Why Mitt’s Trying to Beat up on Joe Biden

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Just posted at the Plum Line: this really excellent political opinion column by Jamell Bouie. He gives an answer as to why Mitt has over the past 24 hours tried to blow up Joe Biden’s ‘chains’ remark into such a big deal: it’s cause he’s trailing in the election, by all reliable measures. “Losing” is Boulee’s word.

Borrowing an outlook from sports, I believe that if the campaign gets into the third quarter of the race (after Labor Day, after the autumn solstice) with current trends still favoring the president continuing, the professional political operatives on board the Romney team are going to need a series of Hail Mary passes to somehow get their candidate back in to the contest. With Mitt often being his own campaign manager, I’d say it’s him driving the over the top push-back against Biden, and continuing to air ads like the one falsely asserting Pres. Obama’s ruined the welfare law. Mitt himself may have written the fervid speech he game late last night, the one raising dungeon about Pres. Obama’s character, the one the Obama campaign this morning called “unhinged.” Bouie points out that one of the underpinnings within the Romney camp has been their presumed advantage with senior voters, but the Ryan pick is threatening to erode that big time. If so, pop goes one of the legs on their 3-legged stool.

As for the Obama camp’s response to the convenient outrage over Biden’s use of a loaded word, and their response to things like the welfare ad, I think they’re doing it right. Basically, they’ve made it clear they’re not having any crap, and they won’t be instructed by an opponent whose policies would damage the middle class–the big banks, the new shacklers that Biden was talking about–and which has been making stuff up about the president since their first TV ad.

The Plum Line, where Greg Sargent and Jonathan Bernstein also post, is one of my steady political reads on the Web

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Julia Child at 100

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This is a real sweet blog post by Seán Collins, longtime radio person and multimedia broadcaster, recalling the lunch that Julia Child once fixed for him when he was working for WGBH in Boston. He tells the story with charm and affection, and good photographs, via this link on his blog, Commonplace Book, which carries the clever tag line, “one man’s hedge against failing memory.” He learned Julia’s own formula for making a delicious vinaigrette for the salad she served him. Here’s one of the photos from Seán’s post, an amusing shot. I couldn’t find a credit but I think it must be to WGBH, with the crew out of camera range from a TV taping.

It being Julia’s 100th today, I also want to point my readers to a charming remembrance of her from this AM on CBC Radio’s Metro Morning from Toronto. Guest Marion Kane knew her going back to the 80s, and recalls a special day when the French Chef visited Toronto, all here in 6 minutes of fond and vivid recollections via this link to today’s program.

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Good Advice on Twitter Bios & Web IDs

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This is an excellent advice blog post by publishing and writing maven Jane Friedman, on crafting one’s Twitter bio and more broadly, your online identity. One of her most salient tips:

[A] little bit of personality is more often than not what starts a conversation on Twitter.”

Jane is an experienced and knowledgeable hand, as her full online bio attests. If you’re on Twitter and a writer, I suggest you follow her. If you wonder how she does her own Twitter bio, here it is:

@JaneFriedman
I share links on writing, publishing & tech. Web editor for @vqr + former publisher of @writersdigest. Bourbon lover & Hoosier native.
Charlottesville, VA, USA · http://janefriedman.com

I’m mulling her advice, including the point about not necessarily using a list to ID oneself, though haven’t yet made a stab at a revised Twitter bio. FWIW, here’s my current Twitter ID:

@philipsturner
Blogger, editor, reader, music lover, honorary Canadian. As publisher, I’ve done Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Father & Amb Joseph Wilson’s Politics of Truth.
New York City · http://www.TheGreatGrayBridge.com/

I invite you to follow my tweets too.

My own advice? Remember to be yourself, in personal and professional realms, and allow that confident presentation of self to surface in your online IDs.

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Ann on the Romneys’ Taxes–“There’s Nothing We’re Hiding”

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“Ann Romney stroked the nose of Magic, a Welsh pony. ‘You’re so pretty, Magic,’ said Mrs. Romney. . . . When pressed. . . Mrs. Romney stood her ground. ‘We have been very transparent to what’s legally required of us,’ she said. ‘There’s going to be no more tax releases given.’ Mrs. Romney said if they release any more information, ‘it will only give them more ammunition.’ In regards to their finances, she said ‘there’s nothing we’re hiding.’ **

There’s a lot to unpack in this brief segment from the interview Ann Romney has recently done with NBC.

1) Notwithstanding the implication she would prefer to be taken away from her claim, the Romney campaign hasn’t yet released even one full year of tax information. Though most taxpayer’s 2011 returns have long since been filed, they haven’t yet released the most recent year. I don’t know what they’re waiting for. Moreover, for 2010–the one year they claim to have released–it was incomplete, as it lacked key filings the Romneys would have been obligated to make about their foreign bank accounts. The media should be making the point that claims aside, far from releasing two years, they haven’t even done one yet.

