, Romney hasn't answered a question from the press for what - 3 weeks now? What does that say about "open government?" And yes, then there's the protection racket - good heavens what have we come to?

- Sophia

October 31, 2012 at 10:08pm

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"Exactly. And since he's going to lose, no worries." He probably will lose, but I'll wait till the election is over before I start celebrating. I took it for granted that Gore was going to win and then Fla and the supreme court happened. Never underestimate the depth of Republican depravity when it comes to winning an election when their money sorry, "taxes" is at stake.

- arnon1

October 31, 2012 at 10:11pm

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I think Obama should have insisted that there would be no debates without at least 5 years of income tax disclosures. Romney was way down in the polls, he might have run around screaming Obama was afraid to debate him but Obama could have countered all Romney had to do was disclose his taxes. Without that first debate then there would not have been any big rebound for Romney, and Romney would either have to have folded and released the taxes (which would have been win win for Obama, if nothing were in them then he could have said why the reluctance, if there were something it would have finished him off) or not released his taxes and face the prospect of their being no debates at all.

- blackton

November 1, 2012 at 1:21am

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Mitt who?

- ironyroad

November 1, 2012 at 1:37am

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Of course he got away with it. Where are the hackers, the thieves of information, when you need them? How many lawyers and accountants, how many IRS employees, have access to Mitt's taxes, and no leak! He will lose, but what we need is a landslide, and we'd have it if what's in those returns was revealed.

- JHoughton1

November 1, 2012 at 1:44am

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"He [Romney] probably will lose, but I'll wait till the election is over before I start celebrating. I took it for granted that Gore was going to win and then Fla and the supreme court happened. Never underestimate the depth of Republican depravity when it comes to winning an election when their money sorry, "taxes" is at stake." Right, arnon. I ain't celebrating yet. I was so sure Kerry would win in 2004 that I even gave a point spread on a bet. He was the far superior candidate and a combat veteran to boot, while Bush was a draft dodger during a war he vociferously supported (just like Romney was). Never underestimate voters who don't even know their own self-interests. Many millions of people who voted for Bush in 2004 paid for it dearly in the pocketbook. And the majority of them are going to vote for Romney. There's a thin line between stubbornness and stupidity.

- magboy47.

November 1, 2012 at 2:39am

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When the dems put forth tax evader after tax evader for slots on Obama's staff, they kind of told the world they didn't care much if someone cheated on their taxes. To get in a tizzy over this now is silly. not only that, there's endless speculation here, but one might as well be speculating whether or not someone is a child molester. you have just as much evidence. Sure, there are a string of very complicated theories that might explain what Romney has done. But so what? Those are theories not too far removed from noting the old guy with the camera taking pictures of cheerleaders at a high school football game. Seriously, that's all you got? The IRS has a special review unit that spends upwards of 250 hours going through the tax return of an ultrawealthy filer. In addition, they have a faster audit for high-wealth individuals that audits 30% of all earners earning more than $10M in a year. Add to that, the IRS charges crazy penalties for unreported accounts EVEN IF THE TAX LIABILITY IS ZERO. If you have $10M in a foreign account, and even if you owe zero taxes on that, the penalty for not reporting it can be as high as $30M and jail. Given these two points, the sky high audit rate and the punishing penalties, someone is a fool to cheat on their taxes at that level. Not only that, there are a lot of hollywood and music folks in jail for cheating. Jail is a very real option for cheating at the higher levels. The IRS is very serious at this level, and they don't settle for excuses. Why on earth would Romney risk jail when he gives most of his money away anyway? It makes no sense. I can understand the fading actor who's facing the loss of a lifestyle he loves failing to fully report the earnings from a movie or album so that he can keep living large. But it makes no sense that a guy that gives away piles of his money and has plenty more in the bank to cheat. PS. I'm pretty sure the reason Romney didn't release all his tax returns is because they are extremely complicated (>200 pages) and the average reporter (who probably can't even solve an 8th grade algebra problem) will simply misreport based on his ignorance. We already see how much trouble percentages give the press. Add to that the press just isn't fair to the right, adn it's a no brainer. this is what: the 10th story TNR has run on romney's taxes? And how many on Benghazi? Not even one, except to wonder if the worst has passed. Good god. My point exactly.

- seattleeng

November 1, 2012 at 3:56am

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Blackton writes: "I think Obama should have insisted that there would be no debates without at least 5 years of income tax disclosures." I suspect Romney would have simply said "i'll release my taxes if you'll release your grades and test scores, just as other presidents have done" then what?

- seattleeng

November 1, 2012 at 3:58am

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To seattleeng: What presidential candidate has ever released their grades and tests scores and who in their right mind cares? If you want to contribute, maybe you could investigate what weird critter is nesting on Trump's head that is causing bizarre statements to fall out of his mouth into your ears.

- smabry03

November 1, 2012 at 6:43am

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seattleeng: "this is what: the 10th story TNR has run on romney's taxes? And how many on Benghazi? Not even one, except to wonder if the worst has passed. Good god. My point exactly." Thanks for making all your points, including that one. It's not just tnr.com, it is as if the msm somehow knows that if they push on Benghazi before election day, there is a real risk that the Clintons will produce the 'smoking gun'. as for his tax returns? My guess is Romney kept making charitable donations to Planned Parenthood.

- K2K

November 1, 2012 at 8:00am

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Lies and secrecy. I still don't know why we invaded Iraq. Who knows what Romney would do under his nondisclosure policy? There's a big difference between releasing grades and a candidate who advocates cutting his own tax rate (by 20%), repeal of the estate tax for his kids (over 85 million on the surviving parents death), and a zero income tax for his non-working grandchildren (up to $200,000.00 of interest dividends and Lt cap gains tax free) and who does not release his tax returns which would evidence disgusting self interest.

- Nusholtz

November 1, 2012 at 8:03am

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And Obama got away without revealing his college records or passport records for years, but that doesn't bother anyone on the left. Obama spent several years in the Illinois legislature voting present to avoid leaving any kind of record, but got nominated and elected anyway on his nice speech-making. He was, and is, an amateur whom you elected anyway. He took office and turned everything over to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Let us not be foolish twice in a row.

- jgmusgrove

November 1, 2012 at 10:31am

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seattleeng: "this is what: the 10th story TNR has run on romney's taxes? And how many on Benghazi? Not even one, except to wonder if the worst has passed," Benghazi was a one time policy mistake if it was a policy mistake. The Romney tax issue has to do with governance principles and is therefore more important. The Republicans and their clones here would like to make of Benghazi a matter of principle, something that happened because of Obama policy. This is nonsense. There are good news, the economy is slowly improving: consumer confidence is up and jobless claims are down, the housing market is also improving. All this in spite of the Republicans sabotaging the economy for the last two years. No wonder you would like to talk about Benghazi and not about more serious issues.

- arnon1

November 1, 2012 at 11:30am

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The K@K the disabled man of means agrees with seattleeng tells me that the latter's post was full of crap.

- arnon1

November 1, 2012 at 11:33am

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"Obama spent several years in the Illinois legislature voting present to avoid leaving any kind of record, but got nominated and elected anyway on his nice speech-making." Really? From wiki: In January 2003, Obama became chairman of the Health and Human Services Committee, after six years on the committee and four years as its minority spokesman. The new Democratic majority allowed Obama to write and help pass more legislation than in previous years. He sponsored successful efforts to expand children's health care, create a plan to provide equal health care access for all Illinois residents, and create a "Hospital Report Card" system, and worker's rights laws that protected whistleblowers, domestic violence victims, equal pay for women, and overtime pay.[28] His most public accomplishment was a bill requiring police to videotape interrogations and confessions in potential death penalty cases. Obama was willing to listen to Republicans and police organizations and negotiate compromises to get the law passed.[38] That helped him develop a reputation as a pragmatist able to work with various sides of an issue.[27] Obama also led the passage of a law to monitor racial profiling by requiring police to record the race of drivers they stopped.[39][40].

- ironyroad

November 1, 2012 at 1:00pm

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Smabry writes: "To seattleeng: What presidential candidate has ever released their grades and tests scores and who in their right mind cares? If you want to contribute, maybe you could investigate what weird critter is nesting on Trump's head that is causing bizarre statements to fall out of his mouth into your ears." But the press has dug up the scores and grades of Bush, and they spent a lot of time doing it. And researching his national guard record. Odd, isn't it, that the press used to go around looking for that stuff. And Kerry's team released his own on accident. Not sure how Gore's got out there. And of course, the press all went looking for Palin's college info. But suddenly, nobody seems interested anymore how kid gets into harvard with crappy grades at columbia.

- seattleeng

November 1, 2012 at 1:10pm

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arnon writes: "Benghazi was a one time policy mistake if it was a policy mistake." A mistake is fine. A coverup is not. Lying that this was about a film and putting the filmaker in jail so that you could continue your "we got AQ on the ropes" narrative is criminal. Keeping email cables secret and hidden from Congress is not fine. Leaving 4 US workers unaided for 7 hours in a faraway country is not fine.

