Romnesia [Rom-nee-zhuh] Noun – a condition affecting Mitt Romney…conveniently forgetting the conservative promises he’s made over the past six years that he’s been running for president.

Today, in Virginia:

President Obama (D): ….The choice between going backward and moving forward has never been so clear. But now that we’re eighteen days out from the election Mr. Severely Conservative wants you to think he was severely kidding [laughter] about everything he’s said over the last year. He told folks he, he was the ideal candidate for the Tea Party, now suddenly he’s saying, what, who, me? [laughter] He, he’s forgetting what his own positions are, and he’s betting that you will too. I mean he, he’s changing up so much, and backtracking and sidestepping.  We’ve gotta we, we’ve gotta name this condition that he’s going through. [laughter] I think, I, I, I think it’s called Romnesia. [cheers, applause] That’s what it’s called. I think that’s what he’s going through.

Now, I’m not, I’m not a medical doctor but I, but 1 do want to go over some of the symptoms with you because I want to make sure nobody else catches it. [laughter]

If, you know, if you say, if you say you’re for equal pay for equal work, but you keep refusing to say whether or not you’d sign a bill that protects equal pay for equal work, you might have Romnesia. [cheers]

If you say women should have access to contraceptive care, but you support legislation that would let your employer deny you contraceptive care, you might have a case of Romnesia. [cheers]

If you say you’ll protect a woman’s right to choose, but you stand up at a primary debate and said that you’d be delighted to sign a law outlying, outlawing that right to choose in all cases, man, you’ve definitely got Romnesia. [applause, cheers]

Ah, ah, now, this extends to other issues. If, if you, if you say earlier in the year I’m going to give a tax cut to the top one percent and then in a debate you say, I, I don’t know anything about giving tax cuts to rich folks, that, that, you, you need to, yeah, you, you need to get a, a, athermometer, take a temperature, ’cause you probably got Romnesia. [cheers]

If, if, if you say that you’re, you’re, you’re a champion of the coal industry when while you were Governor you stood in front of a coal plant and said, this plant will kill you [pause][crowd noise], that’s some Romnesia.

So, so, I, I think you’re being able, you’re beginning to be able to identify these symptoms. And, and if you come down with a case of Romnesia [laugh], and you can’t seem to remember the policies that are still on your website [laughter], or the promises you’ve made over the six years you’ve been running for President, here’s the good news, Obamacare covers preexisting [cheers] conditions.

We can fix you up. We’ve got a cure. We can make you well, Virginia. This is a curable disease.

[laugh] Women, men, all of you. These, these are family issues. These are economic issues. I want my daughters to have the same opportunities as anybody’s sons. I believe America does better, the economy grows more, we create more jobs when everybody participates, when everyone’s getting a fair shot, everybody’s getting a fair shake, everybody’s playing by the same  rules, everybody’s doing their fair share. That’s why I’m running for a second term for President of the United States. I need you to help me finish the job. [cheers]

We’re talking black helicopter territory here. A mail piece from a paranoid right wingnut gun advocacy group (no, not that one) arrived in our mailbox yesterday:

Hey, wait a minute, who is that guy on the mailer?

Doesn’t look like quite the same as the person we photographed in Iowa this summer:

Why, he looks like he’s having a good time.

Then there’s this, from the second presidential debate this week (excerpt from a rush transcript):

….Candy Crowley:  Governor, if I could, the question was about these assault weapons that once were banned and are no longer banned.  I know that you signed an assault weapons ban when you were in Massachusetts.  Obviously with this question you no longer do support that.  Why is that, given the kind of violence that we see sometimes with these mass killings?  Why is it that you’ve changed your mind?  

Mitt Romney (r):  Well, Candy, actually in my state, the pro-gun folks and the anti-gun folks came together and put together a piece of legislation, and it’s referred to as an assault weapon ban, but it had, at the signing of the bill, both the pro-gun and the anti-gun people came together because it provided opportunities that both wanted.  There were hunting opportunities that hadn’t previously been available.  It was a mutually agreed upon piece of legislation.  That’s what we need more of, Candy.  What we have now in Washington is a place that’s gridlocked.  

