In The Bag
By Mitch Berg
The media knows that Obama’s in trouble. An incumbent elected in a near-landslide should not be flirting with “unelectable” numbers in the face of the GOP offerings in this campaign.
And so look for any pretense of “objectivity” to be more a joke than normal…
…as we saw in Saturdays’ debate, where George Stephanopoulos reprised his prior career as a Democrat spinmeister:
When questioning former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Stephanopoulos, a former senior advisor in the administration of Democratic President Bill Clinton, premised some inquiries on the assertion — offered without supporting facts — that Romney’s job-creation statistics were inaccurate.
“Now, there have been questions about that calculation of 100,000 jobs. So if you could explain it a little more,” Stephanopoulos asked Romney of the former governor’s claims about jobs created by companies he has helmed. “I’ve read some analysts who look at it and say that you’re counting the jobs that were created but not counting the jobs that were taken away. Is that accurate?”
“No, it’s not accurate,” Romney bluntly responded. “It includes the net of both. I’m a good enough numbers guy to make sure I got both sides of that.”
Stephanopoulos did not cite any analysts by name.
All mainstream media – from the Big Three down to the Star/Tribune – will check all claims of detachment at the door for the next 11 months. Between now and November, I predict, will be the nadir – so far – of the American MSM’s propensity to bias.
January 9th, 2012 at 8:45 am
If Romney had a better sense of humor, he might have added: “Besides, we all know jobs saved are the same as jobs created, right? Heck, by that measure, my numbers are actually low!”
January 9th, 2012 at 10:25 am
Say what you will about Newt, he’s willing to go after the biases of his questioners and attack the premise of the question.
January 9th, 2012 at 11:14 am
Stephanopoulos probably reads Krugman:
I am not, of course, the first person to notice the similarity between Mitt Romney’s business career and the fictional exploits of Oliver Stone’s antihero. In fact, the labor-backed group Americans United for Change is using “Romney-Gekko” as the basis for an ad campaign. But there’s an issue here that runs deeper than potshots against Mr. Romney.
. . .
So Mr. Romney made his fortune in a business that is, on balance, about job destruction rather than job creation. And because job destruction hurts workers even as it increases profits and the incomes of top executives, leveraged buyout firms have contributed to the combination of stagnant wages and soaring incomes at the top that has characterized America since 1980.
Being Krugman, he must end his column with an argumentum ad stupid (my own term to describe where a columnist insults the intelligence of the readers who agree with him)
The Krugster spent half a column likening Romney to a fictional character who is evil, criminal, and who was sent to prison for crimes of greed. So how does he end this column?
Contrary to conservative claims, liberals aren’t out to demonize or punish the rich.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/09/opinion/krugman-all-the-gops-gekkos.html
January 9th, 2012 at 11:39 am
I was watching MSNBC on Saturday morning (mostly for more dead baby jokes – but I digress) when they had 5 Left-Liberals K.O.O.K.S. members discussing Romney’s job creation. Gordon Gekko’s name came up at least three times that I counted. It’s as if the Left’s only frame of reference for capitalism comes from fiction. Believe me Lefty, there are plenty of real life “Gekko’s” out there and they give lot’s of dough to Democrats and Republicans.
By the way – when are we going to hear about The Won’s adventure in creative destruction? He had the taxpayers underwrite a bunch of debt via Chinese cash to buy two car companies, then closed dealerships and factories while shafting the private bondholders.
January 9th, 2012 at 1:05 pm
. . . And being Krugman, he can’t help but build his thesis on a “fact” stripped of all context. His phrase “However, job creation at the target firms is no greater than in similar firms that aren’t targets, while “gross job destruction is substantially higher.” ” re Bain – style corporate takeovers is linked to a paper that does is, indeed, say “gross job destruction is substantially higher.”, but this is in the context a list of conclusions, each addressing a specific aspect of employment before and after takeover by a private equity firm. The entire paragraph is:
Paragraph 4 says:
And finally paragraph 5:
So Krugman could have just as accurately pulled a quote from the 5th paragraph”
“firms backed by private equity engage in 6% more greenfield job creation”.
Rather than the quote from the 3rd paragraph:
“gross job destruction is substantially higher”
This single, out-of-context quote is used by Krugman as the basis for his thesis: