Newsweek (print editions), 1933-2012

Posted on by

After the end of this year, Newsweek will go all digital. No more print editions.

I have paid only occasional attention to Newsweek in recent years, but there was a time in decades past I never missed an issue. The June 2002 story “What Bush Knew” (offline, but here are letters from readers about it) had a lot to do with my starting to blog.

I take it that beginning in 2008 Newsweek management made some boneheaded editorial and business decisions that caused a massive loss in advertising revenue. And I agree with mistermix that “once journalism’s Kevorkian, Tina Brown, attached the parasitic Daily Beast to the sinking ship,” failure was certain. It was just a matter of time.

And with Brown in charge, I don’t expect much from the digital version, either. See Joe Coscarelli in New York magazine, “Newsweek Ending Print Magazine, Going All Digital in 2013” and “Newsweek and the Daily Beast No Longer Have Access to Sidney Harman’s Billions” (7/23/12).

Mitt’s Mendacious Math

Posted on by

Mitt has a five-point plan that will create 12 million jobs in four years. He says this over and over. And multiple headlines today say Mitt’s math is malarkey.

Dana Milbank wrote, “the source the Romney campaign provided for the jobs figure was a trio of studies that either didn’t directly analyze Romney’s policies or were based on longer time horizons than four years.”

In brief, Milbank says that (a) some independent economists think that if the economy stays on its current trajectory, it will add 12 million new jobs in the next four years, never mind who wins the election. And (b), those studies that the Romney camp claims to be about his particular plan don’t say what he says they say.

In a recent ad, Romney, speaking to the camera from a factory floor, says his “energy independence policy means more than 3 million new jobs,” his tax plan “creates 7 million more,” and “expanding trade, cracking down on China and improving job training takes us to over 12 million new jobs.”

But when Kessler asked for substantiation, the campaign referred him to a Rice University professor’s study for evidence that Romney’s tax plan would generate 7 million jobs — which turned out to be a 10-year number. The evidence for the energy policy creating 3 million jobs comes from a Citigroup Global Markets study that did not analyze Romney’s plan and was assuming an eight-year horizon. The remaining 2 million jobs, Kessler wrote, were justified by a 2011 International Trade Commission report that also didn’t analyze Romney policies.

See also Glenn Kessler (since when has Kessler given a Republican four pinnichios?), Joe Conason, and Don Lee in the Los Angeles Times.

I also like what E.J. Dionne says —

Under pressure this time, the former Massachusetts governor displayed his least attractive sides. He engaged in pointless on-stage litigation of the debate rules. He repeatedly demonstrated his disrespect for both the president and Candy Crowley, the moderator. And Romney was just plain querulous when anyone dared question him about the gaping holes in his tax and budget plans.

Any high school debate coach would tell a student that declaring, “Believe me because I said so,” is not an argument. Yet Romney confused biography with specificity and boasting with answering a straightforward inquiry. “Well, of course, they add up,” Romney insisted of his budget numbers. “I — I was — I was someone who ran businesses for 25 years, and balanced the budget. I ran the Olympics and balanced the budget.” Romney was saying: Trust me because I’m an important guy who has done important stuff. He gave his listeners no basis on which to verify the trust he demanded.

If you think about it, Romney probably hasn’t had to justify himself to anybody since he became head of Bain Capital in 1984. Must be a shock to his system.

Membranous Mendacious Mitt, Morloch of the Midwest

Posted on by

Charles Pierce:

Those of us who lived under the barely distinguishable leadership of Willard Romney in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (God save it!) know very well that the emotional membrane separating Lofty Willard from Snippy Willard is thin indeed, and that the membrane separating Snippy Willard from Dickhead Willard is well-nigh translucent. Both of those membranes were tested fully here on Tuesday night by the president, by Candy Crowley — who has clearly had enough of your bullshit, thank you very much — and by the simple fact that certain members of The Help tested the challenger’s ideas and found them wanting and, my dear young man, that simply is not done. And both of those membranes failed like rotting levees in a storm….

…But not even I expected Romney to let his entitled, Lord-of-the-Manor freak flag fly as proudly as he did on Tuesday night. He got in the president’s face. He got in Crowley’s face. That moment when he was hectoring the president about the president’s pension made him look like someone to whom the valet has brought the wrong Mercedes.

Really, I’m sorry I missed it. Pierce finished the post —

Put all those Romneys together and that’s what they sound like, even when they’re talking to the president of the United States. It’s the voice of the bloodless job-killer, the outsourcing Moloch of the industrial midwest, and the guy who poses with his Wall Street cronies with dollar bills in his mouth. People who claim to be interested in “character” should remember that.