Candy Crowley: If you could get people to agree to it, you would be for it?

Mitt Romney (r): We haven’t worked on a bipartisan basis.  I was able to do that in my state and bring these two together.

Candy Crowley:  Mr. President?

President Obama (D):  First of all, I think Governor Romney was for an assault weapons ban before he was against it. He said the reason he changed his mind was in part because he was seeking the endorsement of the National Rifle Association.  So that’s on the record. But I think that one area we agree on is the importance of parents and the importance of schools because I do believe that if our young people have opportunity, then they’re less likely to engage in these kind of violent acts. We’re not going to eliminate everybody who is mentally disturbed, and we’ve got to make sure they don’t get weapons, but we can make a difference in terms of ensuring that every young person in America, regardless of where they come from, what they look like, have a chance to succeed.  And, Candy, we haven’t had a chance to talk about education much, but I think it is very important to understand that the reforms we put in place working with 46 governors around the country are seeing schools that are some of the ones that are the toughest for kids starting to succeed.  We’re starting to see gains in math and science.  When it comes to community colleges, we are setting up programs including with NASSAU community college to retrain workers, including young people who may have dropped out of school but now are getting another chance, training them for the jobs that exist right now, and in fact employers are looking for skilled workers, and so we’re matching them up. Giving them access to higher education.  As I said, we have made sure that millions of young people are able to get an education that they weren’t able to get before….

[emphasis added]

Mitt Romney (r) was for an assault weapons ban before he was against it? Oopsie, it looks like somebody backed the wrong presidential candidate.

How about equal pay for equal work. Today, in Athens, Ohio:

President Obama (D): You know, I, I, I don’t know if you were listening last night, but, see, we don’t have to order up some binders [cheers] to find qualified, talented, driven young women to learn and teach and thrive and start businesses. And when these young women graduate, we should make a, a very simple concept the rule, equal pay for equal work. [cheers, applause] Equal pay for equal work. I’ve got two daughters. I don’t want them paid less than a man for doing the same job. And by the way, men out there, you don’t want your wives paid less than a man for the same job. So this isn’t just a women’s issue, this is a family issue, this is a middle class issue. You know, Governor Romney for months refused to say if he’d support the law that we signed that said equal pay for equal work. Just today his campaign admitted, well, he’s never weighed in on that. Why not? What’s so hard about weighing in on that? Do you believe in equal pay for equal work or you don’t? I weighed in on it because that was the first bill that I signed [cheers], the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, to make it easier for women to enforce their rights to get equal pay for equal work…

“…I’m the President, and I’m always responsible…”

Previously:

Presidential Debate: Benghazi, Libya was an act of terror (October 16, 2012)

Note that President Obama turned to Mitt Romney (r) during his response. Blistering.

The exchange:

….President Obama (D):  Secretary Clinton has done an extraordinary job, but she works for me. I’m the President, and I’m always responsible. And that’s why nobody is more interested in finding out exactly what happened than I do. The day after the attack, governor, I stood in the Rose Garden, and I told the American people and the world that we were going to find out exactly what happened, that this was an act of terror, and I also said that we’re gonna hunt down those who committed this crime. And then a few days later I was there greeting the caskets coming into Andrews Air Force Base and grieving with the families, and the suggestion that anybody in my team, whether the Secretary of State, our U.N. ambassador, anybody on my team would play politics or mislead when we’ve lost four of our own, governor, is offensive. That’s not what we do. That’s not what I do as President, that’s not what I do as Commander in Chief.

Candy Crowley: Governor, if you want to reply [crosstalk] quickly to this please.

Mitt Romney (r): Yeah, I, I certainly do, I certainly do. I, I think it’s interesting the President just said something which, which is that on the day after the attack he went in the  Rose gar, Garden and said this was an act of terror.

President Obama (D): That’s what I said. [not audible in video]

Mitt Romney (r): You said in the Rose Garden the day after the attack it was an attack of terror, [pause] it was not a [crosstalk] spontaneous demonstration?

