by This post is self therapy and probably not worth your time. Outline before the Jump 1) Hillary Clinton is very honest. Too honest 2) Mitt Romney is extremely dishonest. He lies often and without shame. Also he made his money conning ex friends. 3) John McCain was a major flip-flopper 4) John Kerry is much too stubborn. He won’t admit it when he is wrong. He should be more willing flip flop 5) Al Gore is a bearer of inconvenient truths who deserves much of the credit (or blame) for the existence of the internet 6) Bill Clinton is an ultra wonk who is relatively honest. 7) Walter Mondale was sharp as a knife and had charisma 8) Jimmy Carter is a visionary. 9) George McGovern was the only US politician willing to try to prevent horrible Communist crimes.
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This post is self therapy and probably not worth your time. Outline before the Jump
1) Hillary Clinton is very honest. Too honest
2) Mitt Romney is extremely dishonest. He lies often and without shame. Also he made his money conning ex friends.
3) John McCain was a major flip-flopper
4) John Kerry is much too stubborn. He won’t admit it when he is wrong. He should be more willing flip flop
5) Al Gore is a bearer of inconvenient truths who deserves much of the credit (or blame) for the existence of the internet
6) Bill Clinton is an ultra wonk who is relatively honest.
7) Walter Mondale was sharp as a knife and had charisma
8) Jimmy Carter is a visionary.
9) George McGovern was the only US politician willing to try to prevent horrible Communist crimes.
OK so I skipped Obama who was treated fairly by the mainstream media. Oh yeah, Dukakis, uh I got nothing.
On Clinton’s honesty, I just surfed to Politifact. She is notoriously dishonest. Obama is notoriously honest, Their politifact ratings are almost exactly identical.
https://www.politifact.com/personalities/barack-obama/
https://www.politifact.com/personalities/hillary-clinton/
Clinton campaigned in prose. She presented many detailed policy proposals. Her aids generally love her (why does she have a reputation for being unlikable when essentially everyone who knows her finds her very likable ?) but anonymously complained that she kept telling them to tell her how their proposed proposal would get through the Senate and how it would be funded without adding to the deficit. In contrast Obama claimed Obamacare would work without a mandate, got elected, and let Baucus add a mandate. Honesty is always punished.
Mitt Romney is very dishonest. Ask Steve Benen about Mitt’s mendacity
OK I will now check politifact (I never have — I just gave a hostage to fortune)
https://www.politifact.com/personalities/mitt-romney/
Let’s see 30% true or mostly true while H Clinton had 49%, 9 % pants on fire vs her 3%. 24% false or pants on fire vs her 13% . The factcheckers are only human, but their verdict is absolutely clear. According to Politifact, Hillary Clinton is much more honest than Mitt Romney.
So why is it conventional wisdome that she is untrustworthy ? Could it be that Republicans’ campaign of lies was treated as a presentation of arguable opinions by main stream media which are just not willing to do their job ?
On the Con, Bain was just an administrative vehicle. The privately owned firms were owned by ad hoc special purpose limited liability partnerships. Romney convinced his (now ex?) friends to put Bain in his name just for simplicity. Then when he went into politics, he demanded that they pay him lots of money to let it go. Not criminal fraud, outsmarting people who thought they were the smartest guys in the room, but also not cricket.
3) Here again, Steve Benen did the work. The man famous for his integrity flipped like a pancake.
The narrative trumped the plain facts. The extraordinary character and integrity of a Senator who switched his positions shamelessly could not be questioned.
Here I think the secret is the “shamelessly”. We are very sensitive to hemmming hawwing and evasion, that is to sings of shame. So we mistake psychopathy for honesty (not in this case) and mistake self righteousness for actual righteousness (especially in this case).
If anyone is interested in me going on, ask in comments. I now feel calm again. I won’t be furious with the GOP and the worked refs of the MSM for … well minutes anyway.