I noticed that Paul Ryan tried doing the same thing in his 60 Minutes interview Sunday night–speaking about Mitt’s two years of tax info in the past tense, as though they had already been released. Most of the attention for that part of the interview was paid to Ryan’s admission he’d provided “several years” of returns for vetting by the Romney campaign; equally significant was the sleight-of-hand he tried on Mitt’s taxes.

The media should be making the point that false claims aside, far from releasing two years, the Romneys haven’t even released one yet.

2) Her claims of transparency are belied by the facts. Mitt has been opaque about everything from his years as governor of Massachusetts–at the end of which, he instructed staff to purchase and destroy the hard drives on their office computers–to the sealing of Salt Lake City Olympics records to their personal finances.

3) As a matter of logic, how can the voting public reliably ascertain that she and Mitt aren’t “hiding” anything if they refuse to release more info? The Romney campaign has cited the supposed example of John McCain who as a presidential candidate released just two years of tax returns, but as a member of the Senate for many years, McCain had been filing detailed personal financial disclosures for a long time, and so an adequate paper trail already was available about him.

4) By stating that the release of more than two years of tax returns “will only give” the Obama campaign “more ammunition,” Ann Romney makes it sound as if she and her husband are helpless weaklings unable to protect themselves from the schoolyard bullies in the Obama camp. Come on, Ann, that’s what you’ve got your own bulwark of a campaign for! Buck up and deal with it. This is similar to Mitt’s appeals to the refs (i.e., the moderators) during the Republican primary debates–when he felt stung by an opponent’s criticism he’d ask the moderator– Wolf Blitzer in one instance–to intervene, claiming someone had violated debate rules. Observing this cowardly conduct, I thought at the time, “What a wuss!”

The Romneys are clearly hoping for credulous media to give them a pass on all their bait & switch tactics. One of the reasons I write this blog is to remind readers of mine who are also members of the media that they should not permit auto-pilot reporting to disguise this naked spin. Ann Romney puts up a gauzy front, shedding tears over the lovely Welsh pony Magic, but it’s just an act in service of her husband’s mendacious dissembling.

**If the subject of the Romneys’ horses interests you, please see my earlier post on the topic, All the Romneys’ Horses.
Note: The credit for the photo accompanying this post belongs to the publication Chronicle of the Horse.

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Jeremy Fisher, True Troubador

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Jeremy Fisher isn’t a big person, but the singer-songwriter sure makes a big sound. It’d be hard to imagine more music coming from any other solo player. Along with his voice, his primary instrument is a weathered Gibson LG-2 guitar from which he punches out a great, full sound. His bright singing voice offers a lot of welcome contrast with that percussive Gibson, since I suspect it falls somewhere between the tenor and alto range. The lyrics he sings are deeply felt declarations that carry a personal, even existential quality.

I highly recommend all of Jeremy’s music, and particularly, his latest album, “Mint Juleps,”  a recording with five originals written by Jeremy and  covers of seven songs by such artists as Gordon Lightfoot, John Hiatt, and Greg Brown. Fisher makes each song his own in such a way that until I studied the album sleeve, I wasn’t sure which songs were his and which were the covers. “Spin, Spin, Spin” is a rare Gordon Lightfoot song, in that it hasn’t been sung by lots of other artists already. In a recent phone interview, Jeremy told me that was one of the reasons he chose it for the record. He said he wanted songs to which he knew he could add something new. That is certainly the case with Greg Brown’s ode to the bounty of summer, “Canned Goods,” about the pickles, tomatoes, and fruits his dear grandma put up for canning when he was a boy.

One of the highlights of attending the North by Northeast (NXNE) festival in Toronto in June was finally hearing Jeremy perform live. I had heard him on CBC Radio 3 many times, enjoying such songs as “Shine a Little Light” and “Jolene” (not Dolly Parton’s song of the same name) but I was unprepared for how bright, funny, and charismatic he is as a live performer. That week I heard him play at the Dakota Tavern showcase** hosted by his label Hidden Pony, and at the picnic hosted by CBC Radio 3 host and author Grant Lawrence, where I took this outdoor photo.

The title of the new album is not meant to remind listeners of the Kentucky Derby, or anything about America’s Old South. This Canadian composer wanted to evoke lazy summer days, or as he told me, “the kind of record I’d like to listen to while making brunch on a Sunday morning, or having a drink on a Friday afternoon.” He said he’s been playing other people’s songs ever since he started joining bands as a kid, playing songs by Canadian super-groups Blue Rodeo and the Tragically Hip. and later Beatles and Motown covers. They were the “starting point” for him as a songwriter. For the new album he played solo versions of the songs he’d decided to record and emailed the sound files to the musicians he’d asked to accompany him. This group included such standout Canadian musicians as Joey Wright, whose 2011 album “Hatch” I enjoy a lot. Adding a nice tough here, Wright plays guitar, mandolin, and tenor guitar. Based on his rough work-up, Jeremy told his musical recruits, “this is the feel I want, but I want fresh ideas every take. . . . I wanted the personalities of the players to shine through.”

The new album was engineered my Mark Ouimet, who also plays percussion and sings on several numbers. Among many favorite songs on the album, I’m especially enjoying “If It’s Alright With You,’ written by Gene MacClellan, which sports a great harmonica riff played by Jeremy himself. Listening to Jeremy Fisher’s latest recording of his favorite songs during this sweltering summer of 2012 one is left with an unmistakable impression of hearing a latter day Buddy Holly, a forgotten sibling to the Everly Brothers, or maybe Paul Simon. Even with all those classic rock and pop associations, which are not a stretch, Jeremy’s an original talent with a great feel for song–I recommend you listen to him for yourself.

**That Dakota showcase where I heard Jeremy Fisher also featured Erin Passmore, the Danks, Elephant Stone, and Rah Rah, each also clients of Hidden Pony. All five acts–including Jeremy who followed Erin–played great that night. Click here to view 15 of the photos I took during the showcase.

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5 Key Analyses of Mitt’s VP Pick

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I’m sure there will be lots more important columns to read as the process of vetting Paul Ryan moves forward, but this is where I recommend we begin. Dear readers, if you have faves of your own, please let me know what they are.

1) Greg Sargent’s take at the Plum Line on Mitt’s choice to double down on economic radicalism; 

2) Benjy Sarlin’s TPM piece, Democrats Can’t Wait to Run Against Paul Ryan’s Budget;

3) Also at TPM, Evan McMorris-Santoro reports that (incredibly, but typically and absurdly) Mitt’s already trying to distance himself from the Ryan Budget;

4) At the WonkBlog, Ezra Klein writes about what he believes the Ryan pick means, with a helpful 10 point list;

5) At NY magazine, Jonathan Chait explains It’s Paul Ryan’s Party: With Romney VP Pick, Movement Conservatives Openly Control GOP At Last.

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Another Wealthy Friend of Mitt’s (This One Lives in a House Like a Spaceship)

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Earlier I noted the strange AP photo of Mitt looking lost in a cornfield. Turns out there is a reason why Mitt was in the field with the two men, and as is usually true with Mitt it has to do with wealth. The figure on the left is Lemar Koethe, and according to a post by Stephen Lacey on ThinkProgress, Koethe is the owner of the spaceship-like house in the second photo here. (Photo: Debra Jane Seltzer via Roadside Architecture)

Lacey writes,

“In an attempt to show his concern for farmers hit by the devastating drought that has swept 78 percent of the country, Romney had a photo-op with Iowa ‘farmer’ Lemar Koethe. However, Koethe isn’t exactly the rugged down-home farmer struggling to keep his operation going that you might expect. Or should I say operations — 54 of them. Yes, according to the Des Moines Register, Koethe owns 54 soy and corn farms. And that’s just one of his jobs. In previous reports on his activity over the years from the Des Moines Register, Koethe is also a described as a millionaire, a real estate mogul, and a former concert promoter who booked acts like Slipknot at his 24,000 square foot event center. Like a lot of people in the agricultural sector, Koethe says the drought is hurting some of his crops. Ultimately, when it comes to voicing his concerns, it shouldn’t matter if the man owns one farm, 10 farms, or 54 farms — he’s taking a hit like everyone else. But really, Romney? Out of the hundreds of thousands of farmers being impacted by the drought — many of them family farmers struggling to keep their heads above water — you had to meet the millionaire real estate mogul who lives in a spaceship house with an underground car wash and recreation center?”
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#FridayReads, Aug. 10–“Under the Banner of Heaven,” Jon Krakauer

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#FridayReads, August 10–Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, Jon Krakauer’s engrossing account of the blood-drenched history of Mormonism, from the Mountain Meadows massacre in 1857 to the religious murders committed by the fundamentalist Lafferty brothers in American Fork, Utah, in 1984. The paranoid machinations of the founders of this cultish movement, and its zealous adherents, is startling, as is the secrecy that has attended it in more modern decades. I recommend this book for a greater understanding of the movement that animates Mitt Romney and his co-religionists. Photos of the front and back cover are from the copy I am reading.

Also, while driving on vacation recently we listened to the audio book of Bill Bryson’s Shakespeare: The World as Stage, read by the author. It was enormously enjoyable.

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