On NBC Nightly News (8/16/11):

ANDREA MITCHELL: Perry's Texas swagger is his calling card, bred of a hardscrabble boyhood on the family farm and Aggie roots at Texas A&M. Perry's chief claim to challenging President Obama is the Texas jobs record. Perry says his state produced 40 percent of all the jobs created across America in the last two years, with an unemployment rate at 8.2 percent, well below the national average, partly because of the oil and gas boom, partly because of growing trade with Mexico and federal defense spending in Texas.

Since Perry's campaign is based almost entirely on his state's jobs miracle, it's not too much to ask that journalists get this straight.

An 8.2 percent unemployment rate is not "well below the national average."  The national rate is a little over 9 percent. So, yes, Texas is doing better than the country as a whole--but not by much. Compare Texas to other states, though, and things don't look so great: The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that 26 states have a lower unemployment rate than Texas.

When a super-wealthy guy like Warren Buffett talks about taxing the rich-- in the pages of the New York Times, no less-- it gets the rest of the media talking. But that doesn't mean that talk will get things right.

Here's one example from ABC World News (8/15/11):

BIANNA GOLODRYGA (ABC NEWS): Much of Buffett's income comes from capital gains, profits resulting from investments, and they're taxed at only 15%. Buffett's solution, rates should be raised for the 300,000 Americans who make more than a million a year, left alone for everyone else. An additional 1% tax on the richest Americans is estimated to raise $100 billion in extra revenue during the next decade. But tax experts say it's not enough for just the super-rich to pay more.

MAYA MACGUINEAS (PRESIDENT OF THE COMMITTEE FOR A RESPONSIBLE FEDERAL BUDGET)

The bottom line is that the fiscal hole that we face is so large that everybody is going to have to be prepared to pay more in revenues in the end.

Nowhere does Buffett propose that his income tax rate should be increased one percentage point. In fact he talks about how his income tax rate is about half of what people who work in his office are paying. His column also talks about how the super-rich get a break on capital gains;  as Buffett sees it,  when the capital gains rate was 39.9 percent-- over twice what it is now-- it didn't stop people from investing.

So why is ABC low-balling his call to tax the wealthy? More realistic projections of how much can be gained by rolling back tax cuts for the wealthy tell a different story.   Chuck Marr at Center on Budget & Policy Priorities pointed out one way to raise a trillion dollars over 10 years:

Returning the average tax rate on the top 1 percent of taxpayers to its 1996 level of 29 percent could raise about $100 billion a year, or $1 trillion over the next decade.

Chuck Collins and Alison Goldberg note that

Almost 500 high-income taxpayers support the Fairness in Taxation Act, that would increase top tax rates on millionaires, generating an additional $78 billion in urgently needed revenue.

A New York Times story following up on Buffett's column pointed out that

his proposal would put a significant dent in the nation’s budget shortfall. Based on projections by the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Congressional Budget Office and the Treasury, the tax increase on all three fronts would generate as much as $500 billion in new revenue over the next decade — about a third of what the Congressional committee is supposed to cut from the deficit.

The ABC report does conclude by pointing out that this $100 billion figure could build 7,000 new elementary schools. But Buffett's actually proposing to raise far more money than that. Why is ABC trying to give the super-wealthy a break?

A few weeks ago Newsweek's piece on the Dominique Strauss-Kahn rape case offered a welcome break from some of the sloppy, offensive coverage of the case we've seen elsewhere in the media. The magazine even cast doubt on some of the reporting coming from the New York Times.

This week, though,  is another matter. John Solomon has a piece outlining the Strauss-Kahn defense, and he includes this:

Now sources familiar with Strauss-Kahn’s case, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, say the defense could speculate that the encounter went bad when housekeeper Nafissatou Diallo discovered she would not receive any money after oral sex with the powerful Frenchman. Strauss-Kahn’s team may also try to portray Diallo, 32, as an “earner” who tried to pick up cash and gifts to supplement her $40,000 housekeeper’s salary, creating a financial motive to interpret some of the evidence in a new light.

So "sources familiar" with Strauss-Kahn's case-- anonymous, of course-- think that his lawyers "could speculate" that Diallo thought she was trading sex for money. Does Newsweek generally allow reporters to grant sources anonymity to float nasty rumors about things other people might say?

I was wondering if anything written about this case could be more offensive than Stuart Taylor's vile screed about the need to drop the charges against Strauss-Kahn because some rape cases have fallen apart ("Some seem to unlearn the lessons of such cases every time a poor (or not so poor) woman of color accuses a rich (or not so rich) white male of doing something horrible," he explained).

As we pointed out a few weeks ago, defense attorneys leaking information to discredit an accuser in a case like this is a fairly common practice. One would hope journalists would know better than to print them.

A headline and subhead in the Los Angeles Times:

Iraq attacks raise new concerns about U.S. pullout

Suicide bombings, car explosions and gunfire that killed at least 70 in an apparently coordinated assault suggests Iraqi forces may be overwhelmed by insurgents after American troops withdraw.

Of course, these attacks happened while U.S. troops are still in the country-- making the point about the U.S. "pullout" somewhat hard to follow.

But this is a familiar argument. Remember the Time magazine cover photo of a disfigured Afghan woman last July? The magazine's political point was summed up by the text on the cover: "What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan." The attack that left her disfigured happened with U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

The implication in both cases is that violence will overcome these countries due to the absence of U.S. troops-- which obviously obscures the fact that the U.S. presence is often the source of such violence, or the justification used by armed groups seeking to drive out U.S. troops.

In today's New York Times, Jennifer Steinhauer  notes the remarkable number of Congressmembers-- more than 80--who are heading to Israel thanks to a program affiliated with AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobbying force.

Steinhauer sizes up the political backdrop-- the White House has strained relations with the current Israeli government, and there's more:

the Palestinians are weighing a request to the United Nations Security Council to support a bid for statehood, leaving Washington in the uncomfortable position of blocking such a unilateral move while supporting democracy movements in other Arab nations.

U.S. policy at the United Nations has historically been pro-Israel. There's no debate about that. So it's hard to see how this particular case would be "uncomfortable," since it's in keeping with a well-established pattern.

As for the supporting Arab democracy movements: Which one did the U.S. "support" when it really mattered? Not Tunisia, Bahrain or Egypt. Not Yemen. Not Saudi Arabia or Jordan. Certainly not Palestine. Syria? Not really.  I guess you could argue that the Libya War is "supporting" something.  But Steinhauer's vision of the U.S. as 'uncomfortably' fitting its rejection of Palestinian autonomy within a prevailing policy of encouragement  for Arab democracies is more media creation than diplomatic reality.

One of the strangest comments post- Iowa straw poll came from reporter Kelly O'Donnell on NBC Nightly News (8/14/11):

Both Pawlenty's exit and Perry's launch consumed political oxygen that typically would have gone to the straw poll's actual winner, Congresswoman Bachmann, who appeared on all five Sunday morning talk shows, including Meet the Press.

I'm having trouble imagining how someone could put those two thoughts together. Bachmann was merely on five national TV shows Sunday morning. That's being overshadowed?

If that's oxygen deprivation, one has to wonder what you'd call the media treatment of Ron Paul, who finished one percentage point behind Bachmann, despite being treated as a non-candidate by the national media. Politico's Roger Simon  (8/15/11), argued that you can't say the straw poll means almost nothing and that Bachmann's victory makes her a top-tier candidate:

Straw polls are just organized bribery, with the campaigns buying the tickets and distributing them to supporters. (And, in fact, this is what I wrote before Ames.)

What they really show, many argue, is not where the philosophical heart of the party is, but the organizational abilities of the candidates.

Fine, I'll buy that. But why didn’t Paul get the same credit for his organizational abilities as Bachmann did for hers?

He points out that last time around finishing second was treated as a victory:

Four years ago, Mike Huckabee came in a bad second to Romney, losing by 13.4 percentage points. Huckabee managed to spin that into a victory at Ames and became a media darling.

But Paul almost wins the thing and he remains poison.

