What the Sam Hill has Mitt Romney proposed:
Doyle McManus edition!

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2012

The hopelessness of the whale: Reading a post by Kevin Drum, we saw this quote from Doyle McManus in the Los Angeles Times:
MCMANUS (10/10/12): But once the two candidates met on an equal footing in Denver, many voters were amazed to meet a Romney who seemed like an earnest businessman looking for ways to fix the economy—a Romney who insisted that, contrary to his previously stated positions, he didn't want to cut taxes for the wealthy, abandon healthcare reform or reduce education spending (issues that polls find especially important to female voters).
Doyle McManus was shocked, shocked to hear Romney say that he didn't want to cut taxes for the wealthy.

Maybe McManus should try reading his own newspaper! Here's Maeve Reston, in a front-page news report on September 10, in the Los Angeles Times:
RESTON (9/10/12): The focus on Romney's budget was prompted by an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," where he insisted that he would cut taxes for middle-income Americans but not for the rich. Host David Gregory pressed Romney for just one example of a tax loophole employed by the wealthy that he would close, but Romney would not offer one.

"High-income taxpayers are going to have fewer deductions and exemptions. Those numbers are going to come down. Otherwise they'd get a tax break," Romney replied. "I want to make sure people understand, despite what the Democrats said at their convention, I am not reducing taxes on high-income taxpayers."
Those were paragraphs 5 and 6 of a front-page news report. But so what?

One month after Reston's report, McManus was shocked, shocked when Romney said he doesn't want to cut taxes for the wealthy.

Romney’s proposal doesn’t seem to make sense. McManus’ journalism is worse. The truth is, we no longer have a press corps when people like McManus clown, play, pontificate, misstate and posture like this.

Doyle McManus was shocked last week. Maybe it's time for one more of these never-was has-beens to go.

14 comments:

  1. Not even clever this time, Bob.

    Where in the quoted passage does McManus even come close to saying he was "shocked, shocked" about Romney's about-face on taxes as if it were the first time McManus heard it?

    He clearly said "voters were amazed" to see a Romney disavow just about every position he has taken this year.

    And not just on taxes, but on health care, education, as well -- "issues that polls find especially important to women."

    Bob, you were brilliant in the past, especially during the 2000 election. But this year, your work has been consistently poor.

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    1. Sir,
      If you read a little more closely you will find that Bob does not quote McManus as being "shocked."

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    2. You don't read very closely at all. I never said he "quoted" McManus. I said that nothing McManus wrote, especially in his quoted statement, comes anywhere close to supporting his thesis statement:

      "Doyle McManus was shocked, shocked to hear Romney say that he didn't want to cut taxes for the wealthy."

      Bottom line to use an old Internet cliche: Bob wrote a check with his mouth that his brain can't cash.

      And once again rides to the defense of Mitt Romney lie.

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  2. And this sorry state of American journalism places a huge restraint on how the more truthful candidate can respond to the other side's crap.

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    Replies
    1. That's what happens when you think you are covering a sport.


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  3. Anonymous 1:35, what part of "contrary to his previously stated positions" don't you understand? What part of a Romney statement a month ago, "I want to make sure people understand, despite what the Democrats said at their convention, I am not reducing taxes on high-income taxpayers," is too difficult to comprehend?

    All politicians are slippery. Romney is a master. The public gets that, and gives politicians a fair amount of leeway. If Obama gets sucked into focusing on trying to show inconsistencies in Romney's statements for the purpose of proving Romney is a liar -- at least among those statements that exist now -- he will lose.

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    1. What makes it hard to comprehend is that it's impossible. There is no way Romney's tax proposals (including his capital gains and estate tax proposals) will NOT lower taxes on the wealthy (which are already ridiculously low, as evidenced by his own two tax returns he will issue, and the reason he doesn't dare release any more), while raising taxes on every one else if he is really serious (dubious) about making it "revenue neutral."

      Bob's point, however, is that it isn't a lie the second time you tell it, and since he said it first a few days earlier, you can't call him out on it when he repeated it during the debate. Goebbels would be proud.





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    2. yeah...goebbels...shrewd like bob. you meant that as a compliment right? well, no matter, because to me cromwell is a better fit. now there was a leader! to hell or connaught! such power, yet simple. oh for the good old days. sigh.

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    3. I meant that as a fact.

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  4. obviously bobs hair splitting is 90% wrong here, but hes right in the larger sense. this guy mcwhatever should be fired on general principle. how do we expect to have a decent society with our media giving legitimacy to names like "Doyle McManus".

    thank you mr somerby for standing up for real americans and patriots all over this great land.

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    1. believe what you will about about the quality of Doyle McManus' (yes! i learned where the caps button is, but only for a moment!) reporting -- but it's a stone-cold fact the only reason somerby doesn't like him is because of McManus' *name*!!!

      now, where did i mislay my pill-bottle???

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  5. Mcmanus is the L.A. Times hack assigned to trash Gary Webb's San Jose Mercury News Contra/drug series years ago.

    Webb drew blood.

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  6. Hadn't heard McManus' name in years. Prompted a look back at a fascinating lesson in media ineptitude and treachery. Sorry for the distraction but it's worth a look.

    http://www.counterpunch.org/2004/12/17/how-the-press-and-the-cia-killed-gary-webb-s-career/

    http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2004/12/reaction_on_gar.php



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