If only votes were weighted by net worth...

Okay, this may be a pointless exercise. But Stuart Stevens, chief strategist for the Romney campaign, has just published such a transcendentally stupid, transparently sophistic, willfully delusive campaign post-mortem that I found myself mouthing rebuttals after nearly every sentence. So I thought I'd bottle my indignation. In italics, below, interspersed with Stevens' text.

Over the years, one of the more troubling characteristics of the Democratic Party and the left in general has been a shortage of loyalty and an abundance of self-loathing. It would be a shame if we Republicans took a narrow presidential loss as a signal that those are traits we should emulate.

Romney Rules special edition: the meta-ethics of the post-truth campaign

Paul Krugman dubbed Mitt Romney's drive for the presidency the post-truth campaign. Steven Benen chronicles 20-50 verifiable instances of Mitt's mendacity every week (a record future generations will marvel at). I like to focus on the campaign's meta-ethics -- its explicit justifications for willfully misleading the public.  

That has happened on at least four occasions. Here they are*, in reverse chronological order:  

1) The most recent is the most egregious: the campaign is defending an ad, now running in Ohio, that gives the clear false impression that Chrysler is going to move its U.S.-based Jeep production to China, whereas the company has merely stated an intention to build Jeeps in China for the Chinese market. The ad follows on the heels of a false statement by Romney last week that Chrysler was moving U.S. Jeep manufactures to China.  Asked by Buzzfeed, to explain the ad, an unnamed Romney aide responded, ""What's in there that's false? Are they building Jeeps in China or not?" Context doesn't matter; artful omissions are okay; deliberately creating a false impression is okay.

The method behind Mitt's mendacious madness

A blog is a perennial work in progress. Ideally, its inevitable repetitions embody ongoing development of a working hypothesis or analysis.  I'd like to think that's the case with my close reading of Romney's methodical disinformation campaign -- that is, my attempt to spotlight the method to Mitt's mendacity. A few milestones below.

Romney deems Obama a liar ex post facto (7/7/12)

 The method is to convert hairline distinctions, usually illusory, into Manichean contrasts.

Romney rules, cont. 6/11/12

Rule #11: I may simultaneously level mutually exclusive charges against my opponent. 

Romney Rules (6/7/12)

Rule #1 : Context doesn't matter. Anything you say I may use against you, e.g., by making it sound like you said the opposite.

An upright man who lies nonstop (5/19/12)

What is unfathomable to me is the level of doublethink that will allows an extremely able, intelligent, in many ways generous man who believes that God is watching over him to go out and lie every day, in general concept and in detail,,

Proud owners of the post-truth campaign (3/21/12)

I can think of four occasions since October when Romney or his surrogates admitted more or less outright that Romney's words or deeds are either willfully misleading or purely for show.

Romney Rules

Weekly, Steve Benen tallies up the latest instances of Mitt's Mendacity.  At longer intervals, the Dish flags Romney's Big Lies, the core myths of his case against an imaginary Obama. I find the laser focus on lying a little narrow: the modes of Mitt's deception are manifold. As a private equity chief, Romney was a master of playing a rigged game, or of himself rigging games in his firm's favor; he has carried that skill to the political arena.  He would have the election played by Romney Rules, compiled below.

1. Context doesn't matter. Anything you say I may use against you, e.g., by making it sound like you said the opposite.

2. My record shall be judged by different standards from that of my opponent. For example, job losses in my first year in office don't count; in his, they shall define his entire record.

3. What I said 18, 10, 4, or 3 years ago doesn't matter. Erase it from your mind.  I've been as consistent as human beings (all three of me) can be.

An upright man who lies nonstop

The Times' Jodi Kantor is out with a long article about the centrality of faith in Mitt Romney's life and his commitment to living a life of service and rectitude and devotion to God's will as God gives him to see it.

Having read the The Real Romney, a well-documented biography y Boston Globe reporters Michael Kranish and Scott Helman, I don't doubt the truth of this narrative as far as it goes.  What is unfathomable to me is the level of doublethink that will allows an extremely able, intelligent, in many ways generous man who believes that God is watching over him to go out and lie every day, in general concept and in detail -- about his opponent's record and beliefs, about his own past positions, about the inevitable effects of his own purported policies. Steve Benen documents 10-20 verifiable lies per week in his now 18-part series, Mitt's Mendacity (Vol. 17 here).  Paul Krugman has ably captured the full arc of Romney's false narrative about Obama in his op-ed The Post-Truth Campaign. To review Romney's most fundamental and oft-repeated untruths: