Gingrich v Romney: lies and the lying liars…

The New Neo Posted on by

Let’s get one thing straight: to be a politician is to lie sometimes, or at the very least to tell half truths and/or shade the truth when it’s strategic to do so.

And sometimes—as today, when Newt Gingrich called Romney a liar—those who call others “liar, liar, pants on fire” are lying themselves (or telling half-truths, or shading the truth) in the very act of accusation.

For example, after calling Romney a liar, Newt added, by way of explanation:

Well, I’ll let you go and check [Romney’s] record, Bob. Look, you’re a professional reporter. Did he support Reagan in the ’80s or not? The answer is no. Did he vote as a Democrat for Paul Tsongas in ’92 or not? The answer is, yes, he did. Did he say that he didn’t want to go back to the Reagan-Bush years in ’94? Yes, he did. Did he run to the left of Teddy Kennedy? Yes he did. Now, why is it politically incorrect to tell the truth?

Well, my name isn’t “Bob,” and I’m not a professional reporter, but I took Gingrich up on his invitation to check the record anyway.

Gingrich’s assertion that Romney did not support Reagan in the 80s—when Romney was a private citizen in business—appears to rest on a single statement Romney made during his 1994 debate against uber-liberal Ted Kennedy in uber-liberal Massachusetts for the Senate seat Kennedy had held for decades. Romney tried to deflect Kennedy’s criticism of certain Reagan polities by saying, “I was an independent during that time of Reagan-Bush. I’m not trying to return to Reagan-Bush.”

Note that Romney says nothing about whether or not he actually supported, or voted for, Reagan in the 80s. He merely speaks of his Independent registration and his reluctance to return Massachusetts to the Reagan-Bush years, a typical politician’s dodge to try to avoid a knotty problem: how to appeal to liberal Massachusetts voters as a Republican without being branded as that horror of horrors (to the majority of Massaschusetts voters anyway), a Ronald Reagan wannabe. The answer was to distance himself as best he could. Whether he actually supported Reagan or not in the 80s we simply do not know.

On to Gingrich’s next assertion. Here’s what I found about Romney’s vote for Tsongas—whom, by the way, I remember well, having supported him in 1992, and who remains one of my favorite politicians of all time and was a person who was far enough to the right that he’d be drummed out of today’s Democratic Party. Romney offers two stories, both of which feature him crossing over as a registered Independent to vote for Tsongas in the 1992 Democratic primary in Massachusetts and then voting for George H.W. Bush in the general election.

So no, Romney did not “vote as a Democrat” for Tsongas; he voted as an Independent in the Democratic primary, and then voted for Republican Bush in the general. Romney’s explanations for this decision are as follows: (a) he wanted to support Tsongas over Clinton because the former was a Massachusetts native son and a candidate Romney liked better than Clinton, always intending to vote for Bush in the general; and (b) Romney thought Tsongas a weaker candidate in the general, less likely to beat Bush, whom he favored in the general.

This sort of strategy is performed all the time in crossover states such as Massachusetts, where Independents are allowed the freedom to vote in either primary. Since in 1992 the Republican primary was uncontested—the incumbent Bush was going to be nominated—Romney’s actions make sense and are not evidence of closet liberalism, whichever way you interpret them.

Now let’s tackle Gingrich’s statement that Romney ran “to the left of Teddy Kennedy.” Gingrich knows, of course, that in order to have a chance of winning in Massachusetts at all, Romney had to throw off the conservative label and color his positions in the most liberal possible light. I’ve studied that 1994 campaign and listened to several segments from their debates, and I see no justification for Gingrich’s statement. There’s no question that on some issues Romney tried to position himself not too far to the right, and not too far to Kennedy’s right. But to the left of Kennedy? That is, at least as far as I can see, a—lie.

Now, maybe you don’t think someone who is not completely conservative on all issues, and/or who was not always conservative on all issues—someone who’s changed and become more conservative, as Romney says he has—should be nominated or even elected president, even if the alternative is Obama. Maybe you think no one who’s ever campaigned for office in a liberal state against a liberal, and who therefore had to present himself as not-so-conservative in order to have a chance of winning, is too hypocritical for you to support, even if the alternative is Obama (although if hypocrisy disqualifies a candidate for you, you better sit out virtually every election). Maybe you think that no one who’s ever won office in a liberal state and had to compromise with a liberal legislature and its veto threat is someone you could vote for, even if the alternative is Obama. Maybe you just don’t trust Romney, then or now, because of all of this.

