Friday, August 24, 2012

The Biggest Myth of 2012

I don’t know whether President Obama or Mitt Romney will win on November 6, but I do know what the MSNBC talking heads will say in the event that Obama loses. They will say that Republican billionaires bought the election; that Republican legislators suppressed the minority vote through onerous photo identification requirements; and that Romney frightened white working class voters into thinking Obama favored minorities over other groups. They will say the 2010 Citizens United decision allowed Republican billionaires to inject undisclosed “dark money” into American politics, and Democrats could not compete because they had no financial interest at stake, no Charles Koch or Sheldon Adelson of their own.
I also know that every rationale uttered by Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz will advance their theological belief in the moral purity and benevolent intentions of modern day progressives. This foundational idea—that Republicans act out of self-interest while Democrats act out of the public interest—is the keystone to the self-conceptualization and self-idealization of your everyday Democrat. It’s simplistic and bogus. And it is the biggest myth of campaign 2012.
Take for example the left-wing activist Jane Mayer’s latest article in the New Yorker, “Schmooze or Lose,” in which the author of factually challenged diatribes against Vice President Cheney and Charles and David Koch argues that President Obama, despite holding a record number of fundraisers, has not accumulated as much money as he would like in 2012 because he is “disheartened” by the “top-dollar gamesmanship unleashed by the Citizens United ruling,” and because his “attitude toward money” is “complicated.” Last week the Pew Research Center announced that 56 percent of the country still believes in the credibility of the mainstream media. Mayer’s work should be enough to bring the Pew number to below 50 percent.

Read more: http://freebeacon.com/the-biggest-myth-of-2012/

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