- seattleeng

November 1, 2012 at 1:21pm

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I don't know. A few years ago a president got re-elected years after ignoring a briefing that started out with the headline "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside U.S. Soon." And he did.

- ironyroad

November 1, 2012 at 1:32pm

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I am amazed by Romney's contempt for the public and customary democratic norms of candidate disclosure. And this is supposed to be a Morman bishop with a super-duper transcript. The public and the press may well have earned his contempt. We'll see on Tuesday.

- amidut

November 1, 2012 at 1:45pm

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seattleeng "arnon writes: "Benghazi was a one time policy mistake if it was a policy mistake." A mistake is fine. A coverup is not." There was no cover up, Seeatleeng. But there was the unexplained issue of what House Republican refusal to fund State Department had to do with lack of security at overseas legations. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/10/jason-chaffetz-embassy_n_1954912.html "Jason Chaffetz Admits House GOP Cut Funding For Embassy Security: 'You Have To Prioritize Things'"

- arnon1

November 1, 2012 at 1:50pm

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Irony writes: "I don't know. A few years ago a president got re-elected years after ignoring a briefing that started out with the headline "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside U.S. Soon." And he did." Different time. It was among hundreds of warnings seen every month. Was it a bridge in San Fran? A building in Chicago, or a skyscraper in NYC? Nobody knew. And even then, had the FBI kicked in the door of the terrorists on Sept 10th and found the box cutters and flight manuals and claimed to the world that they had just stopped terrorists that were going to knock over the towers...courts would have laughed in their face. The media would have had a field day with the assertion that a handful of idiots could coordinate something so destructive. The terrorists would have been released the next day. Because in 2001, we don't put people in jail for having box cutters and flight manuals and nothing else.

- seattleeng

November 1, 2012 at 1:54pm

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BTW, the issue with Benghazi is that the warnings were VERY specific, and named the enemy, named the dates (near 9/11) and confirmed an attack would be devastating given the current level of defense.

- seattleeng

November 1, 2012 at 1:57pm

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Seattle..., how do you know that the warnings were specific. Got a link?

- arnon1

November 1, 2012 at 2:31pm

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Different time? We lost almost 3,000 citizens and ended up in an unnecessary war, but since it a different time, it's okay.

- Nusholtz

November 1, 2012 at 2:32pm

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seattle, no: it was not, in any real sense, among "hundreds of warnings every month," it was a specific warning filtered through expert intelligence analysts for the presidential daily briefing, delivered personally by either the director of the CIA or his designee. I didn't want to re-litigate 9/11/2001 and it's true that we've moved far beyond the Bush years, but I do want to point out that Obama has taken full responsibility for what happened to Ambassador Stevens and the other American victims. Unlike Bush, he actually admits that the buck stops on the desk in the Oval Office. That is, however, not a reason to turn Benghazi into an election scam (which won't work anyhow) and most certainly not a reason to make Mitt Romney president.

- ironyroad

November 1, 2012 at 3:15pm

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Seattle is engaged, as usual, in his game of "squirrel". We're talking about Romney's taxes; he brings in Benghazi. Worse, he puts Trumpian racist words in Romney's mouth. Even if he is right about Benghazi, it is of course no answer to Romney's not releasing his tax returns. Benghazi is, thus, a non sequitur on any number of levels. More important, as much as I think Romney is a lying unscrupulous bullying self-entitled sack of pig manure, he is no racist. Seattle, however, imputes to him a racist impulse. Let's be clear about one thing: the college transcript nonsense is nothing but a racist code about how Obama was an affirmative action student who did not deserve either of his Ivy League diplomas. Seattle thus does a far bigger injustice to Romney than anything any liberal has said or done on these boards. So, not only the usual digressions and non sequiturs from Seattle, but one that involves a calumny against his own preferred candidate. Not very good at argument, Seattle.

- icarus-r

November 1, 2012 at 3:27pm

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Icarus writes: "Seattle is engaged, as usual, in his game of "squirrel". We're talking about Romney's taxes; he brings in Benghazi. Worse, he puts Trumpian racist words in Romney's mouth." What, no vignettes about how racists talk when they are alone by the water cooler? I'm kind of bummed :) I brought up Benghazi (after a substantive reply on taxes, with numbers) because it's funny to me how many stories TNR has written about Romney's taxes. And each story speculates even harder about how nefarious the entire scheme might be. And yet, there is a full-blown potential scandal staring them in the face with Benghazi, and TNR doesn't even blink. Envy trumps intellectual curiosity it seems. Others decision to pick up and run with Benghazi is likely because nobody wants to debate the point I made that 30% of those making more than $10M are audited each year, meaning Romney's probably been through a few audits. It probably also means that nobody wanted to discuss the fact that the IRS has a high-wealth unit that spends a year taking apart the tax returns of the ultra-wealthy. Nobody wants to square how Romney could easily go to jail for fudging taxes. And yet, he gives away piles of money. It makes no sense to risk jail when you are giving it all away anyway. instead, all that is dropped when the word "Benghazi" is typed. And like a pack of lemmings, the crowd runs to yell "You have no proof!" while conveniently ignoring the data points on the IRS and high-wealth individuals and jail. Seattle writes: "BTW, the issue with Benghazi is that the warnings were VERY specific, and named the enemy, named the dates (near 9/11) and confirmed an attack would be devastating given the current level of defense." arnon writes in response: "Seattle..., how do you know that the warnings were specific. Got a link?" Yes, the cable the press started analyzing yesterday is interesting. the aug 16 cable expressed concerns the security team felt the consulate couldn't be protected in the event of a coordinated attack. It noted that there were 10 militia and AQ training camps within Benghazi. It noted the situation was "trending negatively" and it noted that AQ didn't fear any retaliation from the Libyan government. The report noted they did not have information suggesting they were targeting Americans, but also noted there wasn't a complete picture of their intentions at that time. That was Aug 16. Roll it all together, and add in the anniversary of 9/11 and it indicates this should have been treated with MUCH more seriousness than it was. Wapo's Ignatius and ABCs Tapper have some good reporting on this today. Emphasis on REPORTING, versus wallowing in ENVY. :)

- seattleeng

November 1, 2012 at 5:31pm

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irony writes: "I didn't want to re-litigate 9/11/2001 and it's true that we've moved far beyond the Bush years, but I do want to point out that Obama has taken full responsibility for what happened to Ambassador Stevens and the other American victims. Unlike Bush, he actually admits that the buck stops on the desk in the Oval Office." He always says the buck stops with him. Over everything. But then he never gets fired. Hint: The buck stops with the person that is fired. Don't claim it stops with you, and then fire the other guy.

- seattleeng

November 1, 2012 at 5:35pm

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Seattle: Right. And Romney is so desperate, his campaign is photoshopping his appearances to make them bigger: http://www.nationalmemo.com/romney-campaign-photoshops-extra-white-people-into-crowd/ This is like a bad spam email, or gay porn ad. Not only that, but he is redoing McCain in PA, after redoing McCain on Palin (with pecs this time, instead of boobs - same difference on brains, though). http:// politicalwire.com/archives/2012/11/01/romney_heading_to_pennsylvania.html There's my response to your Benghazi.

- icarus-r

November 1, 2012 at 6:00pm

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Look, the Obama administration at some level, and probably no lower than the Secretary of State, screwed up in Benghazi. Whatever the specificity of the warnings, they were close enough that the consulate ought to have had better security. Mistakes happen in any administration, and sometimes they cost people's lives. I think Obama has taken responsibility for this one, but we'll know for certain that he has if we get an honest report of what happened in the relatively near future. But unless someone can show that there was a policy to inadequately protect the consulate rather than a failure in day-to-day decision making at State, the only "so what" is to learn what the administration is doing to improve that decision making. Romney has a policy to not release any more information about his primary relationship with the Federal government to date - as citizen and taxpayer. He has stuck to it rigorously, effectively telling the electorate "this is none of your business," notwithstanding that he is campaigning to take responsibility for that relationship for every citizen, and to do so in a way that will put more money in his family's pockets than most American families will see in a lifetime. I think that's entirely relevant to his fitness for office. On the other hand, I don't give a rat's ass about Obama's grades or Romney's grades, just like I don't look at the college transcripts of anyone I hire 20 years into their career. Hell, Bill Gates quit Harvard. Do we care that he has NO grades or degree? Probably not. Likewise, I don't care whether Obama benefited from affirmative action or not. If he did, it proves that affirmative action can work, because whatever else you say about the man, he has been a success and a leader in his chosen field, including being a standout in his graduate work. He's made good and effective use of his education. If he didn't need it, then fine, he didn't need it.

- IowaBeauty

November 1, 2012 at 6:34pm

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IowaBeauty "Look, the Obama administration at some level, and probably no lower than the Secretary of State, screwed up in Benghazi. Whatever the specificity of the warnings, they were close enough that the consulate ought to have had better security." Come on, Iowa. Let's get real. It's easy enough after an attack to say that we should have done it differently. Of course all the nation's legations should be better protected so why didn't the Republicans help finance such an effort? Because they care more about tax cuts than about security. Obama is in part responsible, but the Republicans need to own up to their part in the attack. I wouldn't be surprised if they wanted an attack to happen so that they could blame Obama for it. How else explain Romney's attack on Obama before all the facts were in?