Simon's conclusion, though, is disappointing.  GOP operatives and officials were responsible for determining the winners/losers storyline:

So don’t blame the media. Here are Republicans, presumably Republican operatives, who said if one candidate wins, the contest is significant, but if another wins the contest is not credible.

That doesn't add up. Reporters don't have to take their marching orders from party operatives.

But if you want the definitive take-down of the corporate media's Paul-blocking top-tierism watch this segment from the Daily Show:

There was one moment in last Thursday's GOP presidential debate that seemed to sum things up.

The candidates were asked if they would agree to a long-term budget/deficit reduction deal that was tilted 10 to 1 in favor of spending cuts over tax increases.  This would be an unbelievably favorable outcome for anti-tax Republicans.

Every candidate said they'd reject it.

This got plenty of attention in the Saturday New York Times.

Guest columnist and radio host Kurt Andersen wrote:

And the most surprising, depressing moment was when former Gov. Jon Huntsman, along with the seven others, raised his hand after being asked if, as president, he’d reject a hypothetical deal on debt reduction that increased tax revenue by $1 for every $10 of spending cuts.

Several paragraphs and topics later, he added:

I find ideologues creepy because they’re like robots, built to respond to the fluid, complicated world in simple, unchanging ways.

Of course, if it's  "ideologues" you find creepy, then corporate media's rulebook requires that you  find some counter-example from the "other side,  in order to demonstrate that your own middle-of-the-road non-ideology is superior. Andersen does just that; after explaining that a "no spending cuts to social welfare programs" pledge signed by Democrats turned out to be a hoax, he writes:

However, there is the Social Security Protectors Pledge, whose signers vow to “oppose any cuts to Social Security benefits, including increasing the retirement age.” A majority of House Democrats are signatories. And so the robotification of American politics proceeds.

So: the Republican presidential nominees refuse to entertain any tax increases in order to find a deficit-debt solution-- which makes actually solving the debt problem almost impossible.

But Democrats are just as bad. Despite the program's massive surplus, and the fact that it plays no role in the country's deficit/debt problem, Democrats won't cut benefits. What a bunch of robots!

As we've said plenty of times before,  one of the main jobs of campaign journalists is winnowing the field of candidates-- which must come as a relief to voters who don't want to have more of a say in the process.

Before the results of the Iowa straw poll rolled in this weekend, there were pieces about whether anyone should pay attention to the event in the first place.  Most reporters are willing to admit that paying so much attention to an elaborate popularity contest where the candidates pay voters to participate is a little odd.

The lesson for readers comes afterwards, though--when reporters nevertheless assign meaning to the event.

The main takeaway from this weekend seems to be that we now have a "top tier" of Republican candidates. "GOP now has 'three-person race' after  poll," says USA Today. "Top tier puts GOP contest in focus," says a Washington Post headline.

So the "top tier"-- i.e., the candidates we're supposed to actually pay attention t0-- consists of the straw poll winner-- who most observers believe has almost no chance of actually winning the nomination-- plus two candidates who didn't participate in the contest-- one of whom has been a candidate for all of one weekend.

And, naturally, the person who nearly won the straw poll is a "nuisance," according to NBC's Chuck Todd (Meet the Press, 8/14/11):

Well, it was a shake-up, and we have a top tier. It is Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann. There are a couple of other candidates that can make some waves. Ron Paul proved that he can do that, he's going to be a nuisance to the field.

Of course, even if Ron Paul had won the straw poll instead of finishing a close second, it's rather unlikely he'd be in media's "top tier."

Does narrowing the field down at this point help any voters assess the candidates? Does it clear up questions about what the candidates are saying about the issues? Of course not. But it gives campaign reporters a horse race with fewer horses. Which is apparently what they want.

The New York Times has a long piece (8/12/11) looking at the question of how many civilians in Pakistan are killed by CIA drones. The agency doesn't even speak about the program on the record, except to make the far-fetched claim that no civilians have died in the past year or so.

The article, written by Scott Shane, includes some useful criticism of the CIA, and it's hard not to conclude that the agency's claims are not very credible.