President Obama (D): Please proceed.

Mitt Romney (r): Is that what you’re saying?

President Obama (D): Please proceed, governor.

Mitt Romney (r): I, I want to make sure we get that for the record because it took the President fourteen days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror.

President Obama (D): Get the transcript.

Candy Crowley:  It, it, he did in, in fact, sir. So let me, let me call it an [crosstalk] act of terror. He used the word.

President Obama (D): Can you say that a little louder, Candy?

[applause]

Candy Crowley:  He did call it an act of terror….

“…and the suggestion that anybody in my team, whether the Secretary of State, our U.N. ambassador, anybody on my team would play politics or mislead when we’ve lost four of our own, governor, is offensive. That’s not what we do. That’s not what I do as President, that’s not what I do as Commander in Chief…”

It doesn’t add up:

Candy Crowley:  The governor says that he is not going to allow, uh, the top five percent, I believe is what he said, to have a tax cut, that it will all even out, that what he wants to do is give that tax cut to the middle class.  Settled?

President Obama (D):  No, it’s not settled.  Look, uh, the cost of lowering rates for everybody across the board twenty percent along with what he also wants to do in terms of eliminating the estate tax, along what he wants to do in terms of corporates, uh, changes in the tax code, it costs about five trillion dollars.  Governor Romney then also wants to spend two trillion dollars on additional military programs even though the military is not asking for ’em.  That’s seven trillion dollars. He also wants to continue the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.  That’s another trillion dollars.  That’s eight trillion dollars.  

Now, what he says is he’s going to make sure that this doesn’t add to the deficit, and he’s going to cut middle class taxes, but when he’s asked how are you going to do it, which deductions, which loopholes are you gonna close? He can’t tell you. The, the fact that he only has to pay fourteen percent on his taxes when a lot of you are paying much higher, he’s already taken that off the board. Capital gains are gonna continue to be at a low rate, so we, we’re not gonna get money that way. We haven’t heard from the governor any specifics beyond Big Bird and eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood in terms of how he pays for that.

Now, Governor Romney was a very successful investor. If somebody came to you, Governor, with a plan that said, here, I want to spend seven or eight trillion dollars, and it, we’re gonna pay for it but we can’t tell you until maybe after the election how we’re going to do it, you wouldn’t have taken such a sketchy deal, and neither should you, the American people, because the math doesn’t add up. And, and what’s at stake here is one of two things.  Either, Candy, this blows up the deficit because, keep in mind, this is just to pay for the additional spending that he’s talking about, seven, eight trillion dollars, that’s before we even get to the deficit we already have.  Or alternatively, it’s got to be paid for not only by closing deductions for wealthy individuals. That, that’ll pay for about four percent reduction in tax rates. You’re gonna be paying for it. You’ll lose some deductions. And you can’t buy this sales pitch. Nobody who has looked at it that’s serious actually believes it adds up….

Uh, yep. math is not Mitt Romney’s strong suit.

There is a big difference.

President Obama (D):

President Obama (D):  Uh, Lorena? Lorraine. Uh, we are a nation of immigrants. I, we’re just a few miles away from Ellis Island. We all understand what this country has become because talent from all around the world wants to come here. People are willing to take risks, people who want to build on their dreams and make sure their kids have an even bigger dreams than they have. But we’re also a nation of laws. So what I’ve said is we need to fix a broken immigration system, and I’ve done everything that I can on my own and sought cooperation from Congress to make sure that we fix this system. The first thing we did was to streamline the legal immigration system to reduce the backlog, make it easier, simpler, and cheaper for people who are waiting in line, obeying the law, to make sure that they can come here and contribute to our country, and that’s good for our economic growth. They’ll start new businesses, they’ll make things happen to create jobs here in the United States. Number two, we do have to deal with our border, so we put more border patrol on than anytime in history, and the flow of undocumented workers across the border is actually lower than it’s been in forty years. What I’ve also said is if we’re gonna go after folks who are here illegally, we should do it smartly and go after folks who are criminals, gang bangers, people who are hurting the community, not after students, not after folks who are here just because they’re trying to figure out how to feed their families, and that’s what we’ve done. And what I’ve also said is for young people who come here, brought here oftentimes by their parents, have gone to school here, pledged allegiance to the flag, think of this as their country, understand themselves as Americans in every way except having papers, then we should make sure that we give them a pathway to citizenship, and that’s what I’ve done administratively. Now, Governor Romney just said that, you know, he wants to help those young people, too, but during the Republican primary he said, I will veto the Dream Act that would allow these young people to have access. His main strategy during the Republican primary was to say we’re going to encourage self deportation, making life so miserable on folks that they’ll leave. He called the Arizona law a model for the nation, part of the Arizona law said that law enforcement officers could stop folks because they suspected maybe they looked like they might be undocumented workers. And check their papers. And you know what? If my daughter or yours looks to somebody like they’re not a citizen, I don’t want, I don’t want to empower somebody like that. So we can fix this system in a comprehensive way, and when Governor Romney says the challenge is, well, President Obama didn’t try, that’s not true. I sat down with Democrats and Republicans at the beginning of my term and I said, let’s fix this system, including senators previously who supported it on the Republican side. But it’s very hard for Republicans in Congress to support comprehensive immigration reform if their standard bearer has said that this is not something I’m interested in supporting. …

Mitt Romney (r):

Mitt Romney (r): ….I was not the standard bearer. My, my view is that this President should have honored his promise to, to do as he said. Now, let me mention one other thing, and that is self deportation, says let, let people make their own choice, what I was saying is we’re not going to round up twelve million people, undocumented illegals and take them out of the nation. Instead, let people make their own choice, and if they, if they find that, that they can’t get the benefits here that they want and they can’t, and they can’t find the job they want, then they will make a decision to go a place where, where they have better opportunities, but I’m not in favor of rounding up people and, and, and taking them out of this country. I am in favor, as the President has said, and I agree with him, which is that if people have committed crimes we gotta get ’em out of this country. Let me mention something else the President said, it was a….

A big difference.

A few things from last week’s presidential debate to keep in mind while you watch the Biden/Ryan VP debate tonight:

As the narrator says, this list is not exhaustive. I can think of a couple off the top of my head. Will Biden be able to cope if the lies comes this fast and furious? Could anyone?

What does it say about us all that a majority of Americans think that the debater who lied himself silly won the debate?

UPDATE: And now, post-debate, it’s time for desert. Joe Biden who-hoo! How could I have ever worried?

Over the past few years I’ve written many posts here at SMP about Rep. Todd Akin, detailing his bizarre pronoucements and what I often assumed was his typical GOP mendacity. Akin’s behavior during his current campaign for the Senate, however, has convinced me that he actually believes his own BS, or, in the few cases when he doesn’t, he thinks he’s serving a higher purpose. He’s really just that dumb – but, by the same measure, Akin is clearly a more principled man than his party’s much more intelligent presidential candidate. For the most part what you see with Akin is what you get. Last night’s presidential debate, however, showed us that Mitt Romney’s campaign is an empty facade, and that, with Romney, there’s no way to know what you’re getting.

Most viewers concede that Romney “won” the evening. Today, though, some are realizing that he did so by using a rhetorical strategy that is the equivalent of cable-news shouting matches. There was no thoughtful way to counter Romney’s incessant, high-speed spewing. A blogger at DailyKos identified the strategy as something he called a Gish Gallop:

Named for the debate tactic created by creationist shill Duane Gish, a Gish Gallop involves spewing so much bullshit in such a short span on that your opponent can’t address let alone counter all of it. To make matters worse a Gish Gallop will often have one or more ‘talking points’ that has a tiny core of truth to it, making the person rebutting it spend even more time debunking it in order to explain that, yes, it’s not totally false but the Galloper is distorting/misusing/misstating the actual situation. …

In a time-limited performance like last-night’s, there’s almost no way to respond to such a strategy, to both debunk and present one’s own message, although the President managed to stay calm, focused, polite and made several key points very effectively. And, thinking strategically, his campaign has decided to continue the debate, using Romney’s misstatements, lies, evasions and double-talking to fuel the ongoing dialogue.

Obama shows how it’s done at a campaign rally today (at about 2:05 min. in):

And here’s the way it’s going down in ads:

The Obama camp’s take on Romney’s debate performance gets at an essential issue: trustworthiness. Meanwhile, here in Missouri, Todd Akin, dim-witted and mean-minded though he may be, can be trusted to do just what he says he’ll do – and we voters are forewarned that he means business. Mitt Romney? No way – although given the folks who’re forking out the greenbacks to support him, we may have our suspicions. Ironic, isn’t it, that Romney still finds it inexpedient to endorse Brother Todd?  Of the two, Akin is clearly the better man.

While President Obama quizzically looked on during tonight’s debate, a jittery and aggressive Mitt Romney (over caffeinated perhaps after his sleepless night?) tried, once again, to say little of substance about his own proposals while hectoring the President noisily and at length. Remember when you were a kid and your mother told you to slow down and give somebody else a chance to talk? Well, Mitt needed a few words from Mother tonight.

There were so many questionable assertions in Mitt’s barrage of words that taking issue with them all would have been impossible during the debate. Fortunately, there are reputable folks who were live-blogging a fact-check during Romney’s effort to shout down both the President and the poor moderator, Gentleman Jim Lehrer. It strikes me that it may be useful to to list a few of more overt fibs that they called Romney on.

The big stuff I’m sure we all caught – Romney’s come out in favor of privatizing Social Security last summer whenever it was convenient, but tonight he’s thinks it’s just fine – that kind of thing. But old Mitt was playing fast and loose, at such high speed, that lots of the guff he was shoveling could easily be allowed to go unchallenged. If you are interested, or want to compare my list with yours, check below the fold.

Ezra Klein’s Wonkblog provided a running commentary  with context for the facts and figures cited by the two candidates. The bloggers identified the following especially egregious Romney misstatements which I have paraphrased below – you can get the details over at Wonkblog:

–None of the cuts to income tax deductions that Romney described would raise the $500 billion/yr necessary to ensure revenue neutrality.

–Romney touted a “lengthy description” of his health-care plan on his Website. It’s only 369 words (I write more in a casual SMP posting!) and does not, as he repeatedly said, cover pre-existing conditions. Let me repeat that – the most overt lie of the evening: Mitt Romney’s plan, to which he specifically referred, does not cover pre-existing conditions.

–The McKinsey study that Romney cited to support his contention that companies would drop coverage because of Obamacare is an outlier that is contradicted by other, more recent studies.

–Romney mentioned a study that claims Obama will raise taxes by $3-4,000. That amount is the tax equivalent of servicing the debt under Obama’s budget. It ignores the consequences of Obama’s proposals to cut the debt via a mix of spending cuts and raising taxes for high earners.

–Contrary to Romney’s claims, 23 million Americans are not “out of work.” The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts 12.5 million unemployed Americans along with 2.6 million Americans who are not in the labor force but want work. You get 23 million only by adding in 8 million Americans who are working part-time right now.

–Romney consistently denied that his tax cuts would cost $5 trillion as the president claimed. This is not true. Economists have shown that his tax cuts would depress revenue by $5 trillion if he doesn’t find a way to pay for them. Romney says he plans to pay for them by eliminating tax breaks and credits, but won’t name specific breaks. Obama, correctly, noted that his tax promises don’t add up.

–Romney claims that though he wants to lower tax rates for the rich, he won’t cut their taxes. The Tax Policy Center’s analysis found that Romney’s proposals would result in people who make more than $1 million a year saving an average of $87,117 in taxes.

–Romney claims that 50% of the 90 billion investments in green energy jobs were failures. It is true that $90 billion was allocated for green energy, but much of that sum was dedicated infrastructure, energy efficiency initiatives, and clean-energy research funding. Of the loans to clean-energy producers, only 1.4% of the recipients failed. (And Romney should he forced to substantiate  his claim that significant amounts of the money went to Obama donors – along with the implication that it was  a quid pro quo.) What a jerk!  