- arnon1

November 1, 2012 at 8:11pm

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How about just as i was cursing Bloomberg for endorsing Scott Brown for the Senate, he decides to endorse Warren a Obama. I was beginning to think that he became a right wing loony for called Elizabeth Warren a Bolshevik. His hatred for Warren is probably personal. Still, his choice of words came out of the John Birch society, or the Koch brothers playbook and not from that of a "liberal" Mayor. The personal and the political all too often don't mix.

- arnon1

November 1, 2012 at 8:18pm

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Here is the link to Bloomberg's endorsement: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/nyregion/bloomberg-endorses-obama-saying-hurricane-sandy-affected-decision.html?hp

- arnon1

November 1, 2012 at 8:19pm

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The new sport is the endless abuse of a fellow called Romney. Do you see it? What about the serial failures and deceits by team O-B? Four more years of it can bankrupt even an exceptionally strong nation.

- sf4200

November 1, 2012 at 8:25pm

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"The new sport is the endless abuse of a fellow called Romney." It's not a sport and he is not being abused. People just speak the truth about how they seem him and it feels like abuse. If the truth about what you are doing hurts, stop doing what you are doing and do something different. Start acting like a mensch.

- arnon1

November 1, 2012 at 8:37pm

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Mayor Bloomberg has his own Big Mistake-Buck Stops Here embarrassment. While the NYT reports that an official state report advised floodgates in 2010, the point about the flood risks in the New York City estuary (which is what it is) has been around for at least ten years. Maybe Mayor Mike should have funded the first billion for those floodgates instead of his Super-PAC. The reporting by The Atlantic and Christian Science Monitor about the saltwater damage to the subway and train tunnels is about to become major New York news by this weekend because someone is going to have to tell everyone east of the East River the truth, before the Monday commute. "Hurricane Sandy and the Perils of Nanny State Governance" Walter Russell Mead (whose essay on Benghazi is still being read at RealClearWorld) http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/10/31/hurricane-sandy-and-the-perils-of-nanny-state-governance/

- K2K

November 1, 2012 at 9:08pm

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Arnon, I learned a long time ago that one has to own one's failures in order to deserve credit for one's successes. Of course the Republican legislature with their refusal to tax and appropriate even for things their own ideology acknowledges are Federal functions are partially to blame. But the Obama administration was running things, they had warnings or requests for action, and the situation got away from them. They have to own that (and I believe that have done as much in that respect as they can, and will eventually finish the job of explaining). When you say it's easy after an attack to say we should have done things differently - of course, hindsight is 20/20. But liberals, myself included, have never argued that Bush should receive a pass for his administration's complete inaction before the September 11, 2001 attacks, or for their completely misguided predictions on the course of the war in Iraq. Benghazi was a far, far smaller failure than either of those - a failure of execution on a basic function of the department of state related to one situation, as compared to failures of execution that left the whole country exposed, and an outright failure of national security policy. Being a much smaller failure doesn't make it a success.

- IowaBeauty

November 1, 2012 at 9:09pm

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K@K is back quoting his “Democratic friend” Walter Russell Mead. It takes being an earnest right wing fanatic to blame Bloomberg for the damage the Hurricane caused in NY City. Well K@K is the perfect specimen of the true believer. It takes a fanatic to fault a man for not spending a billion dollars of his own money for public works while exonerating another billionaire who paid as little as he could in taxes because he doesn’t believe that the Government should engage in public works. K@K is a real fool, nuf said.

- arnon1

November 1, 2012 at 9:56pm

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IowaBeauty Arnon, “I learned a long time ago that one has to own one's failures in order to deserve credit for one's successes.” I agree when speaking about individual failures. However, here we are talking about bureaucratic failure. The Republicans love to confuse the two when it’s in their interest. Don’t you do the same. “But liberals, myself included, have never argued that Bush should receive a pass for his administration's complete inaction before the September 11, 2001 attacks, or for their completely misguided predictions on the course of the war in Iraq.” I think the reverse is true. Bush wasn’t at fault for 911, any more than Roosevelt was for Pearl Harbor. He too had some warning. When bureaucracies are involved it’s not that easy to assign blame. Bush can be blamed for not reversing course after he realized the democratization project in Iraq would be a failure and that Iran would be the like beneficiary. This wasn’t merely a bureaucratic problem but a problem caused by a misguided policy. “Benghazi was a far, far smaller failure than either of those - a failure of execution on a basic function of the department of state related to one situation, as compared to failures of execution that left the whole country exposed, and an outright failure of national security policy. Being a much smaller failure doesn't make it a success. Here we agree, but remember this is the election (or silly season) and the Republicans will turn a small failure into a tsunami. (They will all of the sudden become believers in figurative language even if like Moliere’s character they don’t know they are speaking prose. )

- arnon1

November 1, 2012 at 10:05pm

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"Hint: The buck stops with the person that is fired. Don't claim it stops with you, and then fire the other guy." Political responsibility and functional responsibility are two different things, and in this case I don't believe (and I believe that the majority of Americans don't believe) that the political responsibility is sufficient to make that an issue in the presidential election as I don't believe Romney would be any more responsible. And he's the alternative. Secondly -- a minor point -- the initial Republican furore over Benghazi has lost credibility because of the background of ludicrous and almost surreal accusations that the president supported the attackers.

- ironyroad

November 1, 2012 at 10:06pm

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sorry -- "and I don't believe that the majority of Americans believe . . ." -- bad proofreading, exactly what I was reading my students the riot act about today!

- ironyroad

November 1, 2012 at 10:08pm

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Wow. The attacks on The Nanny State begin. You guys are seriously desperate. As for Obama's grades, this is important why? It isn't. However the UAW seeks an investigation into Romney's finances, specially how he made out like a bandit on the auto bailout. It's about time somebody bit this guy with real teeth. Angry twitters from auto execs are fine but a lawsuit would be every so much better. Second: ideology or no ideology how can anybody support this guy? I guess because your leader Grover Norquist just wanted a suit with enough digits to hold a pen? Is that what YOU want? A tool of Grover Norquist?

- Sophia

November 1, 2012 at 10:16pm

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As for Bloomberg: hooray, I am glad somebody noticed the weather. The past two years alone have been disastrous. We have had floods, killer tornadoes, enormous and catastrophic wildfires, failed crops, drought, more failed crops, and now this immense and terrible storm. Meanwhile the ice keeps melting and the seas keep rising but somehow it's more "American" to ignore it? Go Chevron Go! Profits uber alles! You guys. This is your mantra? Chevron before country?

- Sophia

November 1, 2012 at 10:18pm

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The CIA just released a detailed timeline of their efforts in Benghazi on 9/11/12. Reuters has the details. Yep, Benghazi is still in the news. The biggest joke in NYC is Mayor Mike's nanny-state-of-mind when it comes to dictating what is best for his peasants. The Bronx is littered with Mayor Mike's crony capitalism projects, but mostly we shall never forgive him for stealing neighborhood parks in Highbridge so the New York Yankee Plutocrats could have a new stadium, subsidized by tax-free municipal bonds so beloved of Plutocrats, a new stadium with fewer seats at much higher prices in the poorest urban county in America. Ah, the local Community Board tried to get involved, but then Borough President Carrion waved his wand, and, poof, replaced all the protesting CB members, who are volunteers appointed by the Boro Prez. Funny how Carrion then got a plum job (Urban Tsar) in the WH, and then disappeared. Before there was Norquist, there was Toomey. The Democratic Party did not have the spine to discredit the no-taxes ideologues for 20 years, and still don't. Based on the totally manic hysteria to the right and left of where I sit, it seems that there is no hope,

- K2K

November 1, 2012 at 10:56pm

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K@K makes a perfect Republican true believer. Here is what the CIA report says: "New Detailed Account of Benghazi Attack Notes CIA’s Quick Response" http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/11/new-detailed-account-of-benghazi-attack-notes-cias-quick-response/ It doesn't exactly support Romney's and clones inane attacks on Obama.

- arnon1

November 1, 2012 at 11:26pm

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The man of means says KKK or K@K if you will: "The biggest joke in NYC is Mayor Mike's nanny-state-of-mind when it comes to dictating what is best for his peasants...." Any time an elected government official wants to help his constituents he has a "nanny-state-of-mind" this phrase means nothing. It does show, though, the poverty of mind of right wingers like K@K.

- arnon1

November 1, 2012 at 11:31pm

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Keep 'em coming right of Ryan K@K.

- arnon1

November 1, 2012 at 11:32pm

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I wonder where K@K read the phrase a "nanny state of mind?" In what right wing pamphlet or magazine? The disabled K@K isn't smart enough to have come up with that himself.

- arnon1

November 1, 2012 at 11:52pm

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"What about the serial failures and deceits by team O-B? Four more years of it can bankrupt even an exceptionally strong nation." sf4200, Republicans are much better at bankrupting our exceptionally strong nation. They start 2 multi-trillion-dollar wars, while LOWERING taxes (the first time that's been done in the history of the world). They implement Medicare Part D, while making sure that the government can't negotiate with the drug companies for the prices of the drugs. They deregulate Wall Street to the point where it crashes. And you want another 4 years of that?