But the real problem with the piece is that it gives much weight to the CIA's defense at all, using their almost entirely anonymous claims as one side in a dispute:

The government's assertion of zero collateral deaths meets with deep skepticism from many independent experts. And a new report from the British Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which conducted interviews in Pakistan's tribal area, concluded that at least 45 civilians were killed in 10 strikes during the last year.

Shane writes that a "closer look at the competing claims... suggests reasons to doubt the precision and certainty of the agency's civilian death count." He adds, though, that "if there are doubts about the CIA claim, there are also questions about the reliability of critics' reports of noncombatant deaths."

Shane also reports that "American officials" do not trust Pakistani lawyer Mirza Shahzad Akbar, who has been a key player and is suing the CIA-- which apparently discredits the British Bureau of Investigative Journalism study:

American officials said the Bureau of Investigative Journalism report was suspect because it relied in part on information supplied by Mr. Akbar, who publicly named the CIA's undercover Pakistan station chief in December when announcing his legal campaign against the drones.

If you read some of the British press about this study (as I did, thanks to CommonDreams.org), you get a very different impression than the one you get from the New York Times. From the Telegraph:

168 Children Killed in Drone Strikes

in Pakistan Since Start of Campaign

New research to send shockwaves through Pakistan

by Rob Crilly, Islamabad

In an extensive analysis of open-source documents, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism found that 2,292 people had been killed by U.S. missiles, including as many as 775 civilians.

An opinion piece at the Guardian:

The Civilian Victims

of the CIA's Drone War

A new study gives us the truest picture yet--in contrast to the CIA's own account--of drones' grim toll of 'collateral damage'

by Clive Stafford Smith

In that piece, Smith writes:

This week, a new report from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism gives us the best picture yet of the impact of the CIA's drone war in Pakistan. The CIA claims that there has been not one "noncombatant" killed in the past year. This claim always seemed to be biased advocacy rather than honest fact. Indeed, the Guardian recently published some of the pictures we have obtained of the aftermath of drone strikes. There were photos of a child called Naeem Ullah killed in Datta Khel and two kids in Piranho, both within the timeframe of the CIA's dubious declaration.

The BIJ reporting begins to fill in the actual numbers. It's a bleak view: more people killed than previously thought, including an estimated 160 children overall. This study should help to create a greater sense of reality around what is going on in these remote regions of Pakistan. This is precisely what has been lacking in the one-sided reporting of the issue--and it doesn't take an intelligence analyst to realize that vague and one-sided is just the way the CIA wants to keep it.

The Times account obeys normal journalistic  "rules" about balance and giving official sources their say. Which, in this case, amounts to giving space to anonymous killers to defend their actions.

Much of the media coverage of the riots in England dwells on the issue of police restraint.  There is a "public backlash against police restraint," the Washington Post explained (8/11/11), with some wanting "a tougher response to the rash of disturbances that has sullied Britain's image." The problem is the "seemingly halting, even timorous, policing," according to one New York Times story (8/12/11). Another Times piece added:

A former senior riot police officer with knowledge of current operations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that the most recent riots were allowed to rage, in part, because police officers felt constrained.

While there is no doubt that some people feel this way--one British poll found a third of respondents supported using live ammunition against demonstrators--it is rather odd to focus on police restraint when the immediate context of the uprisings concerns police brutality. The protests started after police killed Mark Duggan in Tottenham last Thursday. Early, inaccurate reports suggested Duggan fired on the officers.

While some commentary is quick to point out that looting can't possibly be connected to one police killing, there is a far bigger problem here. As you might expect, independent media are covering this better than the corporate media. From a Democracy Now! interview (8/10/11) with London blogger Richard Seymour:

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask Richard Seymour about one of the pieces in the Guardian written by Caroline Davies, who says, "A total of 333 people have died in or following police custody over the past 11 years, but no officer has ever been successfully prosecuted." That’s according to the government; it's according to a watchdog report. "'Prosecutions were recommended against 13 officers based on 'relatively strong evidence of misconduct or neglect,' but none resulted in a guilty verdict." This is quite remarkable. Three hundred thirty-three people have died in or following police custody over the last 11 years? This is more than two people a month over the last more than decade. Can you talk about the significance of this, Richard?