As I’ve said many times before, I’m not trying to talk anyone into liking Romney. I’m not too keen on him myself; I would have preferred any number of other candidates who unfortunately are not running. But if you don’t like him, at least dislike him for the right reasons, not for distortions of his record.

Obama’s second term

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “foxmarks” writes:

Barry can’t really be a -100. He has studiously continued many of GWB’s policies (cf: FICA tax holiday, GITMO, drone strikes). Barry’s rhetoric is a -100, but as the Progs fairly argue, he has governed as a moderate Republican. His laziness has led me to no longer fear a 2nd term. Obamacare will either lead to my desired systemic correction or be overturned by the Supremes. I have zero faith that Congress will repeal and replace with anything that honors individual liberty and market-based pricing. I don’t want mere repeal, I want a catastrophic defeat at the hands of economic reality or legal principle.

Foxmarks is not alone; I’ve noticed a growing number of people in the blogosphere saying some version of the above. I’m working on a larger article discussing the danger of the idea that it’s more desirable to strive for a catastrophic event that will lead to something revolutionary (and which its advocates think they will be able to control) rather than a gradual step-by-step redressing of the problems. But that’s not this post. Here I’m going to deal with the idea that Obama would continue to govern as a “moderate Republican” in a second term.

Obama is a politician, and although he’s no genius he’s a smart man, smart enough to have been at least somewhat strategic in his decisions during his first term. Unless you think he really is a moderate Republican in his secret heart, there is no reason to suppose he will govern moderately in his second term, when he will no longer have any need to appeal to independents in order to be re-elected.

It is logical to assume that he will see his second term as an opportunity—perhaps his last—to accomplish what he could not in his first. That can be done not only by legislative means but by executive fiat. His power to veto the legislation passed by a most-likely-Republican Congress that will almost certainly not have the numbers to override him will remain intact, and he will exercise it. He will be setting foreign policy and appointing Cabinet members and czars, and they will be setting domestic policy as well.

And, of course, he will most likely be appointing one or several liberal Supreme Court justices, who will remain in office for life.

It makes no sense to assume that Obama will be too lazy to exercise these prerogatives in a second term when the opportunity presents itself. I have little doubt that he still adheres to a left-wing ideology, and has merely been thwarted in achieving most of what he desired in his first term (although Obamacare was a fine start). A second term will present a golden opportunity.

Pay no attention to that debt behind the curtain

The New Neo Posted on by

Regular readers of this blog know that economics is not my field of expertise, although I’m familiar enough with the subject to know that common sense doesn’t get a person very far, and that there’s a great deal of argument among so-called experts about what should be done in the current economy.

I also know that Paul Krugman is a disingenuous, self-serving egomaniac. How do I know that? Not from reading his economics posts, but from a lengthy bit of research I did in 2003, a year or so before I became a blogger, on the subject of Krugman’s explanation of and apologia for the anti-Semitism of Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia (I recall that he wrote a subsequent column on the brouhaha as well, and for some reason I can’t locate it right now). Coming to that conclusion didn’t take any knowledge of economics at all—just research, reading comprehension, and logic.

I could write a very long paper on what my research uncovered, but that’s not the point of this post. For now, suffice to say that I started out having no particular opinion about Krugman except that I knew he’d won a Nobel for economics, and had written some popular books on the subject that I’d heard were pretty fair and fairly good. But when I delved into the story behind Mahathir’s remarks, the more I learned the more I was stunned to discover that Krugman had misrepresented nearly everything about them except the actual quote. For example, Krugman said that Mahathir was using the remarks to shore up his domestic flank, but it turns out that Mathahir was actually retiring from politics. Krugman also failed to mention Mahathir’s lengthy history of anti-Semitism, and Krugman’s deeply entwined relationship with Mathahir and Malaysia.

There was more—much more. But the point was that, on a subject that was much more accessible to me than economics, many hours of research convinced me that Paul Krugman was a man who played fast and loose with the truth, and who would double down on his misrepresentations when accused and challenged. That hardly makes him unique, but it does make him suspect.

Which brings us to the subject of today’s post—Krugman and the debt. I would not be paying attention to Krugman except for the fact that, when he writes about economics, he still has clout and influence (including among certain people whose intelligence I respect, and who know more about economics than I do).

