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" Welcome back to our weekly survey of the state of Our National Dialogue, which is, of course, what Mahler would have come up with had he composed Die Drei Skate Sharpeners. Before moving on to the televised gobshites, let&amp;#039;s pause for a moment and congratulate the editors of the Des Moines Register, a newspaper we&amp;#039;re supposed to care about every four years or so, for throwing a public tantrum and making themselves look like idiots in the process. Remember, a couple of weeks back, when the president got in a wrangle over whether a meeting with the newspaper&amp;#039;s editorial board would be on or off the record? Well, this is simply not something one does to the Voice Of The Corndog, so, on Saturday evening, the Register endorsed Willard Romney, the first Republican it has endorsed since Richard Nixon in 1972, and didn&amp;#039;t that work out gloriously? (Fans of the president should take heart in the fact that this record also means the paper has endorsed some people \u2014 Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis \u2014 who really got crushed.) And on what does the Voice Of The Corndog base its unprecedented feat of hayshaking? Let&amp;#039;s break it down: There is not a lot of difference between the two candidates&amp;#039; short-term economic plans, as both are heavy on a promise of tax cuts for the middle class but short on details. Romney&amp;#039;s plan, however, goes beyond helping the middle class with tax breaks. Throughout the campaign, he has expressed faith in the private sector to fuel a more robust economic recovery if it has more confidence that the federal government will not be an obstacle. Romney has a strategy for job growth through tax and regulatory relief for small businesses, encouraging all forms of domestic energy production, education that prepares graduates with job skills, expanding foreign trade and reducing the burden of federal deficits. Dear god in heaven, Romney doesn&amp;#039;t have a plan. He says he has a plan. The numbers don&amp;#039;t add up, and his campaign has stopped even trying to pretend that they do. The rest of this foolishness has the essential internal-monologue heckling built into it. Romney succeeded as governor in Massachusetts where he faced Democratic majorities in the legislature. Over 800 vetoes, most of them overridden. And, in case the news hasn&amp;#039;t penetrated the Butter Cow Barrier, we all hate him. If elected, he would have an opportunity to renew the effort. And fail, because he will make people hate him. He would begin with an advantage in the House, where a Republican majority is likely to remain after the election. And that majority will remain insane. The challenge will be in the Senate, where it takes a super-majority to pass anything of substance. Romney could be assured that Democrats would work to defeat him as hard as Republicans worked against Obama is if he were to adopt the reactionary agenda of the most extreme elements of the Republican Party. &amp;quot;If&amp;quot; is an interesting word in this context. Romney had to tack to the right during the primary season. Because he has no soul, which is why we, in Massachusetts, hate him. Since then, he has recalibrated his campaign to focus on his concern for the middle class, and that is believable... Psst, c&amp;#039;mere, Des Moines Register ed-board. Magic beans! ...if the real Mitt Romney is the one on display as governor of Massachusetts who passed a health care reform plan that became the model for the one passed by Congress. And which he spent a flat year running against, which is another reason why we, in Massachusetts, hate him with the heat of a million suns. Anyway, let&amp;#039;s begin the regular gobshitery on Face The Nation, where former Innocent III Vatican correspondent Bob Schieffer managed to pry the reclusive John McCain out of hiding. MCCAIN: I&amp;#039;m not sure that it gets hurt. But I \u2014 I think that the president of the United States is the commander in chief. The American people look to him, and I&amp;#039;m sure he will conduct himself and play his leadership role in a fine fashion. So I would imagine that might help him a little bit. But I&amp;#039;m not sure it will affect votes. People have been exposed to this very long campaign. For the first time, foreign policy is now part of this discussion that we&amp;#039;re having. I&amp;#039;ve been traveling all over. This tragedy turned into a debacle and massive cover-up or massive incompetence in Libya is having an effect on the voter because of their view of the commander in chief. And it is now the worst cover-up or incompetence that I have ever observed in my life. John McCain was in the Congress when Ronald Reagan sold missiles to the mullahs. John McCain voted for the Iraq war on the instructions of George W. Bush. Perhaps John McCain failed to observe that either cover-up or that incompetence. Perhaps John McCain should get his ass over 2008 and leave the rest of us alone. MCCAIN: I&amp;#039;d say keep doing what he&amp;#039;s doing. I think that national security, as I said, foreign policy, is now entered into this discussion. I think he is got some momentum. It isn&amp;#039;t over till it&amp;#039;s over, as Yogi used to say. But I think, again, project the image of leadership, a capability to be commander in chief, and by the way, this \u2014 this whole debacle in Libya has exposed the failures of the Obama foreign policy whether it be in Iraq, where al Qaeda is now on the upswing. There&amp;#039;s al Qaeda training camps in Iraq. There&amp;#039;s Iranian planes flying weapons to Bashar Assad over Iraq. Syria, 34,000 people now killed, and it&amp;#039;s now spilling over into Lebanon, Turkey, et cetera. Dear god, this man would have us in four wars by now. And only the cool, rational mind of Sarah Palin would have been in there to stop him. Yeah, we certainly went the wrong way four