RICHARD SEYMOUR: Yeah. I mean, first of all, there has been, over the last generation or so, some efforts to overcome the antagonisms between the police and black communities in Britain, but that didn't, obviously, get rid of institutional racism. Institutional racism was acknowledged in the outcome of the Lawrence Inquiry, but the steps undertaken to deal with it were obviously inadequate. And the result of that has been that there has been a disproportionate amount of stop-and-search of young black men, a disproportionate amount of harassment and violence, and, of course, as you mentioned, deaths in police custody.

But it's worth mentioning that it’s not just deaths in police custody. There have been a number of recent notorious deaths outside of police custody, including that of Ian Tomlinson at a G20 protest, and including that of the artist Smiley Culture, who, they said, stabbed himself in the kitchen while police were visiting with him to discuss allegations of drugs. And I don’t think anybody really believes that, but there were peaceful protests in response to that, quite large protests by the local community. And to be honest, they were largely--in fact, completely--ignored by the media. They were a very important democratic moment, but just completely ignored.

And that puts these riots in an interesting light, because when one of the young people was asked by a reporter, "Do you really think the rioting is the right way to go about getting what you want?" he said, "Yes, because if we weren’t rioting, you wouldn't be talking to us." A political establishment, a media, and a state system that gives people that impression, that gives people the impression that they won’t be listened to unless they force themselves onto your attention, is going to lead to riots.

That kind of analysis stands in stark contrast to a New York Times story today that explores anti-police resentment in minority communities:

The broader question, though, is this: How did a national institution once held in esteem, or at least respect, by many Britons--"bobbies on the beat" to an earlier generation--become a force of such contention, even as, in recent years, it has taken credit for shielding the country from an array of terrorist plots?

The Times adds that "in recent years the force, overwhelmingly white, has faced accusations of racism, brutality and incompetence that it has struggled to shake off." Of course, accusations that are true are bound to be are hard to "shake off."

An ABC World News report (8/10/11) introduced by Diane Sawyer asked a similar question that's bothering many reporters.

And now, overseas to those riots in England. And a question we had today, where are the British parents as their young people run wild in the streets of London and other cities?

The piece that followed showed correspondent Lama Hasan asking rioting teens why they it was happening. One says, " We're just showing the rich people we can do what we want." Another says: " The problem is there ain't enough opportunities for people out here.... People's lives are like a dead end."

It sounds like parental authority might not be the most important factor. But if you're going to ask these kinds of questions, then by all means: Over 300 people have died in police custody. What went wrong with the parents of those officers?

Today New York Times reporter Helene Cooper (8/10/11) surveys the bad economic situation and asks of Barack Obama:

Is he willing to try to administer the disagreeable medicine that could help the economy mend over the long term, even if that means damaging his chances for re-election?

What's that mean, exactly? The first person she quotes is former Clinton official (more recently, former managing director of Kissinger Associates) David Rothkopf, and he's talking about cutting so-called "entitlements":

Mr. Obama, Mr. Rothkopf argues, has to focus in the next 18 months on getting the economy back on track for the long haul, even if that means pushing for politically unpalatable budget cuts, including real--but hugely unpopular--reductions in Social Security, other entitlement programs and the military.

From a different partisan point of view, Cooper finds the same medicine:

A longtime Republican strategist echoed Mr. Rothkopf. Charlie Black, a senior adviser to Sen. John McCain when he ran for president, said Mr. Obama "has got two big problems"--the unemployment rate and the budget deficit.

"Frankly, there's not a whole lot he can do about jobs now," Mr. Black said. "But it would help if we got the deficit under control, and to do that, you’ve got to reform entitlements."

Cooper notes that some Democrats aren't crazy about Obama's policies so far (she doesn't get into details), but that White House officials think Obama deserves credit for

not shying from politically unpalatable choices, demonstrating his willingness during the debt ceiling negotiations to make cuts in entitlements and programs dear to the hearts of Democrats.