Think Progress was also able to quickly draw on the site’s past research to rebut numerous Romney claims: Many of them we are familiar with , but several were less well known:

–Romney took credit for Massachusetts’ excellent educational system although his own contributions to the state’s educational programs were minimal or outright failures.

–Romney denied President Obama’s contention that he had said  we need fewer teachers. Romney’s on the record, however, saying that we not only need fewer teachers, but firemen and policemen as well.

–Romney noted that he didn’t raise taxes in Massachusetts to pay for Romneycare. That, however is only because he received federal subsidies to do so.

— The Dodd-Frank financial regulatory bill, while weaker that it should be (thanks, GOP!) does not, as Romney claimed, specify some banks as “too big to fail.” It strictly regulates larger  banks and, via the so-called resolution authority, it protects tax payers from future bailouts of the big banks. The resolution authority is, wouldn’t you know, a provision that that Romney’s VP pick,  Paul Ryan, has tried to repeal.

— Hiring has not, as Romney asserted, slowed as a result of regulation.

–Romney promises to create 3 million jobs a year. According to the Economic Policy Institute, as a result of the spending cuts it proposes,  his economic plan would “lead to employment losses of 608,000 in 2013 and roughly 1.3 million in 2014,”

–Romney claims that there are no tax breaks for taking jobs overseas. Just. Plain. False. Think Progress lays out the specific breaks here.

Remember when Todd Akin apologized for “mispeaking”? And then expected everybody to forgive and forget? It seemed likely then that he didn’t get it when it comes to apologies, and now we have the proof. He seems to think, for instance, that President Obama has been apologizing, not just to the Libyans, but to  “all people, a lot of countries who are enemies.”

We know why Mitt Romney wants to ding the President when he has the decency to disavow a nasty, insulting movie, produced under highly questionable circumstances at the same time that he condemns the violence it spawned, and takes practical steps to bring the perpetrators to justice. Of course, expressing distaste for something does not constitute an apology, but in Romney’s case the effort to construe it as such probably has something to do with the desperation of a man who is grabbing at straws – like the weak and thoroughly discredited “apology tour” meme – in order to detract from his own lack of qualifications for the office he aspires to win.

But Akin is a different sort of creature. If he weren’t always trying to tell us that folks who disagree with his beliefs hate God, hate freedom, or hate America, I’d think that he was trying to get the upper hand  by demonstrating his Christian chops and turning the other cheek towards Romney, who was, don’t forget, quick to disavow the embarrassing Akin. But, alas for this theory,  Akin’s evidence for his belief that the President apologizes too much is of a piece with his proclivity to claim that liberals hate good things. He evidently thinks he reads the President’s brainwaves, which tell him that Obama is “just apologizing because he didn’t like America.”

Can we deduce from Akin’s comments that he apologized for his own ugly and ignorant comments because he doesn’t like himself? Same logic, if you think that the President is acting on behalf of the US. To be honest, it seems reasonable to me: I certainly don’t think Akin seems very likeable.

Of course, Akin is right that we did nothing wrong – which is why President Obama did not apologize. He did, however, condemn a rather virulent film that seems likely to have been a set-up meant to provoke a reaction in the Middle-East. Does Akin think that the Obama administration should embrace the film’s message? If he is simply concerned with free speech, the White House statement (as well as the statement from the embassy) affirmed that principle, while disavowing sympathy with the movie’s message, which affirmation was repeated most recently in Hillary Clinton’s statement:

… our country does have a long tradition of free expression, which is enshrined in our Constitution and in our law. We do not stop individual citizens from expressing their views no matter how distasteful they may be. […] There are of course different views around the world about the outer limits of free speech and free expression, but there should be no debate about the simple proposition that violence in response to speech is not acceptable.

I would welcome a serious clarification from Rep. Akin about just what he is trying to say. If you want to have a go at the meta-message, here you have it in Akin’s own words: