Not the First Time Ryan has Offered a Budget that Didn’t Include a Budget

Before Mitt Romney picked him to be his running mate, the DC press corps anointed Paul Ryan the “serious” Republican. So on one level it is astonishing that the supposed leading Republican budget expert would be forced to admit that, despite referring to Romney-Ryan budget, there in fact is no any Romney-Ryan budget, because, according to Ryan, they “haven’t run the numbers.”

A budget that hasn’t been added up doesn’t add up.

Making a pillar of your campaign a budget you’re forced to admit does not exist is worthy of entry in the World Championship of Chutzpah. Unless the press is far more inept that I think I believe they are, this will drain even more of the Romney campaign’s  nearly-depleted reserves of credibility. But it’s not as if Paul Ryan hasn’t previously done almost the exact same thing.

In 2009, as he began the process of trying to pass his first budget, President Obama criticized the Republicans for not offering an alternative to his budget and instead engaging only in obstruction. This charge made the Republicans squawk, so they responding with a press conference at which they made a big deal about offering a budget, saying they had a budget, announcing their budget, unveiling their budget…and then Paul Ryan admitted that the press conference was a sham, because they didn’t have a budget, but really, honest, if everyone would wait a week they’d have one. [Hilariously, they chose their second unveiling on April Fool's Day.]

What did Ryan say about the sham? He characterized the Republicans first document as “more of a marketing document, not a budget.”

Yet again, Paul Ryan promised a budget, but at best he’s got a marketing document. We shouldn’t expect any substance from Paul Ryan, since he doesn’t demand any of his party or of himself.

Trump’s Curve-less Learning Curve

 

Hmmm…

Recently, mogul, reality television star, and huge Anthony Weiner fan Donald Trump Tweeted that he was working on a “big surprise” for the upcoming RNC convention.

Well, we have a hint as to what that surprise might entail.

Last night, Obama impersonator (or “Fauxbama,” if you prefer) Kevin Michel posted a picture posing with Trump, along with a caption urging his Facebook friends to “[b]e sure to watch the Republican National Convention.”

Evidently it doesn’t sound familiar to Trump, but it may to you:

NEW ORLEANS — A Barack Obama impersonator was ushered off the stage after he mocked the Republican presidential hopefuls and joked about the real president’s biracial roots to a room full of conservative activists Saturday.

The Republican Leadership Conference turned the podium over to impersonator Reggie Brown, who drew raucous applause from the GOP’s supporters when he projected lewd photos of Rep. Anthony Weiner, the New York Democrat who just resigned after the furor over his sexually charged online dalliances with a former porn actress and other women.

Brown later played up the mass exodus of advisers to candidate Newt Gingrich’s campaign and said Gingrich’s supporters “are dropping faster than Anthony Weiner’s pants.”

The audience grew more uncomfortable when Brown turned to the candidates who are looking to make Obama a one-term president.

[...]

The impersonator joked about Romney’s Mormon faith and about polygamy, and Rep. Michele Bachmann’s tea party support.

Organizers then cut off Brown’s microphone and turned on music. He was shown off the stage.

It shouldn’t be surprising that Republicans evidently haven’t learned their lesson about avoiding Obama impersonators. After all, this is the party that pushed us in to the war in Iraq and, learning absolutely nothing, is eager to push us in to a war with Iran.

Obama and White Catholics: Why Let Data Interfere With a Good Story?

Politico, from an article arguing that Paul Ryan could help Mitt Romney win over Catholic voters:

The administration still has some work to do to win over white Catholics nationally, though. While a Pew Research Center poll published last week showed Obama leading 51 percent to 42 percent among Catholics, that figure was inflated by Obama’s wide percentage among Latino Catholics in noncompetitive states. Among white Catholics, many of whom are clustered in the Rust Belt, Romney led Obama 49 percent to 44 percent.

Yeah, wow, that five point deficit shows that Obama has a lot of work to do with white Catholics to get back to his 2008 performance among white Catholics…whom he lost by five points:

Obama, who is polling three points behind his 2008 performance among white Catholics, is five points behind Romney among white Catholics, which is the same margin by which Obama lost white Catholics to McCain, who ran three points better than Romney is currently polling. But we’re told Obama has a lot of work to do among white Catholics.

If Obama doesn’t do anything to cut that five point gap among white Catholics, he may have to settle for beating Romney by the same margin by which he beat McCain.