That's the corporate media's economic advice in a nutshell: You can't do much about jobs, but cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits is always the right "medicine."

Update: The New York Times piece had a correction appended to it on Wednesday:

A news analysis article on Wednesday about President Obama's handling of the economy paraphrased incompletely from comments by David Rothkopf, a former Clinton administration Commerce Department official, about steps that Mr. Obama should take to fix the economy and budget deficit. While Mr. Rothkopf called for the president to push for politically unpalatable budget cuts to entitlement programs and the military, he also said the president should do so in the context of a "grand bargain" in which the cuts would come in exchange for significant job-creating stimulus and increased tax revenues.

Radio hosts author/social activists Tavis Smiley and Cornel West are on anti-poverty tour, trying to draw attention to issues that are neglected in most political discussions--and all but absent in corporate media.

The good news, in theory, is that they're getting some national TV attention. But this is one of those cases where you start off wishing there was more media coverage--until you see what kind of coverage you get. Then you're wishing for something else.

Appearing on CNN's American Morning (8/8/11), host Carol Costello got off on the wrong foot, quoting from a letter from a CNN viewer:

This is from Stacy, she says welfare in theory was a good thing, but it's become a way of life for generations. The poor actually have it better than the middle class.

Perhaps the intent was to ridicule that absurd point of view--that's certainly how Smiley responded. But Costello seemed to be indicating that this viewer maybe had a point:

But, Cornel, put it this way, Cornel, the Heritage Foundation, this is conservative organization. They did this study. They say the poor in America today, are unlike the poor in America years ago. In fact, most of the poor in America live in a decent house. They have TVs. They have microwave ovens and they even have a refrigerator. What are they complaining about?

Those Heritage talking points, courtesy of analyst Robert Rector,  have been a staple of media coverage of poverty--see Extra!, 1-2/99. Though I think Costello is going a little further than even Rector would--unless he, like her, really thinks there's something weird about how the pampered poor "even have a refrigerator."

When West begins talking about the gap between the top 1 percent and the rest of us, Costello interrupts to say: "Those people pay the taxes in America and the poor don't pay any." That's not true , though it's the kind of thing you're likely to hear on right-wing talk radio.

But perhaps the most revealing moment came after the interview had ended, when the CNN hosts were chatting among themselves. That's when Costello said this:

And, frankly, I think to an extent the poor have been demonized because many people in America think they're leeches on society. They're just, you know, sucking everything out of us.

Like the question that started off the interview, a charitable interpretation is that Costello doesn't agree with what she's saying.

But given her attitude during the interview, it's more likely that when she talks about how "many people" think the poor are "leeches...sucking everything out of us"--a sentiment that I doubt is all that widely shared--she's talking about herself.

Update: Carol Costello responded on Twitter to our criticism:

@FAIRmediawatch and u r fair? Wow.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has named his picks to the "super committee" charged with making deficit reduction recommendations.

Reid named Washington Sen. Patty Murray and center-right Max Baucus, who the Post's Rosalind Helderman today (8/10/11) calls a "natural choice," given that he chairs the Finance Committee. The New York Times is a little more helpful, pointing out that Baucus

broke with other Democrats and supported tax cuts enacted in 2001 under President George W. Bush. He also worked with Republicans in 2003 to pass legislation that added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare.

This is important for anyone who thinks that the tax cuts and drug benefit contributed greatly to the deficit problem.

Reid also picked Massachusetts' John Kerry, about whom the Post writes:

Kerry comes as something of a surprise, since he has focused more closely on foreign relations. However, as a respected former presidential candidate, his selection could help appease liberals.

I'm not sure how Kerry would "appease liberals."  In this particular case, the main issues are protecting Social Security and Medicare. And as of Sunday on Meet the Press, Kerry's view on that was that

the real problem for our country is not the short-term debt. We can deal with that. It's the long-term debt. It's the structural debt of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid measured against the demographics of our nation.

It's not clear how picking someone with that misleading perspective is supposed to "appease liberals."

It's an article of faith in mainstream media discussions of the budget: Social Security and Medicare are the "entitlements" driving our debt problems. That's not really true, but that's overwhelmingly the starting point for these discussions. Occasionally, perhaps by accident, someone questions that assumption.