- magboy47.

November 2, 2012 at 2:12am

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"The K@K the disabled man of means" " isn't smart enough" I'm not surprised that such is the commentary of an Obama supporter who I'm sure was terribly upset when Obama was recently and famously referred to as a "retard". It matters when the mentally-disabled are used as slur words by a loudmouth conservative commentator but a perfectly legitimate and emulatable tactic when employed by an Obama supporter against someone whose opinions he doesn't like. Is this the very definition of hypocrisy?

- Noga

November 2, 2012 at 8:48am

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Seattle: This paragraph of Ambinder's perfectly mimics all your arguments in these boards. It is astonishing the extent to which Republican criticism of Obama is, almost without an exception, an instant parod of itself.

It's the liberal/drive-by/lamestream media's fault. It always is. They covered for President Obama's lapses in Benghazi, failed to hold him to account for his obvious failures, generally failed to vet him properly in 2008, and ignored the scandals during his first term. They tipped the scales. And in the last week, they covered his response to Hurricane Sandy as if he were a conquering hero. They hated Mitt Romney because they were jealous of his success. They ignored Chicago's relentless negative campaign.

- icarus-r

November 2, 2012 at 9:36am

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Aaaand, suddenly it all becomes clear ... "68 percent of registered Republican voters stated that they believe demonic possession is real." http://www.salon.com/2012/11/02/poll_most_republicans_believe_in_demonic_possession/ No wonder Republican administrations all resemble re-enactments of The Exorcist.

- icarus-r

November 2, 2012 at 9:46am

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Going through some of the more amusing comments on Salon, and this one reminded me of K2K for some reason:

The president's "cool headed" response to the disaster in the north -east ? Of course he's "cool headed". He has no skin in the game and it was the perfect distraction, giving the media another opportunity to turn a blind eye to his usual dereliction of duty. He could get back onto his posing routine and LOOK like he was doing his job. Forget Benghazi and the Americans he ignored as they were being slaughtered. Forget the economic disaster that prevails with unemployment numbers rising yet again according to reports today. This "President" is a pure abject failure. Anyone who votes for him will deserve the misery they'll endure for four more years if he wins. Why hasn't he helped NYC? Why hasn't he mobilized tankers to go in with gasoline to give these people a freaking break from the misery? Why doesn't he step up and allow the non-union rescue workers to help these people instead of turning them away at the NJ state line because they aren't "union"? Why doesn't he airlift food for those New Yorkers who have had to resort to dumpster diving for their next meal? WTF is wrong with this "president"? Can't you left wing nuts see a problem with him here? [...]What I see is YOU ENABLING his failure once again. All he has done is walk around with Christie and TALK. Look stern . . wrinkle his forehead a bit . . . TALK. He's all talk. No walk. And you're all about letting him get away with it. As long as he LOOKS like he's doing something eh?

- icarus-r

November 2, 2012 at 10:18am

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"68 percent of registered Republican voters stated that they believe demonic possession is real." I'm curious. Has a parallel survey been done concerning the beliefs of registered Democratic voters? This is from 2009: http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-215_162-8407.html ""According to a CBS News/New York Times Poll, two thirds of Americans believe in the Devil. And nearly as many believe in demonic possession--a phenomenon that 63 percent say cannot be fully explained by modern medicine or psychiatry." But here is some reason for being proud about the innate enlightened condition so common among Democrats: "A total of 72 percent of political conservatives believe in the Devil, compared to 50 percent of liberals." Only 50% of those who would vote for Obama believe in the devil!

- Noga

November 2, 2012 at 10:39am

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hi noga: arnon is stalking me in tnr.com threads for a reason best known to himself, but his attacks on me have descended to a nasty level now that he assumes my dioxin-based disabilities make me "too stupid" to coin the phrase "nanny-state-of-mind", which maybe someone else has used, but it certainly describes the mind of Mayor Bloomberg since his trans-fat crusade. Yes, a fine model of the REAL liberals in the Democratic Party: verbal, personal attacks; bully into submission or silence. Anyone who believes Walter Russell Mead is a "right-wing blogger", that I am "actively working for Romney", or that Benghazi is the fault of GOP congress' funding issues (NO ONE is still using that excuse for at least four weeks),; anyone who rants stuff like has jumped off the cliff into hyper-partisanship, scorched earth hyper-partisanship. icarus proves his earlier claims that he does NOT read my comments by attributing an unidentifed comment from Salon, a website I have not visited for more than three years. And, I certainly would never blame the president of the United States for failing to magically solve storm disaster problems. I made sure my gas tank was full last Saturday - no one had to warn me to be prepared. I am glad Mayor Mike and Gov Cuomo had the sense to tell Obama to stay away and get his photo-op elsewhere.

- K2K

November 2, 2012 at 12:37pm

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K2K "hi noga: arnon is stalking me in tnr.com threads for a reason best known to himself," There is no such ting as stalking on a public forum. ".....me "too stupid" to coin the phrase "nanny-state-of-mind"...." Are you claiming to have coined it? These bigoted Republicans believe that anyone person who engages in charity had a "nanny state of mind." Not only are these bigots against government programs to help the poor they are also against private charity. That's what "a nanny state of mind" really means. Since Noga is not an American her comments on the election are superfluous.

- arnon1

November 2, 2012 at 12:55pm

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...Since Noga is not an American her comments on the election are superfluous... I assume by the same token that icarusès comments on the elections are also superfluous. Unless of course only those non-American commenters who are not enthralled to Obama are superfluous. Other non-Americans who work very hard to get Obama re-elected (like icarus here) are not only not superfluous but rather very fluous indeed. As for ... There is no such ting as stalking on a public forum... http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Thread%20Stalker&defid=6770841 ____________ http://www.datehookup.com/content-cyberstalking-and-harassment.htm ... Cyberstalking is a new term referring to online harassment. Cyberstalkers are just like physical stalkers, except they stalk through the Internet and email rather than in a face to face environment. Many people are victims of cyberstalking every day, and the crime seems to be on the rise. It is very important to recognize cyberstalking so that you can stop it from happening to you and if it does, know what to do about it. Cyberstalking can occur through chat rooms, message boards, online dating sites, email, instant message applications, and social networking websites. In many instances, stalking that begins online may translate to off-line stalking involving things such as phone calls and property vandalism...

- Noga

November 2, 2012 at 1:10pm

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"Other non-Americans who work very hard to get Obama re-elected (like icarus here)" Lie. As usual. I spend a maximum of three hours a week reading and writing about the elections on this site - so unless you have a different definition of "working hard", this is a manifest and obvious lie. And I don't "work" to get Obama re-elected - most people here are Obama supporters in any event, and those who are not, like you and K2K and Seattle, nothing can persuade otherwise - rather, I discuss matters on a public board, which is a different thing entirely. Amazing how in one sentence you manage to squeeze in two outright lies. (The more charitable interpretation is that your English comprehension is so poor that you have no idea what you are writing, but I respect you enough to take you at your word: anything you write about me is out of bad-faith rather than misunderstanding or bad English.) Defend yourself on your own merits; don't drag me into your silly fights with others.

- icarus-r

November 2, 2012 at 1:28pm

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I think it was K2K's dewy-eyed admiration of Rick Perry earlier this year that dismantled his credibility a little, in my eyes at least. I was particularly disgusted by Perry's attempt to clamber onto the "Gays out of the military!" bandwagon and disappointed that K2K seemed to be on board with that scuzzy move.

- ironyroad

November 2, 2012 at 2:04pm

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Mayor Mike has a new nickname: Mayor Marathon. noga, from your Urban Dictionary URL: "Thread Stalker: A person who goes from thread to thread on a message board oblivious to other posters, addressing every post you write and rehashing old gripes based on a personal issue they have with you." Yep, that describes arnon's psycopathic obsession with me. irony: you would have dismembered me for posting ANYTHING positive about ANY GOP candidate. and, it was 2011 - by late January, 2012, I disappeared from the internet, as I shall do again after this election. As if DADT is even on my list of issues...everything Obama does is poll-tested identity politics. That pute me in the "Jerusalem is the capital of Israel" micro-group.

