Obama warns that excessive debt endangers jobs!

In an email today, The Barack Obama campaign explains what is wrong with "Romney economics":

On the campaign trail, Mitt Romney points to his private sector experience as his chief qualification to be president.

So we took a look at that experience, and put together a new site, RomneyEconomics.com, on it. Take a look for yourself here.

Let me sum up how Romney economics works:

Romney and his partners bought companies across the United States, often loading them up with debt in the process.

Too often, they slashed pensions, benefits, and jobs, while paying themselves and their shareholders straight from the debt they'd accumulated.

Because of that debt, several of these businesses went bankrupt, leaving workers without jobs, without pensions, and without health care -- all while Romney and his partners walked away with millions.

What other companies loaded up on debt and then went bankrupt, leaving workers without jobs, but enriching well-connected investors? Solyndra comes to mind.

What else has piled on the debt while shedding jobs? The US under Obama.

Like so many Democrat criticisms of Republicans, this one seems driven by psychological projection.

PREVIOUSLY on the subject of psychological projection:
•Liberals and their vivid imagination
•Homophobia and liberals
•More psychological projection: Democrats says those racists call them names
•The masters of astroturf claim that tea parties are astroturf
•Air America projects hate
•Air America fantasizes a right-wing hate machine
•Syria imagines that Israel does not want peace
•The New Republic says lying is 2nd nature to Republicans
•Rahm Emanuel caught projecting his strategy onto Republicans
•Alec Baldwin projects his hate onto Republicans
•Progessives and prejudice and hate
•HuffPost blogger projects enviro-hypocrisy
•Dems accuse other Dems of acting like Republicans

Don't understand what was said? Then it must be racist!

The online newsmagazine Gawker reports that conservatives are racists:

The reporter writes that he "can't understand the lyrics" but that doesn't stop him from hurling accusations of racism.

The video in questions was done by comedian Steven Crowder working with Chris Loesch. Steven Crowder, in revolutionary garb, points to his pants as he uses the word "knickers":

As the election approaches this fall, we can expect the MSM to produce an unending stream of such baseless accusations of racism.

Hat tip: Instapundit and BigJournalism.

Liberals and their vivid imagination

Speaking on David Letterman, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow explains how Fox News is "fake" (interesting bit begins at 0:55 in the video):

Transcript:

Maddow: The problem is that is reasonable to assert about Fox is that they make up things out of whole cloth and then make a big deal out them. For example, they said the new black panther party decided the election for Barack Obama. They ran dozens and dozens and dozens of stories about how the New Black Panther Party, which is one guy who braided his beard in Philadelphia and who didn't have an organization yelling on a street corner, I mean, they said, they represented that story as if that is the guy who decided the election. That is fake.

If all of that sounds wrong-headed, it is because it is wrong-headed. Even the normally left-wing Politifact couldn't find a single case where Fox asserted that the New Black Panther Party decided the election, let alone "dozens and dozens and dozens" of such stories. Further, not how she also cannot summarize the story with even a shred of accuracy: no one cared about a "braided beard" and neither is the New Black Panther Party just "one guy."

Any channel that broadcasts news 24/7 is going to make some actual mistakes but Maddow cannot find one. Apparently, when hate-mongering on the enemy, facts are irrelevant.

Notice that, when Maddow claims "dozens and dozens and dozens" of such stories, she is making it up out of whole cloth. Her claim that Fox makes things up out of whole cloth is psychological projection.

PREVIOUSLY on the subject of psychological projection:
•Homophobia and liberals
•More psychological projection: Democrats says those racists call them names
•The masters of astroturf claim that tea parties are astroturf
•Air America projects hate
•Air America fantasizes a right-wing hate machine
•Syria imagines that Israel does not want peace
•The New Republic says lying is 2nd nature to Republicans
•Rahm Emanuel caught projecting his strategy onto Republicans
•Alec Baldwin projects his hate onto Republicans
•Progessives and prejudice and hate
•HuffPost blogger projects enviro-hypocrisy
•Dems accuse other Dems of acting like Republicans

In the future, everyone will be a racist

Duncan Hines is under fire for an ad promoting chocolate frosting. The NY Daily News reports:

Cupcakes aren't tasting so sweet for some Duncan Hines marketing execs who were forced to pull a video for their "Amazing Glazes" frosting line after viewers and bloggers complained the dancing cupcakes were racist.

