"Our susceptibility to elaborate, beautifully wrought myths remains intact—whether we’re being spun by politicians, captains of finance pumping up a bubble, or sports heroes like Lance Armstrong and Joe Paterno. The news business, which we once counted on to vet hoaxes and fictions, is now so insecure about its existential future that it was cowed to some extent by the Scarboroughs, Noonans, and Roves, with most of the networks, not just Fox, ignoring the statistical data of Silver and others and instead predicting a long, nail-biting election night.

(In reality, the election was called for Obama at 11:12 p.m. EST on NBC, just twelve minutes after it had been in 2008.)

Our remaining journalistic institutions have even outsourced what used to be the very definition of their craft, fact-checking, to surrogates relegated to gimmicky sidebars (awarding Pinocchios and “pants on fire”). The fact-checkers have predictably become partisan targets, only further destabilizing the whole notion of what is meant by “news.”

- Frank Rich, NY Magazine

misterearl wrote:"Fantasyland"

"Our susceptibility to elaborate, beautifully wrought myths remains intact—whether we’re being spun by politicians, captains of finance pumping up a bubble, or sports heroes like Lance Armstrong and Joe Paterno. The news business, which we once counted on to vet hoaxes and fictions, is now so insecure about its existential future that it was cowed to some extent by the Scarboroughs, Noonans, and Roves, with most of the networks, not just Fox, ignoring the statistical data of Silver and others and instead predicting a long, nail-biting election night.

(In reality, the election was called for Obama at 11:12 p.m. EST on NBC, just twelve minutes after it had been in 2008.)

Our remaining journalistic institutions have even outsourced what used to be the very definition of their craft, fact-checking, to surrogates relegated to gimmicky sidebars (awarding Pinocchios and “pants on fire”). The fact-checkers have predictably become partisan targets, only further destabilizing the whole notion of what is meant by “news.”

- Frank Rich, NY Magazine

The great Franks Rich is in a class by himself and I miss his offerings at the NYTimes...He's right, all "news" outlets seemed to have caved but I noticed this in 2004...PBS NewsHour is a godsend...

Another glimpse into Romney's heart:

From the moment Mitt Romney stepped off stage Tuesday night, having just delivered a brief concession speech he wrote only that evening, the massive infrastructure surrounding his campaign quickly began to disassemble itself.

Aides taking cabs home late that night got rude awakenings when they found the credit cards linked to the campaign no longer worked.

In case you are wondering, this did not have to happen. The Mitt Romney for President entity does not end with Romney’s Tuesday night loss. There are papers to be filed with various federal commissions and bills to be paid.

- Forbes

misterearl wrote:Syniko - your posts are nothing but rancid air.

Another glimpse into Romney's heart:

From the moment Mitt Romney stepped off stage Tuesday night, having just delivered a brief concession speech he wrote only that evening, the massive infrastructure surrounding his campaign quickly began to disassemble itself.

Aides taking cabs home late that night got rude awakenings when they found the credit cards linked to the campaign no longer worked.

In case you are wondering, this did not have to happen. The Mitt Romney for President entity does not end with Romney’s Tuesday night loss. There are papers to be filed with various federal commissions and bills to be paid.

- Forbes

U have to admit tho...That sounds exciting...

misterearl wrote:Syniko - your posts are nothing but rancid air.

Another glimpse into Romney's heart:

From the moment Mitt Romney stepped off stage Tuesday night, having just delivered a brief concession speech he wrote only that evening, the massive infrastructure surrounding his campaign quickly began to disassemble itself.

Aides taking cabs home late that night got rude awakenings when they found the credit cards linked to the campaign no longer worked.

In case you are wondering, this did not have to happen. The Mitt Romney for President entity does not end with Romney’s Tuesday night loss. There are papers to be filed with various federal commissions and bills to be paid.

- Forbes

So Romney's campaign being out of gas = Obama's not boring?

Answer Man logic fails for once.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2012/11/09/mccain_beats_romney_295681.html

The Pennsylvania story -- how did it and so much else go wrong?

Brace yourselves, conservatives. What I'm about to say will hurt, and it should hurt -- and I'm not the first to notice. (Kudos to Rush Limbaugh, who noticed and is hitting this point hard.) Mitt Romney lost the 2012 election not so much because he got fewer votes than Barack Obama but because he got fewer votes than John McCain in 2008.

Additional votes are still coming in, but, as of the time of my writing, Romney received around 57.8 million votes in 2012. In 2008, John McCain received 59.9 million. Romney got over 2 million fewer votes than McCain. And in the final count, he will almost certainly have received considerably fewer votes than McCain.

Obama received 60.6 million votes in 2012, almost 9 million less than he received in 2008. If Romney would have had McCain's vote total, he would have been much closer in the popular vote and might have even had enough to win the Electoral College. Or, better put, if Mitt Romney had secured just a tiny fraction more votes than John McCain -- as we conservatives were certain he would -- he might have won the presidency.