The best part is not just that Mittens looked bad, but that he looked bad in ways that most folks who didn’t watch the debate are going to hear about. For example, the moment when Candy Crowley corrected Mitt on what the President said after the Benghazi Consulate attack was replayed on every news show on television, network and cable, I believe. It’s all over the Web as well. You’d have to be cloistered to miss it.

The Right, of course, thinks Crowley was behaving disgracefully by not letting Mittens get away with lying. Some are still arguing that the President didn’t say the consulate attack was an act of terrorism in his Rose Garden speech. Oh, sure, he said,

No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for. Today we mourn four more Americans who represent the very best of the United States of America. We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act. And make no mistake, justice will be done.

… but, they are whining, he didn’t explicitly say “The attack on the Benghazi Consulate was a terrorist act.” When he said “acts of terror,” he might have been referring to the 9/11 attacks of eleven years ago. And he said “terror,” not “terrorism,” so it doesn’t count.

Seriously. That’s what they’re going with. And then they get mad when normal people make fun of them.

Reminds me of …

Update: Josh Marshall found another rightie quibble —

Now Romney’s allies are trying to recover the fumble on his behalf by saying well, sure he uttered the word ‘terror’. But that’s just a word. Look at the context. He also mentioned the video. And videos don’t have anything to do with terror! In other words, but, but, but … the video!

More —

Through the lengthy and squalid effort of the Republican party and its press allies to exploit the attack last month in Libya, the centerpiece has been the alleged magical powers of the words ‘terror’ and ‘terrorist’. It’s reminiscent of Rudy Giuliani’s endless yakking in 2008 that the biggest problem with his Democratic opponents was that they didn’t say “9/11” enough, as though one grapples most effectively with the threats to the country by the endless repetition of buzzwords. … The Romney camp’s angle has been that Romney is Churchill incarnate because he’s saying terror, terror, terror and is too big a man to try to get a read on whether the video played any role.

Live by the buzzword, die by the buzzword. It’s been a nonsensical proposition from the start to imagine that foreign policy seriousness is defined by being the first one to hit the ‘terror’ buzzer like you’re a contestant on Jeopardy. But the Romney camp laid the trap. And tonight Mitt walked right into it.

Open Debate Thread

Posted on by

I’ll probably be back about the time the debate is over, but do comment away. I’ll check in as soon as I can. If you need to read live blogging I recommend Richard Adams at The Guardian, but of course I hope you leave comments here, and I hope not too many comments get stuck in the spam filter.

Update: I’m back. I take it this debate is going better than the last one.

Update: I’ve been reading comments and seen some of the highlight clips, and I am relieved the President won the evening. The clip of Romney being called out on Benghazi was priceless.

See Greg Sargent, “Obama Turns It Around,” and Michael Tomasky, “Obama Is Back.”

Open Thread Tonight

Posted on by

I regret, maybe, that I will be out this evening and cannot live blog the debate, but I will set up a post specifically for debate comments. I’ll probably get home about the time the debate is ending.

My only prediction is that this debate will be different from the first one. President Obama is capable of learning from mistakes, and I don’t doubt he will strive to be more assertive this time.

Mitt Romney Wants to Turn the U.S. Into Bain Capital

Posted on by

Seriously. See this op ed in the Boston Globe.

Mitt Romney is lambasting federal aid in his campaign for the presidency, including derisive comments against those who receive government assistance. But he pulled all the stops to pursue federal aid as governor of Massachusetts, even hiring “revenue maximization” contractors to scour federal programs for every possible penny — and using financial schemes to maximize and then divert the aid from his needy constituents.

In his first budget proposal, Romney promised balancing the budget without tapping reserves, and “without the use of fiscal gimmicks.” However, buried in the details, he suggested tapping reserves such as taking $4 million from the Catastrophic Illness in Children Relief Fund, and he included fiscal gimmicks to maximize and divert federal aid into his general state coffers. …

… Buried in his 2004 budget, Romney proposed maximizing federal aid by taxing hospitals, shifting the resulting tax payments in and out of an uncompensated care fund, back to hospitals as adjustment payments, and diverting resulting federal Medicaid funds to state general revenue. He also proposed using taxes on nursing homes and pharmacies in his efforts to maximize and divert federal aid.

As Mark Halperin points out, Mitt is promising to convert many federal programs — such as Medicaid — into simple “block grants” given to states to do with as they will. So while granny loses her bed in the nursing home, the state legislature can divert the Medicaid money into general revenue and vote for more tax cuts for “job creators.”