Lolo and The Unknowns

Lolo Jones is an American track athlete who finished fourth in yesterday’s 100 meter hurdles at the London Olympics. She’s also become a subject of much discussion by people interested in fame, sexism, careerism and double standards in the media. And as so often is the case, most people are talking past each other and missing that a fairly non-controversial observation has become a misguided cause célèbre.

What sparked the outrage was an article last Sunday by the New York Times’ sportswriter Jere Longman, titled “For Lolo Jones, Everything is Image.”

Judging from this year’s performances, Lolo Jones seems to have only a slim chance of winning an Olympic medal in the 100-meter hurdles and almost no possibility of winning gold.

Still, Jones has received far greater publicity than any other American track and field athlete competing in the London Games. This was based not on achievement but on her exotic beauty and on a sad and cynical marketing campaign. Essentially, Jones has decided she will be whatever anyone wants her to be — vixen, virgin, victim — to draw attention to herself and the many products she endorses.

Women have struggled for decades to be appreciated as athletes. For the first time at these Games, every competing nation has sent a female participant. But Jones is not assured enough with her hurdling or her compelling story of perseverance. So she has played into the persistent, demeaning notion that women are worthy as athletes only if they have sex appeal. And, too often, the news media have played right along with her.

Longmann was wrong about Jones’ chances. Jones was leading the 100 meter hurdles in the 2008 Olympics, but she hit a hurdle and finished seventh. Despite that defeat, Track and Field News—which is justified in calling itself The Bible of the Sport—rated Jones the world’s top female hurdler for 2008.  Jones hasn’t been a flash in the pan, either: she ranked in the top ten every year from 2006 through 2010. And yesterday she not only (barely) made the final, she ran well and finished fourth, behind Australian Sally Pearson’s Olympic record and the silver and bronze performances of her fellow Americans Dawn Harper and Kellie Wells.

But it’s not because of her accomplishments on the track that Lolo Jones is probably the most famous US track and field athlete. In addition to posing nude in ESPN the Magazine and clad scantily for Outdoor magazine, and speaking in detail and dramatically of her awful home life as a child, Jones has gotten attention for saying she’s a 30 year old virgin and a fan of Tim Tebow. Tebow, you may know, was a Heisman Trophy winner as the best player in college football, but was also famous for being highly demonstrative about his evangelical Christian beliefs and opposition to abortion. He was not expected to be a good professional quarterback, but for a while last season he quarterbacked the Denver Broncos to several victories. Tebow’s contribution to those wins wasn’t as great as that of the Broncos’ defense, and his performances faded as the season went on. But he achieved fame way out of whack with what he was doing on the football field. And many of his conservative fans dismissed any arguments that Tebow was at best an average quarterback by accusing the critics of being motivated by hatred or jealousy or politics.

Watching some liberals in my twitter feed defend Lolo Jones looks a lot like conservatives who know little about football defending Tebow, not as a person, but as a quarterback.

Lolo Jones has won two world indoor championships. But the world indoor championships are far less competitive or prestigious than the outdoor world championships or the Olympics. If you compare it to college football, it’s about as impressive as quarterbacking a team to a win in one of the middling, bowl games, such as the Florida Citrus Bowl. Outdoors, where reputations are made Jones has never medaled in a major competition.

Longmann quoted a Canadian academic who compared Jones to the tennis player Anna Kournikova, which he explained “was a reference to the former Russian tennis player whose looks received far more attention than her relatively meager skills.” He’s right that Kournikova got more attention for her looks than her tennis accomplishments. But the thing is, she was nevertheless one hell of a tennis player! She never won a singles title, but at one point she was ranked 8^th in the world, and she did win Grand Slam doubles titles.

The comparison breaks down, though, when you consider that Kournikova got disproportionate attention for a successful but not top player, but the most successful players, such as Steffi Graf, Martina Hinges and Venus and Serena Williams, were well know and highly paid. Lolo Jones is not only better known than more accomplished athletes, for many Americans she’s the only track athlete they know.

Longman’s article was poorly written, but there’s an important truth buried in it. Lolo Jones is famous because of sensationalism, and if fame were based on achievement, there are many athletes far more deserving than her of public attention, such as sprinters Allyson Felix and Sanya Richards-Ross, who between them have 18 Olympic and World Championship gold medals (and neither of whom, for purposes of marketing and endorsements, could be deemed unattractive in comparison to Jones).