Here is the commercial itself:

What makes the commercial racist? The Vancouver Sun cites, for example, the accusation that the chocolate-faced cupcakes "aren't even rapping." In fact, the music in the commercial is "instrumental electronic and beatbox" not genuine hip-hop. I was not aware that chocolate frosting had to be so limited in its musical preferences in order to qualify as non-racist.

Duncan Hines obviously intended for the commercial to sell its chocolate. One can criticize their musical choices but it is clear that they wanted to make the chocolate look good, not bad. The racism exists only in the minds of the commercial's critics.

Hat tip: Legal Insurrection.

PREVIOUSLY on racism:
•Is witch doctor image racist?
•Obama ally: "I hate white people...."
•“You can’t vote against healthcare and call yourself a black man.”
•"The city wasn't ready to hire a white police chief."
•A prominent black politician says the white incumbent cannot properly represent black voters.
•San Franciscans discriminate against blacks.
•"He's not black and he can't represent me, that's just the bottom line."

When they look in the mirror, they don't see in themselves what we see

From Hope'n Change:
PREVIOUSLY on the subject of psychological projection:
•The masters of astroturf claim that tea parties are astroturf
•Air America projects hate
•Air America fantasizes a right-wing hate machine
•Syria imagines that Israel does not want peace
•The New Republic says lying is 2nd nature to Republicans
•Rahm Emanuel caught projecting his strategy onto Republicans
•Alec Baldwin projects his hate onto Republicans
•Progessives and prejudice and hate
•HuffPost blogger projects enviro-hypocrisy
•Dems accuse other Dems of acting like Republicans

The NY Times as a fever swamp

To see what passes for wisdom at the New York Times, once known as the paper of record, check out this Frank Rich column:So, why does he thinks that the GOP is full of extreme Marxists ("Stalinists")? Well, that never becomes clear. He does claim that the contest between Republican Dede Scazzafava and Conservative Party nominee Hoffman in the special election for New York's 23rd district was "riotous and bloody national G.O.P. civil war." That might be true except that there were no riots and there was no blood. He continues:

The battle for upstate New York confirms just how swiftly the right has devolved into a wacky, paranoid cult that is as eager to eat its own as it is to destroy Obama. ....

And Scozzafava is a mainstream conservative by New York standards; one statistical measure found her voting record slightly to the right of her fellow Republicans in the Assembly. .... [Emph. added]

So, Frank Rich wants to claim that Scozzafava is a "mainstream conservative" but that "the right," which is a "wacky paranoid cult," is attacking her because they want "to eat their own." However, today, former candidate Dede Scozzafava has endorsed the Democrat in the race. That makes Rich's claim that she is a "mainstream conservative" absurd. Further, it shows that "the right" had correctly figured out that she was a liberal. The only person in the story who appears "wacky" and "paranoid" would be Frank Rich.

Hat tip: B. Daniel Blatt

Liberal prejudice

Penn State caricatures military veterans as dumb and angry. 

If racism didn't exist, they would have to invent it.

James Taranto writes:

Back in April, we noted an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times by one David K. Shipler, an expert on adjectival racism. In his view, pretty much any adjective is a few degrees of separation from a racial slur, and thus one should exercise extreme caution when modifying Barack Obama in a sentence.

Example: " 'Elitist' is another word for 'arrogant,' which is another word for 'uppity,' that old calumny applied to blacks who stood up for themselves." And:

Casting Obama as "out of touch" plays harmoniously with the traditional notion of blacks as "others" at the edge of the mainstream, separate from the whole. Despite his ability to articulate the frustration and yearning of broad segments of Americans, his "otherness" has been highlighted effectively by right-wingers who harp on his Kenyan father and spread false rumors that he's a clandestine Muslim.

