This morning, in my usual compulsive clicking and scanning of the New York Times, BBC, CNN, Fox News, The Daily Best, Slate, Politico and twitter I had a little revelation: Nobody is talking about Mitt Romney today. There were no headlines on anything coming from his camp, only some horse race stories and some grim statistics (for Romney) about the probability of him winning without Ohio (not good, for Romney).
I was about to close my laptop, end this blog and take up whittling, but mercifully I found this just in the nick of time I found this:
I was about to close my laptop, end this blog and take up whittling, but mercifully I found this just in the nick of time I found this:
The fun starts about 30 seconds in where Chris Wallace asks Paul Ryan for specifics on the Romney Tax plan in order to counter claims that the math does not work. This is on Fox News, so the questions stay friendly and focused on proving doubter wrong. For the next three minutes Ryan beats around the bush while Wallace gently prods for some clarity on how revenue could go up when taxes are lowered 20 percent and Ryan gives up this gem: "It would take me too long long to go through all of the math". (Show's up at 2:25)
Through the whole series of questioning, Ryan squirms around giving any specifics at all. He doesn't name any loopholes that would be closed. He doesn't say who would benefit. He just wriggles invoking Reagan, bipartisanship and the old line that the plan is clear and well documented.
When Enron collapsed, Lewis Black observed (paraphrasing) If you can't explain what your business does in a sentence, then chances are it's not honest. While this might be a little reductive, I think here we see the same thing apply to political platforms.
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