If Lolo Jones is like Anna Kournakova, Felix and Richards-Ross are like Steffi Graf and Martina Hingis. But only if the only tennis player anyone could name was Anna Kournakova, and if a sizeable chunk of the public believed Kournakova was as good at tennis player as Graf or Hingis.

If people want something to be mad about, Longman is a piddling target. We live in a society in which fame and celebrity are gained by often shallow or dubious means, and achievement too often gets minimal or no acclaim. Longman’s article was hack-ish, but for me the bigger problem is superb athletes with outstanding careers such as Felix and Richards-Ross make a good living as professional athletes but get no attention, while a decent athlete who is nowhere near as accomplished as Felix and Richards-Ross can become the most famous athlete in her sport because she fell, she is telegenic, is willing to discuss her awful childhood, and is supremely talented at marketing her celebrity. I’m not all that irritated with Longman for being kind of a jerk in pointing out that if only one track athlete is going to be widely known that it’s unjust that it’s Lolo Jones. I’m irritated that Lolo Jones is the only widely known US track athlete, and the reasons she’s known and other more deserving athletes are not.

The “Objective” Nitwittery of Politifact

Harry Reid says he heard from someone that Mitt Romney didn’t pay taxes for ten years. We don’t know if what Reid said was true or false, because the evidence that could be easily proffered to settle the dispute is still being held back by Mitt Romney. But Politifact says Reid isn’t telling the truth, so they issued their idiotic pants on fire judgment againt Reid.

The logical problem here is that Politiface is saying Reid is lying, and supporting their claim by citing tax experts who say that the it can’t be true that Romney didn’t pay taxes. But that’s not what Reid is saying, he’s not saying he knows Romney didn’t pay taxes. Rather, he’s saying he was told Romney didn’t pay taxes. If the claim is wrong, it’s person who made the claim who’s wrong, not Harry Reid for repeating it. Jamison Foser tweeted a great observation about this part of Politifarce’s silliness:

If, per @politifact, believing & repeating something false you’re told makes you a pants-on-fire liar, pretty much all reporters are liars.

Touche’.

The more fundamental problem, however, is what I suspect was Politifact’s motive, and the reason they didn’t pursue their motive directly. Harry Reid accused Mitt Romney of a fairly serious political (even if not legal) offense, without providing any evidence to back up his charge. I think Politifact wanted to condemn Harry Reid’s action on ethical grounds. Doing so would have undermined their image as conscientious protectors of the myth of journalist objectivity. But they didn’t want to let Reid’s statements pass without comment, so in place of the ethical argument Politifact made an empirical judgement. Condemning Harry Reid’s actions on ethical grounds would have been reasonable. But Politifarce’s empirical argument was ludicrous.

It appears that being accurate is not what’s important to Politifarce. They’re more concerned with being arbiters of conduct, but they show their silliness by using a charade of objectivity to cloak what is really just a bunch of smug tut-tutting.

Syria’s WMD Bluster: We’ve Heard It Before

Syria delivers a threat:

Syrian officials warned Monday that they would deploy chemical weapons against any foreign intervention, a threat that appeared intended to ward off an attack by Western nations while also offering what officials in Washington called the most “direct confirmation” ever that Syria possesses a stockpile of unconventional armaments.

They’re no way they would make such a threat if they didn’t actually have the capacity to deliver on it, right? Well, actually…

Saddam Hussein told an FBI interviewer before he was hanged that he allowed the world to believe he had weapons of mass destruction because he was worried about appearing weak to Iran, according todeclassified accounts of the interviews released yesterday.

[...]

Hussein’s fear of Iran, which he said he considered a greater threat than the United States, featured prominently in the discussion about weapons of mass destruction. Iran and Iraq had fought a grinding eight-year war in the 1980s, and Hussein said he was convinced that Iran was trying to annex southern Iraq — which is largely Shiite. “Hussein viewed the other countries in the Middle East as weak and could not defend themselves or Iraq from an attack from Iran,” [Saddam's FBI interrogator George] Piro recounted in his summary of a June 11, 2004, conversation.

“The threat from Iran was the major factor as to why he did not allow the return of UN inspectors,” Piro wrote. “Hussein stated he was more concerned about Iran discovering Iraq’s weaknesses and vulnerabilities than the repercussions of the United States for his refusal to allow UN inspectors back into Iraq.”