years ago. Meanwhile, over on This Week With The Clinton Guy Horrified By Blowjobs, N. Leroy Gingrich, Definer Of Civilization&amp;#039;s Rules and Leader (Perhaps) of the Civilizing Forces, also was dragged in chains before the cameras to tell all the ladies not to take their ladyparts quite so seriously as to make what happens to them a reason for voting for that lazy black fella... er... the president. But first, some despicable demagoguery... You&amp;#039;ll notice he&amp;#039;s canceling his trips over the hurricane. He did not cancel his trips over Benghazi. And so you have to wonder, between Benghazi, the price of gasoline, and unemployment, just how much burden the president&amp;#039;s going to carry into this last week. The Clinton Guy failed to mention to the speaker that it is indecent to flog your talking points with the corpse of an American ambassador. Anyway, eventually, Gingrich got around to the ladies. GINGRICH: Well, my response is, if you listen to what Mourdock actually said, he said what virtually every Catholic and every fundamentalist in the country believes, life begins at conception. Now, this seems to be fixated by the Democrats, but the radical on abortion is Obama, who as a state senator voted three times in favor of allowing doctors to kill babies in the eighth and ninth month who were born, having survived late-term abortion, and the Democratic Party platform, which says you should pay with your tax money for late-term abortion, something which is about a 20 percent issue, but doesn&amp;#039;t seem to fascinate the press nearly as much as the Stephanie Cutter... Every candidate I know, every decent American I know condemns rape. OK, so why can&amp;#039;t people like Stephanie Cutter get over it? We all condemn rape. Now let&amp;#039;s talk about whether we also condemn killing babies in the eighth and ninth month. STEPHANOPOULOS: Mr. Speaker, thanks very much for your time this morning. Almost nothing Gingrich said there is remotely true \u2014 &amp;quot;Virtually every Catholic&amp;quot; agrees with Mourdock about rape and abortion? That isn&amp;#039;t true even for virtually every Virtual Catholic, like Gingrich \u2014 and, of course, the little shot at Cutter comes from long practice as a sick-wife-dumping misogynist. The Clinton Guy failed to point out any of this. I swear, there are moments when I think that, in terms of obvious cognitive abilities, the difference between The Clinton Guy and the Butter Cow is not vast. Seriously, TV bookers: It is no longer a big &amp;quot;get&amp;quot; to land McCain or Gingrich. The two of them would wrestle a snake naked if they thought they&amp;#039;d get 15 minutes on Animal Planet. Expand the damn Rolodex, will you? And we conclude with Dancin&amp;#039; Dave&amp;#039;s Disco Dance Party, where kindly Doc Maddow got invited aboard to do a little panelin&amp;#039; with E. J. Dionne, corporate failure exemplar Carly Fiorina, my man Chuck Todd, and noted dubious Red Lobster epicure David Brooks. The Doc opened strong, pointing out that Willard Romney is persisting in his lies about Chrysler that Willard gleaned from the dimmer end of the conservative blogosphere. The Dancin&amp;#039; Master then turned to Craterin&amp;#039; Carly for the response.... Well, that important battleground state has a Republican governor that&amp;#039;s done exactly the opposite of what Obama claims he&amp;#039;s going to do. That is he&amp;#039;s lowered taxes and closed budget deficits. But I actually find the trust argument very odd because President Obama promised that we would have 4.2 percent economic growth. Right now we have two percent. He promised an unemployment that would be far below where it is today. He hasn&amp;#039;t delivered on his promises. On the issue of trust, what is going on with regard to Libya? I mean here we have an extraordinary thing where the president comes out on Friday and says I directed that everything possible should be done to aid our embassy under attack. That attack went on for seven hours. We now know that Secretary of Defense saying he denied requests for help over that seven hours. To his credit, the Dancin&amp;#039; Master pointed out that, obscured by the cloud of gobbledegook she was spouting, Fiorina had brought the show into Libya without passing through customs. He called on Brooksie for some seriousity before the Libyan customs services rounded them all up. Brooksie is very disappointed in both men because they took him out once and failed to call. Well, you know, I think \u2014 well, I first think it has been the worst campaign I&amp;#039;ve ever covered. And I think they&amp;#039;re both ending on the same note they started. Obama&amp;#039;s doing a negative campaign. He&amp;#039;s got an ad out which is called &amp;quot;Rember,&amp;quot; which is about Obama \u2014 which is about Romney, the plutocrat. It&amp;#039;s about the flip-flop what we&amp;#039;ve just heard on the stump. So it&amp;#039;s almost pure negativity. Romney is finishing, trying to appeal to moderates, trying to appeal to \u2014 to women, which is a bipartisan ad which is saying, you know, I don&amp;#039;t care if it&amp;#039;s a republican idea or democratic idea, I&amp;#039;m going to be for that. And, you know, so he has shape shift. That&amp;#039;s not who he is. That&amp;#039;s not who his policies are. So I regard this is an ad \u2014 as a campaign that has answered none of our fundamental issues about both these guys, how they would govern for next four years. And they are finishing as badly as they started. One party is insane and has forced its candidate to act like the lead act in a $50 donkey contortionist show in a Tijuana brothel. The other candidate is forced to point this out. So it&amp;#039;s everybody&amp;#039;s fault. I feel for David Brooks, and for the gentle fairy-folk of the land in which he lives. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a16476/des-moines-register-endorses-romney-14210493/>