A really great executive knows how to delegate. So I’m delegating this post to The Onion. It’s scary how much more accurately humor sites such as The Onion and The Daily Show and Colbert cover the campaign than the supposed straight reporters.
Romney Proudly Explains How He’s Turned Campaign Around
‘I’m Lying More,’ He Says
BOSTON—For weeks many Beltway insiders had written off the Romney campaign as dead, saying the candidate had dug himself into too deep a hole with too little time to recover. However, with a month to go before ballots are cast, Romney has pulled even with President Obama, and the former Massachusetts governor credits his rejuvenated campaign to one, singular tactic: lying a lot.
“I’m lying a lot more, and my lies are far more egregious than they’ve ever been,” a smiling Romney told reporters while sitting in the back of his campaign bus, adding that when faced with a choice to either lie or tell the truth, he will more than likely lie. “It’s a strategy that works because when I lie, I’m essentially telling people what they want to hear, and people really like hearing things they want to hear. Even if they sort of know that nothing I’m saying is true.”
“It’s a freeing strategy, really, because I don’t have to worry about facts or being accurate or having any concrete positions of any kind,” Romney added.
Romney said he is telling at least 80 percent more lies now than he was two months ago.
Hilarious! And, that’s no lie.
I’ve begun to think of it in evolutionary terms. The old species (“objective” mainstream media) evolved to fit a particular niche, but a) that niche has mostly gone away and b) the species’s usual prey has found a camouflage technique that uses what was formerly the major strength of “objective” reporting against it (much as some species of moth have evolved to emit ultrasonic pulses that jam bat sonar). So with one species dying out, you have a mostly unrelated species (current-events comedy) expanding to fill some of the space being opened up. Adaptive radiation at its, um, finest.
That’s a fun way to look at it. I think capital has captured the media to distract the public away from its shenanigans, but mine doesn’t have to storytelling power yours does.
Nevertheless, I often lament the fact that comedy is doing the job of the old media. My FB feed today had a comment from Colbert: “This race is as tight as Mitt’s smile when he meets a poor person.” What better way to illustrate the “candidate”, except for Stewart replaying a clip from FDR, or George Snuffleupagus, or PITY party or or or? Sigh. Now if we can get this sort of comedy in a Golden Girls or Archie Bunker show.
Yours is the mechanism, I think. The old media was always to some extent captured by capital (even during the anomalous period of the mid-to-late 20th century when real reporting seemed possible), but capital used to be not nearly so good at getting what it thought it wanted.
This is right in line with the definition of an Undecided Voter: “Someone is who is still waiting for Romney to tell them the lie they want to hear.”
I loved The Onion‘s parting shot:
A better strategy for the dead tree media would be to grow a spine.
I love the article, but the weird thing is that in some sense Romney is actually lying less lately. Claiming his $5 trillion tax cut plan is not a $5 trillion tax cut plan is at least somewhat plausible if you are stupid enough to believe Congress and Romney would negotiate cutting enough offsetting deductions. It’s not in the same league of dishonesty as what he was lying about a month ago about “you didn’t build that” or “gutting welfare reform.”
Except of course that a) there aren’t enough offsetting deductions and b) the ones that would make a difference are ones it would be suicide for legislators to touch.