- K2K

November 2, 2012 at 2:20pm

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As if DADT is even on my list of issues...everything Obama does is poll-tested identity politics. That puts me in the "Jerusalem is the capital of Israel" micro-group. "Gov. Perry Receives Defender of Jerusalem Award" Thursday, August 13, 2009 • JERUSALEM – Gov. Rick Perry has received the Defender of Jerusalem Award, which is given to public figures who have demonstrated support and commitment to the state of Israel and its capitol, Jerusalem. The governor accepted the award while on his trip to Israel, where he also met with Israeli President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and business and academic leaders. “I have long supported the right of a Jewish state to exist in the Middle East and firmly believe in the protection and preservation of democratic states in that part of the world,” Gov. Perry said. “After visiting several sacred and historic sites, meeting with business, civic and government leaders and seeing the day-to-day lives of the people on my trips to Israel, I am even more convinced that a safe, secure Israel is an essential part of stability in this part of the world.” The Defender of Jerusalem Award was created in 2008 by Guma Aguiar, head of the Lillian Jean Kaplan Foundation, as a tribute to dignitaries within Israel and around the world who have demonstrated strong support for the people of Jerusalem and Israel. The first award was presented to Israeli President Shimon Peres. Gov. Perry continues to be a staunch supporter of Israel. After a trip to the area in 2007, the governor supported Texas’ divestment from companies that do business with Iran, a main opponent of Israeli freedom. Additionally, as a result of meetings with Israeli leadership during the governor and first lady’s visit to Israel in 2007, the Texas-Israel Chamber of Commerce was created to help launch future commercial interests and solidify the strong business and cultural connections between the two states. Texas is Israel’s fourth largest American trading partner. Texas and Israel’s commercial relationship began with agriculture and natural resources, and has grown in recent years to include a variety of major business sectors, including information and communication technologies, aerospace and defense, medical technologies, homeland security initiatives and renewable energies." http://governor.state.tx.us/news/press-release/13440/ btw, Rick Perry's first trip to Israel was in 1992, as Texas Agriculture Commissioner.

- K2K

November 2, 2012 at 2:25pm

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Noga, answering or addressing an issue brought up by another poster is not stalking.

- arnon1

November 2, 2012 at 2:50pm

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"Mayor Mike has a new nickname: Mayor Marathon." K@k has n obsession with Mayor "mike" ": "Thread Stalker: A person who goes from thread to thread on a message board oblivious to other posters, addressing every post you write and rehashing old gripes based on a personal issue they have with you." " K@K is probably too stupid to know this, but the threads at TNR dealing with the election are continuous. They are part of the same conversation. Now, as long as you keep posting right wing nonsense, I intend to answer it. If you don't like it, tough.

- arnon1

November 2, 2012 at 2:58pm

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Arnon: please STOP attacking me for being disabled, and critical of Obama's failed presidential leadership. Otherwise, you will still be stalking me at tnr.com go back to page 1 of this thread and see how many times you personally attack me. and, I could link all the other tnr.com blog threads where you do the same. You make JaimeChurch seem sane.

- K2K

November 2, 2012 at 3:00pm

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K@K: "irony: you would have dismembered me for posting ANYTHING positive about ANY GOP candidate." That is (a) not true and (b) something you knew to be not true when you wrote it. In any case, even it it were true, it isn't the most relevant point.

- ironyroad

November 2, 2012 at 3:16pm

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How interesting ironyroads interventions (sometimes) are! Coming into a thread where a fellow poster is being called mentally disabled, he joins in the fun and picks up some rotten tomatoes of his own to throw. Let it not be said that he is not a good sport and in solidarity! icarus: Such long winded and pompous responses. How you do huff and puff. The point I was making was very clear and relevant to my comment to arnon, but I doubt you have the intelligence, never mind the honesty, to realize that.

- Noga

November 2, 2012 at 3:43pm

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I'm happy to note I also threw them at the time. This was a momentary remembrance.

- ironyroad

November 2, 2012 at 4:41pm

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ironyroad, dewy eyed with nostalgia. Let us sing for these, our fine memories like chimes at midnight. And if what we say inflicts injury, what the hell, it is all for a good cause. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyaTIXdN5fI Nothing depresses me more than to see a good man joining a mob.

- Noga

November 2, 2012 at 4:50pm

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K2K, I do not attack you for being disabled. I am attacking you for supporting Romney-Ryan a pair who intend to dis able Mediaid which is government supported health care for the poor and disabled. It is hypocritical of you to support candidates who wish to take away medical benefits for poor people with disabilities. When you give support to their programs you are attacking people with disabilities.

- arnon1

November 2, 2012 at 4:54pm

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Noga, criticizing a disabled person for attacking poor disabled persons is not he same as attacking someone because they are disabled. Canadian are not in danger of losing medical care provided by their government so it is hypocritical of you to support people in the US who want to eliminate such benefits. In any case the American election is non of your business.

- arnon1

November 2, 2012 at 5:01pm

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Curiouser and curiouser. After telling K2K "The K@K the disabled man of means" " isn't smart enough" you now declare how much you actually care for disabled people, and it is K2K who is slurring and wronging disabled people. If I did not see it with my own eyes, I would find it hard to believe that a person who reads Max Weber and Kafka would be able to dissimulate in this way, so openly, so shamelessly, as if the comments are not here for all to see.

- Noga

November 2, 2012 at 5:12pm

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... In any case the American election is non of your business... It is as much my business as it is the business of icarus who is also a Canadian. I will take your criticism (such as it is) more seriously if you made even a semblance of being fair minded about it. Your hypocrisy is breath taking.

- Noga

November 2, 2012 at 5:15pm

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Screw Noga, this isn't about you. I care about dismantling social programs for the poor and the disabled. I hate people like K@K for using his disabilities to fight for taking away benefits from other less fortunate disabled people. It is like someone arguing that "as-a-Jew" they hate Israel and support those who would destroy it.

- arnon1

November 2, 2012 at 5:27pm

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Fuck off Noga.

- arnon1

November 2, 2012 at 5:28pm

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Fuck off Noga.

- arnon1

November 2, 2012 at 5:28pm

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". . . to see a good man joining a mob." You know, I felt somewhat the same about K2K giving Perry a pass for his attack on fellow service members who happen to not share his sexual orientation. But it's hopefully not the end of the world Noga -- although: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qgcy-V6YIuI In return for that wonderful Mary Hopkin clip.

- ironyroad

November 2, 2012 at 5:29pm

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To get back (if only momentarily) to Alec's excellent post... Romney didn't get away with his tax returns non-disclosure in the limited sense that O's team used it as part of its successful effort to initially portray him as unlikable, untrustworthy and elitist. But he did get away with it in the more important sense that, in the context of the overall campaign, the issue became relatively minor one that faded over time. Future Richie Riches who've manipulated the tax system as he has will no doubt disclose as little as he has.

- Thunderroad

November 2, 2012 at 5:50pm

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"Your hypocrisy is breath taking." Don't be an ass, Noga. Icarus discusses issues, he doesn't say that he supports a policy of dismantling benefits which he as a Canadian enjoys. K@K does just that and you in supporting K@K also support his views about dismantling health care benefits. Your hypocrisy is breathtaking. And she reads Jane Austen, how astounding.

- arnon1

November 2, 2012 at 6:21pm

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Arnon opens his mouth and all that comes out is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEStsLJZhzo

- Noga

November 2, 2012 at 6:28pm

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ironyroad: You give people passes all the time. I did not see even the tiniest bit of discomfort with Obama joking about the special olympics or sophia calling Romney a sociopath, or arnon here referring to k2k as mentally disabled. For that matter, I never saw you make any attempt to call out people who share your political positions on their obvious biases and abuses. Maybe you do not see these as biases or abuses when in the service of such a good cause as getting Obama reelected. Maybe you enjoy being a bystander while those you disagree with get thrashed (not always a bystander, clearly. Since you join in the communal thrashing). Or you are just too damned indifferent to care enough. It is the cause that matters overrides any need to abide by friendship, or decency, or fairness.

- Noga

November 2, 2012 at 6:40pm

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Noga "Arnon opens his mouth and all that comes out is" Wrong, I type with my mouth closed. And I don't watch you stupid videos. If this hypocrite called Noga wants to make a point, she should do it in writing. Idiots resort to visual aids.

- arnon1

November 2, 2012 at 6:49pm

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Noga, I don't believe you can seriously believe that calling K2K on Perry's electoral homophobia (whether opportunistic or real or both) counts as "thrashing." It sounds as if I'm not allowed to criticize anyone unless I run it by you first. And yes, elections have consequences. This isn't a graduate seminar on American literature.

- ironyroad

November 2, 2012 at 6:57pm

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arnon is so witty and sharp. Sorry I made a mistake in my previous comment. It was not sophia who called Romney a sociopath. She just said he was evil. Maybe she is one of those 50% of democrats who believe in the devil:)

- Noga

November 2, 2012 at 6:58pm

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I don't know if the Toronto Star is liberal or conservative, but I like their editorial: "Barack Obama has earned a second term as U.S. president" http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/1282048--barack-obama-has-earned-a-second-term-as-u-s-president

- arnon1

November 2, 2012 at 7:06pm

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Noga, I don't believe you can seriously believe that calling K2K on Perry's electoral homophobia (whether opportunistic or real or both) counts as "thrashing." __________ There is a time and place. When you happen to remember this just as he or she is being called mentally disabled, and ganged on by your friends, it does not seem that that is the most appropriate moment to join the ring of thrashers. Especially since Perry has long been out of this presidential race and there is nothing relevant to the discussion here that would necessitate inserting him. That would appear to be like you were trying to add fuel to the fire. Like the fire is not yet strong enough. Yup. Elections have consequences. All the more reason to keep discussing them with as much fairness and factuality as possible.

- Noga

November 2, 2012 at 7:08pm

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Noga "arnon is so witty and sharp." don't need to be witty to argue with a hypocritical runt like you.

