TPM’s Editors Blog has a nice run of posts complimenting and providing context to the Obama campaign’s devastating Firms ad, where Mitt Romney warbles ”America the Beautiful”, comparing it to LBJ’s Daisy ad against Goldwater (an ad so brutal it was only aired once, see here for the whole story). The ad is so good that the TPM crew initially thought ringers from Hollywood were responsible. The Obama campaign is still using the same production team.
When arguing with a teabagger, I think it’s a mistake to always ascribe to stupidity that which can be equally explained by malice (think of it as an Inverse Hanlon’s Razor). As one of the ‘blue collar comedy tour’ types said, “you can’t fix stupid”. In this case, I think they are evil, as in they don’t care if the facts are correct, so long as the facts conform to their worldview, and further that they are more than willing to lie and distort where needed.
Mark recognizes that when you are at war, while it is important to get facts right (and I think Mark did a darned fine job sourcing his book, giving you the chance to criticize it), it is also important to inspire the troops and to do so by distilling the realities of the fight into useful information. I frankly don’t know if every statistic in Goldwater’s Conscience of a Conservative was correct or not. Nor do I know if every statistic or number in Reagan’s A Time For Choosing speech in 1964 was correct. I DON’T CARE. I know the facts were in the ballpark, and more importantly, the principles were timeless and correct.