How The Right Wing Media Built Mitt Romney's 47 Percent Line

ZACHARY PLEAT & REMINGTON SHEPARD/Media Matters for America

The right-wing media's assault on struggling Americans found its way in to GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's recently revealed remarks disparaging 47 percent of Americans "who pay no income tax" to a group of wealthy donors, once again demonstrating the conservative media's central role in the GOP.

 

 

 

 

 

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Romney Dismisses 47 Percent Of Americans That "Believe Government Has A Responsibility To Care For Them"

Mother Jones Reports On May 17 Recording At Romney Donor Dinner. In a September 17 post, Mother Jones reported that Romney disparaged those who don't pay income taxes and receive govenment benefits in front of an audience of wealthy donors. Mother Jones quoted Romney as saying:

ROMNEY: There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what...These are people who pay no income tax.

[...]

[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. [Mother Jones, 9/17/12]

Right-Wing Media Crafted Romney's Attack On The 47 Percent

Romney: "These Are People Who Pay No Income Tax"

Fox's Doocy: Should The "47 Percent Of Americans Not Paying Taxes ... Be Allowed To Vote?" During the July 28, 2010 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, co-host Steve Doocy teased a segment by asking if those 47 percent of Americans who don't pay taxes should be allowed to vote. [Fox News, Fox & Friends,7/28/10]

Fox's Carlson: Hyped Blog For "The 53 Percent That Are Paying The Taxes" Versus "The 47 Percent Who Don't Pay Federal Income Taxes." During the October 11, 2011, edition of Fox & Friends, co-host Gretchen Carlson detailed an effort by a right-wing blog to counter the Occupy Wall Street protests. Carlson highlighted this blog's claim that it represented the 53 percent of Americans who pay federal income tax as compared to the Occupy Wall Street protesters who are part of the 47 percent of Americans who do not pay taxes. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 10/11/11]

Fox's Hannity: "50 Percent Of American households No Longer Pay Taxes." During the April 9, 2012 edition of Fox News' Hannity, host Sean Hannity claimed that 50 percent of American households don't pay taxes and then asked "What does that mean for America if you have a voting electorate that's not paying any taxes?" [Media Matters, 4/9/10]

Romney: The 47 Percent "Are Dependent Upon Government" And Are Unlikely To "Take Personal Responsibility"

Limbaugh: "47 Percent Of The Population Is Content To Be Slovenly, Lazy Takers." During the November 22, 2011 broadcast of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show, host Rush Limbaugh attacked those who do not pay income tax, claiming they are "content to be slovenly, lazy takers." [Premiere Radio Network, The Rush Limbaugh Show, 11/22/11]

Limbaugh: Do Low-Income People "Even Want To Work?" During the April 21, 2011 broadcast of The Rush Limbaugh Show, Rush Limbaugh claimed that low-income people "don't know anything" before asking if low-income people "even want to work?" [Premiere Radio Network, The Rush Limbaugh Show, 4/21/11]

Romney: The 47 Percent "Believe That They Are Entitled" To Government Aid

O'Reilly Railed Against "Prospering" "Entitlement Mindset" In America. On his Fox News show, Bill O'Reilly demanded to know "why this mindset" of acceptance of government aid "has taken root." [Fox News,The O'Reilly Factor, 3/20/12]

Fox's Charles Payne Expressed Regret That People Feel They Earned Government Assistance. On the Fox Business show Varney & Co., Fox Business' Charles Payne said that while anti-poverty programs "are good programs," people should feel shame for using them and expressed disappointment that Americans feel they are entitled to these programs:

I think the real narrative here, though, is that people aren't embarrassed by it. People aren't ashamed by it. In other words, there was a time when people were embarrassed to be on food stamps. There was a time when people were embarrassed to be on unemployment for six months, let alone demanding to be on it for more than two years.

I think that's what Stu is trying to say, is that when the president says Wall Street is at fault, so, you are entitled to get anything that you want from the government, because it's not really your fault, no longer is the man being told to look in the mirror and cast down a judgment on himself. It's someone else's fault. So food stamps, unemployment, all of this stuff, is something that they probably earned in some indirect way. [Media Matters, 5/19/11]

Romney: The 47 Percent "Will Vote For The President No Matter What"

Limbaugh: It's "Obvious" That Obama's Campaign Is "Aimed At The Welfare State." On his radio show, Rush Limbaugh said: "It is obvious that this Obama campaign is aimed at the welfare state and what we are affectionately calling the stupid -- maybe ignorant is better." [Premiere Radio Networks, The Rush Limbaugh Show, 4/4/12]

Paul Ryan's Wonkery: Myth and Reality

From Evil Sax/Diary of a Republican Hater:

The more you learn about Ryan and his career the more striking it is that he has become the de facto intellectual leader of the Republican party as Mitt Romney suggested on Saturday. 