- arnon1

November 2, 2012 at 7:08pm

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"There is a time and place. When you happen to remember this just as he or she is being called mentally disabled, and ganged on by your friends, it does not seem that that is the most appropriate moment to join the ring of thrashers. Especially since Perry has long been out of this presidential race and there is nothing relevant to the discussion here that would necessitate inserting him. That would appear to be like you were trying to add fuel to the fire. Like the fire is not yet strong enough." What a lot of wordy and factless nonsense.

- arnon1

November 2, 2012 at 7:21pm

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K2K: looks like I relieved you of your current position as arnons favourite :) Let us see how long it will take him to call me some offensive name ... oops, sorry, it already happened.

- Noga

November 2, 2012 at 8:08pm

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Noga "K2K: looks like I relieved you of your current position as arnons favourite :) Let us see how long it will take him to call me some offensive name ... oops, sorry, it already happened." Why do I think that Noga and K@K are two peas in a pod. There is little difference between them.

- arnon1

November 2, 2012 at 8:16pm

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noga: "The Return of the Thread Stalker" :) has moved to Schanzer's fascinating post, which I am so hoping the Peretz-less can hijack before it gets lost in The Plank. I was trying to think of an appropriate P&P quote for this thread, but am weary of Mr. Collins, who seems rational by comparison.

- K2K

November 2, 2012 at 9:05pm

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“Angry people are not always wise." Austen said but in this case, stupidity "must ... be forgiven, you know, because there is no hope of a cure."

- Noga

November 2, 2012 at 9:27pm

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the disabled man of means K2Kis also a stalker. Now he comes here to report to his boss where he has been stalking.

- arnon1

November 2, 2012 at 9:35pm

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Noga " there is no hope of a cure."" That's right there is one cure for Noga. She is a rare disease.

- arnon1

November 2, 2012 at 9:36pm

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Noga, I am only adding "fuel to the fire," as you call it, because K2K's presumption of ownership of a kind of snooty moral superiority particularly annoys me when I remember the Perry business. It's not the case in all things -- I remember the "earthquake in Teheran" argument earned me the enduring hatred of that MacEachern tub-thumper because I suggested there was a satirical joke involved. But while we're on the topic of fairness and factuality, could I remind you that it's only been a week or two since my using an analogy from a classroom situation to illustrate a point about language provoked a wave of venomous hostility from your side? It appears that nothing I ever ask or say is legitimate in your eyes, so you'll excuse me for scratching my head as to what arena of fairness and factuality we are meant to be in now.

- ironyroad

November 2, 2012 at 10:34pm

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"Mr. Burns endorses Mitt Romney" http://hurryupharry.org/2012/11/02/mr-burns-endorses-mitt-romney/

- arnon1

November 2, 2012 at 11:38pm

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"venomous hostility" ironyroad? That discussion was steeped in venom all right from the moment your virulent friend icarus came in. You didn't seem to mind all that venom at all as long as it went in the right direction (towards me), another example of your selective righteous muteness. I don't get your introduction of classroom analogies into this exchange. Where did I mention classroom situation here that you seem to address in your comment? "... so you'll excuse me for scratching my head as to what arena of fairness and factuality we are meant to be in now." For starters, when a fellow poster is being systematically singled out and called mentally disabled, for supporting another presidential candidate, you might try to notice and feel a little outraged. The thing not to do is jump into the fray with your own "evidence"of how morally defective that fellow poster is. You don't have to, of course, but then don't be surprised when someone else notices this selective muteness and the sanctimonious righteousness. And don't pretend that you don't understand.

- Noga

November 3, 2012 at 9:01am

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“For starters, when a fellow poster is being systematically singled out and called mentally disabled, for supporting another presidential candidate, you might try to notice and feel a little outraged. The thing not to do is jump into the fray with your own "evidence"of how morally defective that fellow poster is. You don't have to, of course, but then don't be surprised when someone else notices this selective muteness and the sanctimonious righteousness. And don't pretend that you don't understand.” What crap. Hypocrite Noga is using legitimate disagreements between posters as an excuse to post about issues that don’t concern her. Had the person “attacked” been an Obama supporter, Noga wouldn’t have been so ready to interfere. K@K was criticized because he used his own disability to argue that budget cuts Romney would make to Medicaid which will affects millions of poor and disabled people wouldn’t be so bad. These cuts the Republicans wish to make will be devastating to the majority of Medicaid recipients because they are poor. K isn’t poor and these cuts will not affect him. Which is why he can ridicule government aid to the needy as “nanny care.” Deserves much more censure that he is getting here: he is the poster child for hypocrisy. Hard to tell who is the greater hypocrite K because he uses his disability to support programs that will hurt other less fortunate disabled people, of Noga because she defends such hypocrisy in the name of “fairness.” Noga: “For starters, when a fellow poster is being systematically singled out and called mentally disabled, for supporting another presidential candidate, you might try to notice and feel a little outraged.” K wasn’t singled out as disabled, he singled himself out as disabled and used his disability politically. Noga is aware of this, but since she too supports Mitt Romney she comes to the aid of a fellow political supporter. Noga, is also a hypocrite because she lives in Canada, a country that has government supported medical care. Her support for dismantling whatever medical aid the US government gives to its citizens is an affront to decency.

- arnon1

November 3, 2012 at 12:12pm

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arnon: your comments are here, in this thread. Now you are trying to invert what you said. You will have us believe that when you called K2K mentally disabled you meant to express your great concern and compassion for the mentally disabled.

- Noga

November 3, 2012 at 1:19pm

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Noge: ever since I returned to TNR, I have only responded to your posts to call you out on your lies and manifest distortions about me. Keep my name out of your posts, and ignore my posts, and you will notice there there will be no reply to any of yours. As for your charges of hyporcrisy, or whatever, any argument about process or method is really an argument about substance. Instead of pouring out bile and crocodile tears about other posters, stick to the subject, and you will notice the level of venom will drop.

- icarus-r

November 3, 2012 at 1:22pm

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NOga, I don't care what you think. You are not "us." It's been evident from the start that I despised K@K attack on the Republicans desire to dismember medicaid. Now, fuck off, Noga.

- arnon1

November 3, 2012 at 1:23pm

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icarus: What I noticed was an ATTEMPT not to reply to my comments. Fact is, you just did. And in your usual manner.

- Noga

November 3, 2012 at 1:26pm

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"You are not "us." I'm very curious. By what authority do YOU get to decide who is "us" and who is not?

- Noga

November 3, 2012 at 1:27pm

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". . . the moment your virulent friend icarus came in." Mine, Noga? I wasn't the one bonding with icarus over a cute little exchange of Israeli/Persian recipes. How's that going, by the way? Anything new on the horizon? "Where did I mention a classroom situation here that you seem to address in your comment?" Here, on the thread about the Romney family mythology: ". . . and strutting his experience as an English prof as the ultimate authority in this matter." I was astonished that you, who in essence shares that title, would do what nobody else does around here. Basman often mentions his law experience, for example, and people disagree with him (often vehemently) without suggesting he's "strutting his stuff" as an attorney. Likewise other posters draw analogies and experience from everything from parenting to flying aircraft -- you are the only individual to actually attack someone not for their argument but for their professional identity. So, I ask again, after that display what values of fairness and factuality might we find any common ground on? In your considered opinion.

- ironyroad

November 3, 2012 at 1:33pm

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Yes, ironyroad, I remembered that barb but I was asking about "here", in this thread. I won't apologize for it, though. You have tried to use your authority as a literary critic to justify outlandish accusations (as in the by-now classical Peretz case). To accuse someone of racism is very severe and should be supported by real evidence of both words and intent. I would never allow (have never allowed) to let anyone accuse you of similar inclinations without challenging them in no uncertain terms. I ignore such accusations when they come from unserious people who populate these threads but from you, whom I hold in great respect? Would you have me just ignore it because you don't like it, or because you are incapable of owning to a mistake? ___________ I'm not getting your sarcastic comment about icarus and I. We tried to live in peace and failed. What of it? At least we tried. I thought you would have been all for it. In fact I recall you being overjoyed when we exchanged rice recipes.

- Noga

November 3, 2012 at 2:10pm

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"11/03/2012 - 12:12pm EDT | arnon1" This comment is one lie after another about me. I believe arnon is mentally disabled, and dependent on Medicaid, based on his delusional interpretation of my criticism of how Medicaid is bankrupting New York State because those with assets game Medicaid for longterm care, a topic that arnon is unfamiliar with since he lives near Boston, Massachusetts. Since I can never stop arnon's delusional lies about me (a tactic that works all too well in politics), I just wanted to post this, from The New Yorker: November 2, 2012 "The Marathon is Cancelled—Finally" Posted by Alex Koppelman "The drinking water in Breezy Point, Queens, an area absolutely devastated by Hurricane Sandy, is no longer safe to drink. But as of Friday afternoon, Mayor Bloomberg was saying that the I.N.G. New York City Marathon was still on. For days now, residents in housing projects in the Lower East Side have been relying on fire hydrants for their water—and the elderly and disabled, who can’t get up and down the stairs, need their neighbors to go to the hydrants for them. But as of Friday afternoon, Mayor Bloomberg was saying that the I.N.G. New York City Marathon was still on. More than two hundred thousand of Con Edison’s customers in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island—and that’s customers, not individual people; if individual people were tallied, the number would be much higher—are without electricity, and Con Ed says they may not have it back for another ten days. But as of Friday afternoon, Mayor Bloomberg was saying that the I.N.G. New York City Marathon was still on. And though electricity has just come back to much of downtown Manhattan, in other parts, it remains off, and even when it does return, some buildings will continue to be without it for who knows how long. But as of Friday afternoon, Mayor Bloomberg was saying that the I.N.G. New York City Marathon was still on. Around 5 P.M. E.T., the news broke that officials had, finally, decided to cancel the race—or, perhaps, to postpone it for later in the year. It was the right decision, but it took far too long to make. Like him or not, Mike Bloomberg has, overall, done a pretty good job as the mayor of New York City. Sure, he has his crusades, some of which are worth supporting, but the job of a mayor, especially here, is far more about administration than politics, and the guy just plain knows how to run things. But in his policies, he’s always favored a certain kind of person—the rich, or at least the upper middle class—over the people who struggle with the costs of living in New York City. Now there’s Sandy, and the response to it, both of which—because they come as his third and presumably final term is winding down—may end up defining much of Bloomberg’s legacy—as 9/11 did Rudy Giuliani’s. To his credit, Bloomberg has been a steady, comforting presence throughout this crisis. But what we’ve seen over the past week is the absolute worst of Bloomberg’s tendency towards favoring corporations and the well-to-do over people in need, which was epitomized, finally, in his stubborn insistence that the marathon would proceed as scheduled Bloomberg had his justifications, of course. At a press conference on Friday, a few hours before the cancellation news, he cited Giuliani’s support for the marathon in 2001, after the 9/11 attacks. “I think Rudy had it right,” he said. “You keep going; you have to do things. You can grieve, you can cry, you can laugh, all at the same time. That’s what human beings are good at.” It’s a seductive argument, maybe even a reasonable one. The city needs to come together, show that it’s bowed but not broken. There’s something to that. But 2001’s marathon took place almost two months after 9/11, not less than a week after it. The city needs to finish the tangible things—it needs to help all of its people—before it can focus on the emotional ones. And Bloomberg was promising that running the marathon would not take away resources that could go to Sandy’s victims. There is no way—simply no way—that could be true. Let’s assume, for a moment, that by Sunday everything in the city is back to normal. Everyone has power back, everyone has water back. Everyone’s houses are fixed. Even if that were the case—and it sure as hell won’t be—the amount of stuff available to the organization that puts on the marathon, the New York Road Runners, that could instead have gone to helping people struggling after the storm is stunning. The N.Y.R.R. says that it will donate a million dollars to Sandy’s victims—maybe more—which is a nice gesture. But that donation looks petty compared to the tremendous thing the group could have done simply by cancelling the marathon earlier in the week and diverting the supplies for the race to those in need. The New York Post has already noted the massive portable generators set up in Central Park, which, the Post says, are big “enough to power 400 homes in ravaged areas like Staten Island, the Rockaways and downtown Manhattan.” And that’s just the beginning. At the start of a typical race, sponsor Poland Spring provides more than ninety thousand eight-ounce bottles of water, plus more than sixty thousand gallons more along the way. That water could have gone to the people in Breezy Point, or to those getting water from hydrants, or those without any at all. Or the N.Y.R.R. could have relinquished the twenty-five hundred portable toilets it will put in place on Sunday, giving people without running water some dignity, or at least a way to save their drinking water for drinking, rather than flushing. The Bowery Mission, a shelter in Lower Manhattan, is asking for donations of iced tea and Gatorade as an alternative to serving only water to its clients. Presumably other shelters are asking the same thing. Maybe N.Y.R.R. could have spared some of the thirty thousand or so gallons of Gatorade it distributes each year? And surely there are people out there who, after a very long week, would have appreciated even one of the cans of beer earmarked for the pre-race dinner, out of the eighteen thousand cans provided last year? Even beyond that, there were other reasons why it should have been blindingly obvious that the race needed to be cancelled, or at least postponed. In a typical year, about fifteen hundred police officers—one thousand full-time cops, plus five hundred auxiliary officers, according to the Times—work the marathon. Almost two hundred sanitation workers are needed as well. There are, surely, better places for all of them to be this year. Even if there weren’t, we know that overtime costs for the police who help with the marathon alone (never mind the sanitation workers) average about three million dollars every year, even without a disaster having led to long working hours for law enforcement in the week leading up to the race. And we know, too, that, unrelated to Sandy, this is the first year that N.Y.R.R. has been required to contribute to those costs. But they reportedly only expected to pay about $2.5 million in fees to the city. There are, undoubtedly, some people who were planning to run who will be disappointed, even crushed by this decision. They shouldn’t be criticized for that, just as they shouldn’t have been criticized for participating in the race if it had gone on. This is something that people work toward for months, if not years. (Nick Thompson has more on what a runner goes through in preparing for a marathon.) Some of them do it to raise money for charity. And it’s expensive to enter. If the race is on, it’s on—you have to participate, or throw that work and that money away. The failure here was institutional. For days, Bloomberg and N.Y.R.R.—and N.Y.R.R.’s sponsors—were the ones making the wrong decision. They corrected it just in time to keep from losing New York City’s support." http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/11/marathon-is-cancelled-finally.html [K2k postscript: arnon's rage towards me accelerated when I commented that I had tried to offer an apartment I own in the North Bronx, in the neighborhood least impacted by Sandy, to one of the thousands who now have no home. Suddenly that made me the "disabled man of means". I wish. ]

- K2K

November 3, 2012 at 2:35pm

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I was very accurate in my reading of Marty Peretz's prose, Noga, and you had to bludgeon your own abilities into unconsciousness in order not to see it too. I didn't at any point accuse Peretz himself of racism as I wasn't able to judge the intention behind the expression. I do think it was unlikely to be accidental, however. If it had been a similar antisemitic instead of an anti-black remark, you would have had no problem identifying it immediately. My sarcastic comment about you and icarus was simply a response to your silly adolescent comment about "your friend icarus." I don't have any "friends" on this board.

- ironyroad

November 3, 2012 at 3:01pm

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The creepy disabled man of means K@K is back with another long post that he copied from the web. He is incapable of making a long sustained And coherent argument all by disabled self. All he has got is time on his hands and a creepy frustrated house wife companion named Noga who uses him because they both support the same lying sack of shit called Romney. Like I sad to your girls friend K@K fuck off.

- arnon1

November 3, 2012 at 3:12pm

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Irony is wasting his time arguing with a frustrated housewife and true believer (she worships Netanyahu). Nogavwill never accept a contrary view. It is not in her nature to do so.

- arnon1

November 3, 2012 at 3:14pm

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arnon: if you ever post that false description of me again (11/03/2012 - 3:12pm EDT | arnon1), you will be breaking Massachusetts State Law, again. You really need to take your meds to stop your delusional lies, adhoms, and foul language that would get you banned from most internet comment threads. http://kesslerfoundation.org/media/displaynews.php?id=218: "...According to the 2010 Kessler Foundation/NOD Survey of Americans with Disabilities, only 21 percent of working-age people with disabilities are employed compared with 59 percent of those without disabilities. ..." because so many people like arnon, allegedly "liberals" think it is ok to bully the disabled, dismiss us as worthless.

- K2K

November 3, 2012 at 3:27pm

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"arnon: if you ever post that false description of me again (11/03/2012 - 3:12pm EDT | arnon1), you will be breaking Massachusetts State Law, again" Here it, just for you, amigo. "The creepy disabled man of means K@K is back with another long post that he copied from the web. He is incapable of making a long sustained And coherent argument all by disabled self." How about that, K@K.

- arnon1

November 3, 2012 at 4:05pm

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Soon the only people posting here will be K@K and his girl friend.

- arnon1

November 3, 2012 at 4:05pm

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http://www.malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartIV/TitleI/Chapter265/Section43A "Section 43A. (a) Whoever willfully and maliciously engages in a knowing pattern of conduct or series of acts over a period of time directed at a specific person, which seriously alarms that person and would cause a reasonable person to suffer substantial emotional distress, shall be guilty of the crime of criminal harassment and shall be punished by imprisonment in a house of correction for not more than 21/2 years or by a fine of not more than $1,000, or by both such fine and imprisonment. The conduct or acts described in this paragraph shall include, but not be limited to, conduct or acts conducted by mail or by use of a telephonic or telecommunication device or electronic communication device including, but not limited to, any device that transfers signs, signals, writing, images, sounds, data or intelligence of any nature transmitted in whole or in part by a wire, radio, electromagnetic, photo-electronic or photo-optical system, including, but not limited to, electronic mail, internet communications, instant messages or facsimile communications. ..."

- K2K

November 3, 2012 at 4:50pm

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Get a life, loony. No one is forcing you to keep posting and engaging anyone here.

- arnon1

November 3, 2012 at 5:08pm

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K@K wants to have it both ways: he attacks what he calls (after right wing fanatics like Bill Krystal) the "nanny state" and then takes refuges in the laws the "the nanny state passed" to help the nannys and the ninnys." More examples of hypocrisy. As Truman said, if the kitchen is too hot get out of the kitchen, KKK.

- arnon1

November 3, 2012 at 5:17pm

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No one is forcing arnon-the-thread-stalker to obsessively harrass me, or noga, or anyone else, and deliberately taunting in, as just one example 11/03/2012 - 4:05pm EDT | arnon1 an liberal Democrat who has zero respect for the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts when such a law gets in the way of online name-calling deliberately designed to inflict emotional distress on his targets.

- K2K

November 3, 2012 at 5:26pm

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More K@K excuses. Go away K, you are harassing me. Have respect for the laws of the state in which you are a guest.

- arnon1

November 3, 2012 at 5:40pm

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"Get a life, loony." Oh the irony.

- Noga

November 3, 2012 at 5:43pm

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And get a life, K@K. This is a public forum and even the unwashed like me can join any debate they wish. If someone says something I think is stupid or a lie, I am allowed by the rules of TNR which is private, to counter their stupidity with a brilliant counter argument. If you don't like it go post on some right wing web site. I don't post on right wing websites and you shouldn't post on leftist websites.

- arnon1

November 3, 2012 at 5:44pm

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Noga "Oh the irony." The other loony and lonely house wife is back. She sees irony even when she peels a potato, the potato head.

- arnon1

November 3, 2012 at 5:47pm

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My life expectancy is less than six months. arnon's comments will be printed out in the file I leave for my Executor. TNR.com only allows subscribers to comment. The public can only read what is here. As TNR.com has devolved into a "leftist website", I assume TNR.com might have a shorter life expectancy than I do.

- K2K

November 3, 2012 at 6:01pm

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"I was very accurate in my reading of Marty Peretz's prose, Noga" I stand by my own reading, thank you. There was nothing, nothing whatsoever, in what he wrote that would suggest a racist undertone. Obama as commander in chief has to be educated by his military generals from making terrible and costly errors. If this were said about Romney would you deem it as bias, or straightforward accurate evaluation? You can stretch and use the racist thingy far but eventually it snaps. At what stage do we begin to stop hearing racist undertones in any criticism of Obama, I wonder? At what stage do you begin to treat him as a president, only the most powerful person in the world, and not as a precious crystal vase?

- Noga

November 3, 2012 at 6:08pm

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K2K "My life expectancy is less than six months." You said this before, KKK. You said about a year and a half ago as I recall, or was it just six months ago?

- arnon1

November 3, 2012 at 6:13pm

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Like I said, the loon Noga and her man of means will the the last posters to leave. Have fun.

- arnon1

November 3, 2012 at 6:15pm

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K2K: You shouldn't take anything arnon says about you so seriously. You can't expect great intelligence or perspicacity from arnon. The more you reveal about your situation the more he will try to injure you through it. And certainly you do not have to justify your presence here to this wretched excuse of a human being. You are doing great work bringing to us information and angles that provide broader vision. You ought to enjoy being at odds with the majority here. Remember what Martin Amis said: "You can't and shouldn't he impervious to the mood of your times (but) You should never be thinking and feeling with the crowd. Don't do anything for the crowd. Don't do anything with the crowd."

- Noga

November 3, 2012 at 6:28pm

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If K@K only has six month to live why is he wasting it arguing politics on line. You are either very stupid or a liar. Which is it. No wonder you make such a cozy crony for Noga. She too is a frustrated liar and fool.

- arnon1

November 3, 2012 at 6:34pm

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This Noga quotes Martin Amis (probably from a review she read online) as if anything he said could apply to a pedestrian forum. Noga needs to think of herself as something grand which is why she likes to quote what she considers grand writers, preferably British. This boring little housewife needs grand themes to get through the day. It's either that or a cocktail or two....

- arnon1

November 3, 2012 at 6:38pm

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Thank you noga. It's just that I worked so hard for the Democratic Party that it has broken my heart to see what it has become since 2008 - no leadership, and snarky childishness from mean boys who live in adult bodies. People do die from broken hearts as well as the ravages of dioxin. Mostly, it is truly creepy to be Thread Stalked by anyone who is obsessive. My tnr.com subscription expires soon, so the mean boys can wallow in their playpen full of toxic mud.

- K2K

November 3, 2012 at 7:09pm

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"I stand by my own reading, thank you." Likewise.

- ironyroad

November 3, 2012 at 7:11pm

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"My tnr.com subscription expires soon..." I have read this before from this poster. K will die here either in six month or sixty years he will be here till his last day.

- arnon1

November 3, 2012 at 7:24pm

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Noga: you can't seem to help distorting or misunderstanding a basic English sentence. Here is what I said: "I have only responded to your posts to call you out on your lies and manifest distortions about me. Keep my name out of your posts, and ignore my posts, and you will notice there there will be no reply to any of yours." Here is how you portrayed it: "icarus: What I noticed was an ATTEMPT not to reply to my comments. Fact is, you just did. And in your usual manner." You are a self-confessed person of bad faith when it comes to me. For the record, here it is again: If you mention my name, and especially if you distort what I say, I will reply to correct your distortions and your lies. I will do so in whatever manner I see fit, but only to correct the lie. You engage in argument in bad faith - you have admitted as much. The fact that you are incapable of responding to anything I say without lying, and therefore drawing a reaction, is not my fault. Stop lying, and I will stop replying.

- icarus-r

November 4, 2012 at 10:24am

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K2K: you have mentioned your medical issues. I am sorry to hear that they have gotten worse. I hope that the prognosis improves - in some cases, they do. Political passions may run wild at times - I confess I never understood many of yours, just as I am sure mine are somewhat opaque for most - but for what it is worth, you have my sympathies for the challenges you are facing and that lie ahead.

- icarus-r

November 4, 2012 at 10:30am

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" Stop lying, and I will stop replying." I don't lie. I see nothing to be gained by lying. In fact I take a certain pride in my insistence on being perfectly honest. And I am perfectly honest when I say that I have no faith in whatever it is you say, based on my experience with you. Boiling and overflowing sarcasm is not humour, wisdom or wit. It is really a mark of feebleness. I will of course continue to respond to whatever and whenever you write in your flamboyant and demonizing manner as I see fit. You can continue to respond or not respond as you see fit. Fact is I find you an interesting stereotype (a cliche, in other words) and I simply feel compelled to punch holes in your inflated balloon of an ego of yours. Having said that I must say I found your words to K2K very kind and charitable, and as unlike arnon's here as can be. That means that under all that braggadocio there seems to be a real heart and that is good to know.

- Noga

November 4, 2012 at 11:14am

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yes, thank you icarus, for your knid thoughts, for being human. I really appreciate that.

- K2K

November 4, 2012 at 2:19pm

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K2K: that is all we are in the end, human and tragically brittle, and nothing else really matters. Sadly, kind thoughts, and kind words, are all I can offer; any disagreement, over politics or other things, seems so small and pointless now ... Still, there is still time, and as long as there is time, there is hope. (This is not just an empty word: five years ago, in the same week, a good friend and the boyfriend of another good friend died of heart attack; both in their thirties, and both while doing sports. Out of the blue. Odd thing is, because they were so young, neither had a chance ... so time really is hope. And right there, you have my prayers.)

- icarus-r

November 4, 2012 at 5:33pm

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If I really believed that K2K was sincere was he says that he has just six months to live, I would echo icarus' declaration. Not only that, I would even say Kaddish for him. However, k2k has said this so many times before that I have a hard time believing him. He is like the boy who cried wolf once too often.

- arnon1

November 4, 2012 at 5:38pm

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"Suicide Is Painless" Lyrics [theme song from MASH] Songwriters: MANDEL, JOHNNY / ALTMAN, MICHAEL B "Through early morning fog I see Visions of the things to be The pains that are withheld for me I realize and I can see That suicide is painless It brings on many changes And I can take or leave it if I please I try to find a way to make All our little joys relate Without that ever-present hate But now I know that it's too late, and That suicide is painless It brings on many changes And I can take or leave it if I please The game of life is hard to play I'm gonna lose it anyway The losing card I'll someday lay So this is all I have to say That suicide is painless It brings on many changes And I can take or leave it if I please The only way to win is cheat And lay it down before I'm beat And to another give my seat For that's the only painless feat That suicide is painless It brings on many changes And I can take or leave it if I please The sword of time will pierce our skins It doesn't hurt when it begins But as it works its way on in The pain grows stronger watch it grin, but That suicide is painless It brings on many changes And I can take or leave it if I please A brave man once requested me To answer questions that are key Is it to be or not to be And I replied 'Oh, why ask me?' That suicide is painless It brings on many changes And I can take or leave it if I please 'Cause suicide is painless It brings on many changes And I can take or leave it if I please And you can do the same thing if you please" [ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/j/johnny+mandel/suicide+is+painless_20801409.html ]

- K2K

November 6, 2012 at 8:28am

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