Hussein noted that Iran’s weapons capabilities had increased dramatically while Iraq’s weapons “had been eliminated by the UN sanctions,” and that eventually Iraq would have to reconstitute its weapons to deal with that threat if it could not reach a security agreement with the United States.

That Iraq bluffed about having WMD is not a reason to dismiss Syria’s threat. In fact, the case that Syria has a significant and deadly arsenal of chemical weapons is more likely than Saddam having been able to hide WMD from the inspections forced upon him after the Gulf War. Syria has not suffered a defeat like Saddam’s defeat in the 1991 Gulf War, so it hasn’t had to permit weapons inspectors traipsing around checking out what nasty tools of mass death they’ve assembled. And it’s easy to accept they would develop chemical weapons, given that the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded that the Syrian facility destroyed by Israel in 2007 was probably a nuclear reactor.

Syria’s threat was probably not directed primarily toward the United States. It’s highly unlikely that we would commit ground forces to an attack against Syria, and chemical weapons don’t have anti-aircraft applications. Instead, similar to Iraq’s bluster being directed toward it’s larger neighbor Iran, Syria’s bluster is probably intended for its larger and increasingly bellicose neighbor Turkey.

What Americans need to keep in mind is this is the kind of gamesmanship directed at regional rivals that US neocons misrepresent as an imminent and grave threat to US interests, and even to US security. Yes, it’s bad if Syria does indeed possess large amounts of chemical weapons. The Assad government says it would only use chemical weapons against “external aggression,” but if Assad sees the use of chemical weapons against his own citizens as a last-ditch effort to avoid the noose, one would be a fool to say with absolute certainty that he won’t. And it’s surely a serious problem for regional stability and a possible boon to international terrorists or rogue states if the Assad regime loses control of its chemical weapons and they fall in to the hands of unsavory characters who use them to extort demands or even deploy them against people. But be wary if you hear US neocons talking about WMD as a reason for us to intervene in Syria. There may be valid reasons to intervene against Syria (although I can’t think of any that aren’t outweighed by the likely costs). But Syria posing a grave and imminent threat against the United States is not one of them.

Is Romney’s Campaign Buying Twitter Followers?

After gaining about 3,000 new follows a day to his Twitter account, since yesterday Mitt Romney has inexplicably gained approximately 100,000 new follows. The Romney campaign denies it is doing as Newt Gingrich did before, and buying new follows (which are mostly spambots and empty accounts).

Maybe the Romney campaign is lying; it’s not like their conduct in this campaign has earned them a presumption of honesty. But maybe the Romney campaign isn’t buying their own Twitter follows, but someone else is.

FEC rules prohibit giving a campaign anything of value–including food for a fundraiser, office space, and even mailing lists–unless it meets all the legal and spending limits of cash contributions and is reported as an in-kind contribution. There are a few exceptions, such as supporters providing housing within their homes to campaign workers. But for something like a commercially available mailing list, the campaign has to pay for it or it has to be an in-kind contribution.

But what about Twitter follows? Twitter follows aren’t like an email address; if someone doesn’t want to receive communications from you, they won’t follow you. And if at some point they do follow you, then decide they don’t want to, they can just unfollow. Mitt Romney can’t transfer his follows to another campaign, another person, another account. If they’re accounts used by actual Twitter users, he can communicate with them but only on their terms: they have to open their twitter account and do it around a time when his account has an update.  Do Twitter follows have a monetary value? Has the FEC addressed the issue yet? If not, they probably will have to soon.

It is possible the Romney campaign is telling the truth, that they have not purchased new followers. But if Twitter followers are considered to not have value in a way that would require it be considered a campaign contribution, it may be permissible for a third party–such as a SuperPAC–to purchase the followers.

Purchasing Twitter follows is of dubious utility. If you tweet something, it’s like speaking in a park while standing on the top of a box. Actual people who use and read Twitter who follow one’s account are like the people walking through the park who stop and listen to you. But buying follows that are really empty accounts is sort of like buying shabby clothes and laying them in front of you while you stand on the box–there’s really nobody there listening to you, and anyone who looks closely knows you’ve assembled a bunch of empty suits.

Romney’s campaign may not be purchasing follows for his Twitter feed. But someone probably is, and with money that is dark, unreported and unaccountable. At least it’s being wasted on something of little or no value.