That's what happened on NPR's Morning Edition on Monday (8/8/11), when Rep. Barney Frank (D.-Mass.) was interviewed by Steve Inskeep about, among other things, the entitlement burden.

Read what happened--or listen to the excerpt below:

INSKEEP: Congressman, if I can, we've just got a few seconds. You have mentioned defense spending. You've mentioned tax increases. Those are two areas of disagreement. The biggest part of the federal budget is entitlements...

FRANK: No, wrong. I'm sorry. The Defense budget is bigger than Medicare, and Social Security is, in fact, self-financing, still is.

INSKEEP: Let's stipulate for this conversation: a very, very, very, very, very big part of the budget is entitlements. Democrats are seen as resisting cuts. Is your side--in a couple of seconds--going to appoint people to the special committee who are ready to make a deal?

FRANK: I am not going to tell an 80-year-old woman living on $19,000 a year that she gets no cost-of-living, or that a man who has been doing physical labor all his life and is now at a 67-year-old retirement--which is where Social Security will be soon--that he has to work four or five more years.

But I disagree with you that in terms of draining on the budget, Social Security is largely as self-financed...

INSKEEP: OK.

FRANK: ...and the military budget is larger than Medicare. So demonizing entitlements and saying that--in fact, here's the deal...

INSKEEP: Congressman, I really have to cut you off there. But I do...

FRANK: Well, I wish you wouldn't ask these complicated questions with five seconds to go.

INSKEEP: We'll come back and bring you back for more. Always a pleasure to talk with you.

There's a lot of chatter--and presumably more to come--about this Politico story today (8/9/11):

Obama Plan: Destroy Romney

By Ben Smith and Jonathan Martin
August 9, 2011 04:29 AM EDT

Barack Obama's aides and advisers are preparing to center the president's reelection campaign on a ferocious personal assault on Mitt Romney’s character and business background, a strategy grounded in the early-stage expectation that the former Massachusetts governor is the likely GOP nominee.

It's a safe bet that the Obama campaign, being a political campaign, will engage in some pretty rough stuff.  But this piece makes it sound like something terrible is already happening (look at the headline!).

Politico talks about a "dramatic and unabashedly negative turn" in a campaign that hasn't really started, but concludes nonetheless that

the candidate who ran on "hope" in 2008 has little choice four years later but to run a slashing, personal campaign aimed at disqualifying his likeliest opponent.

Smith and Martin explain:

The onslaught would have two aspects. The first is personal: Obama's reelection campaign will portray the public Romney as inauthentic, unprincipled and, in a word used repeatedly by Obama's advisers in about a dozen interviews, "weird."

I'm not sure how that would necessarily qualify as a plot to "destroy" Romney. It's been more or less the consensus view after his 2008 campaign that Romney had trouble with authenticity--something Republicans have talked about.

They go on:

The second aspect of the campaign to define Romney is his record as CEO of Bain Capital, a venture capital firm that was responsible for both creating and eliminating jobs. Obama officials intend to frame Romney as the very picture of greed in the great recession--a sort of political Gordon Gekko.

They're going to use his record against him?!

The piece goes on to say that the campaign will make an issue of Romney's flip flops--again, I'm not sure how this is any different than saying they're going to run a political campaign.

The piece talks about how Obama's campaign has studied Bush's 2004 campaign against John Kerry;  they seem to express some professional admiration of the Bush team's ability to turn the campaign into something other than a vote on Bush's first term in office. This doesn't seem all that remarkable, given that campaigns study other successful campaigns in order to figure out what made them successful.

I don't doubt Obama's people feel like they'll need to play dirty in order to win. There's some speculation that "weird" means "talking about his Mormonism." That could be true (and an unwillingness to vote for a Mormon has held pretty steady in polling on potential candidates).

But thinking they'll do any of this is different than actually showing that they're doing it. Politico's role in Beltway journalism is to try and drive the narrative; they're already out now with a "Romney campaign responds to Obama campaign" piece.