Of Course the Washington Post Has No Standards for Coherence Whatsoever. Why Do You Ask?
Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?
Outsourced to Simon Maloy:
On Romney Policy Details, It's Jennifer Rubin Vs. The World and Jennifer Rubin: Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post thinks the Romney-Ryan campaign has been exquisitely detailed in their explanations of their economic policies. And this puts her in rare company, since even the Romney-Ryan campaign says they're purposefully avoiding detailed discussions….
Romney has his whiteboard to explain Medicare. Ryan has his charts and PowerPoint slides. They really can explain their plans and do the math. In this reality-based company, the president (who thinks ATMs cause unemployment) is out of his element. Hence, the resort to increasingly nasty language. If he had good answers for these questions, he might not be descending into the political sewer. Unfortunately for him, there isn't a chart that can explain how higher taxes are going to make our economic outlook rosier. The math just doesn't work.
"Do the math." Interesting choice of words, given that earlier this week, Paul Ryan told Brit Hume point-blank that they haven't been doing any math:
HUME: But what about [budget] balance?
RYAN: Well I don't know exactly when it balances because -- I don't want to get wonky on you but we haven't run the numbers on that specific plan yet.
And then there's this gobsmacking sentence from a Politico article….
Advisers say the campaign has no plans to pivot from its previous view that diving into details during a general-election race would be suicidal….
In one sense, Romney is throwing down the gauntlet before the news media. He is betting that the media will either fail to hold him accountable for his refusal to share basic info about his finances and policies…. Romney is betting on media incompetence…. And, just for good measure, let's travel all the way back in time to August 7, a mere 10 days ago, when Jennifer Rubin defended Romney's tax plan….
The [Tax Policy Center] study is no more than a model, a model in which the assumptions do not correspond to the Romney plan (because the plan has insufficient details)….
So even Jennifer Rubin doesn't think the Romney campaign has been overly detailed. Someone should tell Jennifer Rubin.