     There is a good deal of mythology surrounding Ryan as something much more than he is. His image is as someone who's open, a wonk, wants to hear from all sides and reach a compromise. Someone who wants to get things done. 

     Yet what I can't get over in reviewing his career, is how little he has gotten done in 13 years. It's really unbelievable that he of all people has become so elevated in the Republican party. 

     "Now, we are truly at an inflection point, between the Barack Obama and Paul Ryan approaches to government,� National Review editor Rich Lowry wrote recently, treating the elevation of the chairman of the House Budget Committee over the presidential nominee as his party’s standard-bearer as so obvious it requires no explanation. �We don’t need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We want the Ryan budget,� says anti-tax enforcer Grover Norquist. �Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of the United States.� In any case, Romney has shown no inclination to challenge Ryan, praising him fulsomely and even promising him, according to The Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes, he’d enact Ryan’s plan in the first 100 days. Republicans envision an administration in which Romney has relegated himself to a kind of head-of-state role, at least domestically, with Ryan as the actual head of government."


     "To find a parallel to the way Ryan has so thoroughly seized control of the Republican agenda and identity, you have to go back at least to Gingrich in his nineties heyday, or possibly to Reagan. Yet Gingrich and Reagan rose to the national scene while cultivating an image as radicals�it was their battle scars, inflicted by the mainstream political Establishment, that lent them the credibility to speak for the conservative base. Ryan, by contrast, has achieved something much stranger: He has ascended to his present position aloft a chorus of acclaim from the corners of the Establishment that once greeted Gingrich and Reagan with loathing. He is the only politician revered as much by the mainstream media as by the tea party. By some measure, he’s the most popular guy in Washington."

    http://nymag.com/print/?/news/features/paul-ryan-2012-5/index1.html

    This piece by Jonathan Chait, called fittingly enough, "The Legendary Paul Ryan" says it all. How exactly has he achieved such a standing? Reagan and Gingrich had a body of work behind them. What's striking about Ryan's time as a Congressman, is how meager is record is in terms of passing legislation. In 13 years, he has managed to pass only 2 bills. 

     These were not exactly big, serious, bold bills either: one renamed a post office, the other changed the excise tax on bow and arrow sales. It's interesting that someone with such a sterile career has become the ultimate ideas man. 

    However, there is no getting away from it, his budget has become legendary. Chait suggests that his real talent is to seem genuine and wonkish. Unlike a Bush or a Palin he appears to be data driven:

   "Seeming genuine is something Ryan does extraordinarily well. And here is where something deeper is at play, more than Ryan’s charm and winning personality, something that gets at the intellectual bankruptcy of contemporary Washington. The Ryan brand is rooted in his ostentatious wonkery. Because, unlike the Bushes and the Palins, he grounds his position in facts and figures, he seems like an encouraging candidate to strike a bargain. But the thing to keep in mind about Ryan is that he was trained in the world of Washington Republican think tanks. These were created out of a belief that mainstream economists were hopelessly biased to the left, and crafted an alternative intellectual ecosystem in which conservative beliefs�the planet is not getting warmer, the economy is not growing more unequal�can flourish, undisturbed by skepticism. Ryan is intimately versed in the blend of fact, pseudo-fact, and pure imagination inhabiting this realm."

   That's a good point. What Ryan is more than anything is not so much a used car salesman, as a conservative think tank's brain trust. Yet, he has no history at compromise. The GOP mostly just tries to gloss over the fact that his budget has nothing to do with balancing the budget. Indeed, it increases it more than the President's does. 

   Yet Ryan continually reproaches the President for failing to adopt Simpson-Bowles, somehow managing to totally gloss over the fact that neither did he; indeed, his recalcitrance was a big part of why it went no where. 

   http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0812/79724_Page2.html

   Mind you, I think eulogizing Simpson-Bowles is something of a mental trap. This proposal is surely overly dignified. I for one, never got why this was such a priority during the Summer of 2011. The irony is that now, Romney himself hardly wanted this campaign to be mostly about arguing about Simpson-Bowles and the Ryan budget. 

   However, it's breathtaking how he is credited with being a paragon of fiscal rectitude. It's almost problematic to know just how to explode the Ryan myth. It's not hard to do but ti's a mistake to get caught up in the deficit reduction trap. 

  We have no danger of a debt crisis. If deficit reduction is every a priority-I'm quite agnostic about this-it certainly isn't a luxury we can afford right now. 

  So Democrats should beware of getting hamstrung into becoming too big a booster of Simpson-Bowles. To tell the truth I really don't miss it. 

  But Ryan's fraudulent place as any kind of compromiser, wonk, or deal maker must be exploded. More and more in learning about Ryan's career, the only reaction you can have is where's the beef?

  You see this quite clearly now. Ryan's inclusion on the ticket has not led to a more "high minded" campaign. The media sure is shrill about this "high mindedness" canard though. 

  Romney became totally unhinged yesterday, accusing the President of "a campaign of hate." Ryan has ducked questions just as gamely as Romney has. He won't talk about his budget or Medicare or taxes. or what "loopholes" he and Romney have in mind. 

  Mr. Serious is a serious fraud, a mere confidence trick,, fool's gold. I like that last analogy as he as an a follower of Ayn Rand believes in "hard money" and a return to gold or even coinage. 

   Ryan has copied everything about Romney's fraudulent, content free campaign right down to saying he'll only release two years of taxes-so as not to embarrass his boss. 

   He released "several" tax returns to Romney. What Ryan represents is thinly veiled Social Darwinism. Though for some reason Ryan is supposed to attract Catholics, the fact is that the Catholic Church surely teaches against Social Darwinism as much as anything. Ryan evidently didn't learn about the Social Gospel from Aquinas despite claiming that he was who most influenced his philosophy. 

Lieberman Gets A Chuckle Out Of Peddling Far-Right Nuke Myth

By Max Bergmann

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), once a reliable vote in favor of nuclear arms reduction efforts, has now bought into the right-wing myth that our nuclear arsenal is deteriorating and that the U.S. needs to build new nuclear weapons. Lieberman on Fox News Sunday said he is “real hesitant” to vote for a New START treaty unless the US effectively builds new nuclear weapons:

LIEBERMAN: Anytime we are working on something with our old Cold War enemy, Russia, cooperatively, it’s a good sign. Anything we can do to reduce the number of nuclear warheads in the world is a positive development. But in my opinion as we reduce the number of nuclear warheads… we have to make darn sure that are nuclear warheads are capable and modern and a lot of them are decades old. So I feel very strongly that I am going to be real hesitant to vote for this treaty unless we have a commitment from the Administration that they are prepared to modernize our nuclear stockpile.

In a demonstration of just how seriously Lieberman is taking these issues, as Chris Wallace shifted the conversation — noting that the treaty would need 9 Republican votes instead of 8 since “Lieberman was gone” — Lieberman audibly chuckled. Watch it:

On the one hand, this should mean that Lieberman’s vote is a slam dunk. The Obama administration has already demonstrated a massive commitment to modernizing the nuclear weapons infrastructure. Vice President Biden in a speech in February attacked the Bush administration for neglecting the nuclear infrastructure and called for a dramatic 10 percent annual increase in its budget.

But what Lieberman is really saying is that he agrees with those on the far right that want to needlessly build new nuclear weapons, nearly two decades years after the end of the Cold War. The far right insists that the U.S. is falling behind because it is not building new nuclear weapons and that our existing nuclear arsenal is deteriorating. This is a myth and demonstrates a complete, if not willful, ignorance of our approach to maintaining our nuclear weapons.

The U.S. continuously refurbishes and renovates its existing weapons, such that it doesn’t have to build new ones. This is by definition modernization. These refurbishing programs are getting the job done, according to an independent panel of scientific experts, called the JASON advisory group. As long as we continue these programs, as the Obama administration has committed to do, there is no need to build new nuclear warheads and weapons.

Yet building new nukes, along with conducting new nuclear tests, has become a right-wing dream. Lieberman is therefore willing to vote against a treaty — something that would have dire consequences for the US-Russia relationship, our mission in Afghanistan, and the entire nuclear non-proliferation regime — in order to symbolically demonstrate his support for the far-right’s dangerous nuclear agenda.