I have my usual difficulty evaluating what he’s saying about the economy vs. what his critics write about what he’s saying. Case in point: this recent column of Krugman’s. Cut away all the gratuitous and mean-spirited slams (Krugman’s trademark) at conservatives and you get this kernel:

…U.S. debt is, to a large extent, money we owe to ourselves.

This was clearly true of the debt incurred to win World War II. Taxpayers were on the hook for a debt that was significantly bigger, as a percentage of G.D.P., than debt today; but that debt was also owned by taxpayers, such as all the people who bought savings bonds. So the debt didn’t make postwar America poorer. In particular, the debt didn’t prevent the postwar generation from experiencing the biggest rise in incomes and living standards in our nation’s history.

But isn’t this time different? Not as much as you think.

It’s true that foreigners now hold large claims on the United States, including a fair amount of government debt. But every dollar’s worth of foreign claims on America is matched by 89 cents’ worth of U.S. claims on foreigners. And because foreigners tend to put their U.S. investments into safe, low-yield assets, America actually earns more from its assets abroad than it pays to foreign investors. If your image is of a nation that’s already deep in hock to the Chinese, you’ve been misinformed. Nor are we heading rapidly in that direction.

When I read that, I thought it made no sense on the face of it. How can Krugman compare debt owed by government to debt owed to private US companies abroad (which is what he appears to be doing)? I’m certainly not the only one raising this question. A commenter named “SteveinCH” remarks, in response to a post by Owen Gray at The Moderate Voice about Krugman’s column:

And here we have a great example of why Paul Krugman is so dangerous to the US economy. I first saw a version of the argument that Owen links to over the holidays. Although I hate linking to Krugman, the link can be found below.

Now, why is this such a dangerous argument? Because it massively misrepresents the story and I rather suspect Dr. Krugman knows this to be true. To show you why, let’s refer to the 2010 census data.

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1289.pdf

Now, let’s focus on government investment outside the US and foreign government holdings inside the US. The private holdings are not income that accrue to the US government so they are irrelevant for Dr. K’s argument.

US government assets abroad are about $560 billion. Most of that is reserve assets (the stuff that notionally backs our currency). Most of the reserve assets don’t pay interest (things like gold and SDRs). The securities holdings of the US government abroad are less than $100 billion.

Now foreign governments hold $4 trillion of US government securities. Foreign corporations hold another $1 trillion of US securities. So the ratio of instruments the US is paying debt on versus receiving interest on is somewhere between 8 and 50 to 1, nothing like the charts Dr. K uses.

Then again, maybe Dr. K believes public and private assets are the same and money paid to US corporations is actually paid to the government. At least his math would work then but you’d think it might be worth owning up to that assumption.

As to why he’s dangerous, it’s because people like Owen and many others simply link to his work, never understanding how disingenuous he’s actually being.

Here’s another critique of Krugman, this one by an economics professor at George Mason University. It focuses on a different point, but one that also involves public vs. private sector considerations:

When government spends money, resources that would otherwise have been used to produce valuable private-sector outputs are instead used to produce public-sector outputs. The values of these foregone private-sector outputs are a genuine cost of government projects regardless of government’s funding method, regardless of the merits of the government projects, and regardless of the nationalities of government’s creditors. And the private-sector outputs that are never produced because resources are instead used to produce public-sector outputs do not miraculously appear ”“ they are not miraculously ”˜unforegone’ ”“ simply because the obligation to pay for public-sector outputs is deferred to the future or because the holders of the debt instruments are citizens of the same country as the taxpayers.

The argument in the above paragraph isn’t unique: it is elaborated in great detail in many of the works on public finance by another Nobel laureate economist, James Buchanan.* It’s discouraging that Mr. Krugman seems to be unfamiliar with Buchanan’s contributions.

My guess is that Krugman is not unfamiliar with Buchanan’s contributions. My guess is that he disregards everything that does not fit into the message he wants to deliver. In this, again, he is hardly unusual—for a columnist, that is. But Mr. Krugman should finally own up to the fact that he long ago stopped being an economist at all, and morphed into a polemicist in economist’s clothing.

Happy New Year!

The New Neo Posted on by

Here it comes again, folks, the day it’s obligatory to have a rollicking good time.

Why, I’m not so sure. Perhaps because the passage of the years can be depressing, especially after the age of forty or so. Or perhaps it’s because we have to face learning to write a different number on our checks, just when we’ve finally gotten used to the old one.

And then there’s the drinking. In previous years, I offered this hangover recipe for the day after, even though I (she says smugly) don’t really drink.

As for tonight, I’m not planning much, although I might change my mind at the last minute. That’s the prerogative of age (and iffy weather).

And then there are the ubiquitous resolutions. This year I’ve fastened on a single one: to go to bed earlier. It’s one I’ve focused on before, and obviously had a lot of difficulty keeping, since I’m trying again. I’ve always been a tremendous nightowl, and being a blogger hasn’t helped me any in my (admittedly weak) efforts to change my nightowl proclivities.

So a very HAPPY NEW YEAR to all of you! Are you planning anything fun?

[ADDENDUM: Bumped up.]

Sent by central casting

The New Neo Posted on by

Who are these people?

The chorus line at Chippendale’s?

The lineup for the baseball All Stars game?

The cast of “The Book of Mormon” on Broadway? (Hint: now we’re getting a bit closer.)

Or is it—yes—four of Mitt Romney’s five grown and surpassingly telegenic sons:

Here are all five, with parents:

For me this post is about beefcake, pure and simple. But of course politics rears its ugly head. I found, while looking for suitable photos around the web, that not only was the focus on son Matt’s joke about Obama’s birth certificate, but most of the photos of the sons were featured in posts on leftist blogs that were snarkily critical of the fact that none of the sons had served in the military. It’s a charge that would never, never, ever be leveled against a Democratic candidate by fellow-Democrats, but it’s just a foretaste of the plan of attack if Romney is nominated.

Whoever wins the nomination, this is going to be a knock-down drag out battle. That’s one of the reasons, I think, for a lot of people’s preference for Newt over Mitt (two odd names, by the way). Or we could use the old tried and true criterion of who’s taller: it’s Mitt, who seems to beat Obama by an inch in that department.

Forgive me, but…

The New Neo Posted on by

…I cannot resist posting this photo of Christina Aguilera and friend:

If a woman’s got a lot of money and can wear almost anything she wants, why oh why would it be this? And why this with the high high high-heeled platform pumps? And why this with the homage to Andy Warhol? And why this with the short zippered black leather jacket? And why this with the exceedingly platinum hair? And why this with the guy whose left big toe is hanging out? And why and why and why…

So, what would Romney do…

The New Neo Posted on by

…if he were elected president?

I’ve read many comments (at this blog and other sites) like this one from “geran” on the subject:

“The worse habit of a ‘True Conservative’ is a certain disconnect with reality of any sort.”

I’m that “True Conservative” that does not like the reality. We have spent ourselves into oblivion. About 50% of the country does not know how many States there are, or any science, or history.

And, we are hoping a wishy-washy Massachusetts liberal, claiming to be a Conservative to get elected, can save us.

There’s some reality for you”¦.

I think I understand where that commenter’s coming from. As I’ve said many many times, Romney would not be my choice if I had my druthers. But I don’t, because my picks aren’t running.

I also don’t think Romney is merely claiming to be a conservative to get elected, and that he’s really a closet liberal. What do I think is so conservative about him? Well, his entire personal and private life, and his career right up to his tenure as governor of Massachusetts, a post he held for only four years. Take a look, especially at his private and personal life (a few choice excerpts follow), and tell me whether the following sounds like a liberal:

[Growing up,] Romney idolized his father, read automotive trade magazines, kept abreast of automotive developments, and aspired to be an executive in the industry himself one day…In March of his senior year [of high school], he began dating Ann Davies [who is still his wife], two years behind him, whom he had once known in elementary school…The two informally agreed to marriage around the time of his June 1965 graduation…

Romney attended Stanford University for a year. Although the campus was becoming radicalized with the beginnings of 1960s social and political movements, he kept a well-groomed appearance and enjoyed traditional campus events. In May 1966, he was part of a counter-protest against a group staging a sit-in in the university administration building in opposition to draft status tests. He worked as a security guard again in order to fund secret trips home to see Ann…

In July 1966, Romney left for 30 months in France as a Mormon missionary, a traditional duty that his father and other relatives had done. He arrived in Le Havre with ideas about how to change and promote the French Mission, while facing physical and economic deprivation in their cramped quarters. Rules against drinking, smoking, and dating were strictly enforced. Like most individual Mormon missionaries, he did not gain many converts, with the nominally Catholic but secular, wine-loving French people proving especially resistant to a religion that prohibits alcohol…In Nantes, Romney was bruised defending two female missionaries against a horde of local rugby players…He was promoted to zone leader in Bordeaux in early 1968, then in the spring of that year became assistant to the mission president in Paris, the highest position for a missionary…Romney’s support for the U.S. role in the Vietnam War was only reinforced when the French greeted him with hostility over the matter and he debated them in return.

I’ll rather arbitrarily stop there, but it just goes on and on and on. Romney was such a straight-arrow social conservative that he was almost a caricature. And after that, he had a career in business that contained no hint of liberalism.

It was only when he had settled in Massachusetts and started running for office (first time in 1994, against Ted Kennedy) that some moderation showed. He had to refute the Kennedy forces’ charge that he was like Reagan—which, in Massachusetts, would have been a death-blow to anyone’s political aspirations. It was during this campaign, against one of the most liberal members of Congress, and then again in 2002 when he ran for governor of Massachusetts and won, that he tacked to the left of a conservative line. That’s the way he governed as well, and it’s really probably the only way he could have governed in Massachusetts, with its highly Democratic legislature and electorate.

You may call him a hypocrite for that, and most definitely he had to compromise some of whatever conservative principles he might have had to hold that office. Perhaps a “real” conservative would not have even run for senator or governor from a state such as Massachusetts—or, if such a person did run, he/she would certainly not have expected to win, but merely to have a platform to voice some conservative ideas. Romney ran to win, and he did.

In short, he became a politician—although rather late in the game.

Now, you may not want a politician as president. I’d actually prefer something else myself. But I like to think of myself as a realist, and I think that’s what Romney is, too. The question is: which was the pose and which the real convictions of the man?

Some would say, “Convictions? He hasn’t got any.” But what if he compromised his inner conservative in order to be elected in Massachusetts, rather than compromising now?

I don’t pretend to know what the man would do as president. I don’t like the idea of electing another person who might say one thing and do another, or who would cave on important principles, either. This very much concerns me. But Obama’s personal background and his voting record screamed “left,” whereas Romney’s background screams “right,” and the only political record he has is in Massachusetts, an ultra-liberal state that he took more to the right than his predecessors. Isn’t it highly possible that, if Romney were to be elected president with the more conservative message he’s giving out now (and as champion of political change, I believe it’s probable he has become more politically conservative over the years), and if there were a Republican Congress as well, he would find it both pragmatic and ideologically congruent to govern as a conservative?

RINOs for President?

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve read a lot of objections to Romney that go like this, “He’s another RINO, just like McCain. Look how well that worked out in 2008. McCain lost because he’s a RINO.”

You can hate McCain (and many do), and/or hate Romney (likewise). You can dislike either or both of them for a host of reasons. Ditto, you can think they’re not conservative enough to suit you, and if you think that you’re probably correct.

Just remember, though, all of the reasons that McCain lost. I submit that one of them was not because he was a RINO. There were plenty of other, more obvious ones:

(1) He was a horrible debater. While watching debate #2 I knew he was probably toast.

(2) He not only was old, he seemed old: energyless and dispirited. He’d had a major life-threatening health problem, as well.

(3) His strength was foreign policy, and by the time election day came round that seemed a far less important issue than it had been before.

(4) His (self-admitted) weakness was economics, and by the time election day came round that seemed a far more important issue than it had been before.

None of these is true of Romney, although he’s certainly got other problems.

However, McCain’s RINO status may have caused some Republicans to sit out the election (Republican turnout declined by 1.3% in 2008 as compared to 2004). But even if those 1.3% had gone to the polls and voted for McCain, it wouldn’t have been enough to swing the election to him.

Independents, on the other hand (and there are a lot of them), have nothing special against RINOs, although in 2008 they voted in droves for Obama. Here’s how Romney stacks up against Obama among Independents in a poll taken in November 2011:

But when it comes to the ever crucial bloc of independent voters, Romney trumps Obama by a 12-point margin ”“ 53 percent to 41 percent. Independents in 2012 could be especially critical in tipping the scales in such battleground states as Florida, Ohio, and Virginia, all of which went for Obama last time around but have since been deemed toss-ups. When matched up with the other top GOP candidates, Obama leads among independents by at least slight margins.

Again, you may not like Romney. You may not want to see him nominated. If he’s nominated, you may hold your nose and vote for him or you may stay home or you may write in your favorite instead. But if Romney’s a RINO, the only people that fact is turning off are conservative Republicans. And if he’s the nominee and he loses the election, it will probably be because conservative Republicans didn’t vote for him.