Here's another example. Some people have said Obama has a "thin résumé." But "thin" is another word for "skinny," which is a slur for "black." Or so it is according to Slate's Timothy Noah, who has found invidious racism in the pages of the venerable Wall Street Journal.

This latest racial crisis began last Friday, when Journal reporter Amy Chozik published a piece titled "Too Fit to Be President?" Chozik speculated that Obama may be too far gaunt to lead a nation of lard butts. As political analyses go, it was more whimsical than weighty, which was signaled by its placement on the front page of the Weekend Journal section.

Yesterday Noah weighed in on the subject. "Any discussion of Obama's 'skinniness' and its impact on the typical American voter," he opined, "can't avoid being interpreted as a coded discussion of race." Here's his argument:

Barack Obama is the first African-American to win a major-party nomination for president of the United States. African-Americans are distinguishable from other Americans by their skin color. This physical attribute looms large in our nation's history as a source of prejudice. . . .

When white people are invited to think about Obama's physical appearance, the principal attribute they're likely to dwell on is his dark skin. Consequently, any reference to Obama's other physical attributes can't help coming off as a coy walk around the barn.

Chozik tells Noah that this is "ridiculous," to which Noah responds that she is "clueless." Proving that cluelessness comes in all colors, Noah calls his black friend "to ask whether she was offended. She was not."

Are those who cling to guns bitter or happy?

Sen. Obama's famously said of Americans: "They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or antitrade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." However, Arthur C. Brooks, a professor at Syracuse University's Maxwell School, says otherwise: gun owners are happy. He writes:

According to the 2006 General Social Survey, which has tracked gun ownership since 1973, 34% of American homes have guns in them. This statistic is sure to surprise many people in cities like San Francisco – as it did me when I first encountered it. (Growing up in Seattle, I knew nobody who owned a gun.)

Who are all these gun owners? Are they the uneducated poor, left behind? It turns out they have the same level of formal education as nongun owners, on average. Furthermore, they earn 32% more per year than nonowners. Americans with guns are neither a small nor downtrodden group.

Nor are they "bitter." In 2006, 36% of gun owners said they were "very happy," while 9% were "not too happy." Meanwhile, only 30% of people without guns were very happy, and 16% were not too happy.

In 1996, gun owners spent about 15% less of their time than nonowners feeling "outraged at something somebody had done." It's easy enough in certain precincts to caricature armed Americans as an angry and miserable fringe group. But it just isn't true. The data say that the people in the approximately 40 million American households with guns are generally happier than those people in households that don't have guns.

The gun-owning happiness gap exists on both sides of the political aisle. Gun-owning Republicans are more likely than nonowning Republicans to be very happy (46% to 37%). Democrats with guns are slightly likelier than Democrats without guns to be very happy as well (32% to 29%). Similarly, holding income constant, one still finds that gun owners are happiest.

He also offers an explanation for why gun owners are happier:

Why are gun owners so happy? One plausible reason is a sense of self-reliance, in terms of self-defense or even in terms of the ability to hunt their own dinner.

Many studies over the years have shown that a belief in one's control over the environment dramatically adds to happiness. Example: a famous study of elderly nursing home patients in the 1970s. It showed dramatic improvements in life satisfaction from elements of control as seemingly insignificant as being able to care for one's plants.

Similarly, conservative/libertarian philosophy emphasizes self-reliance and an individual's control over his own destiny. This may explain why surveys show Republicans to be happier than Democrats.

This also may explain inter-continental differences. Mark Steyn, a Canadian, notes that the Euro-socialism that Democrats frequently praise has not helped Europeans feel better:

In my book "America Alone," I note a global survey on optimism: 61 percent of Americans were optimistic about the future, 29 percent of the French, 15 percent of Germans. Take it from a foreigner: In my experience, Americans are the least "bitter" people in the developed world. Secular, gun-free big-government Europe doesn't seem to have done anything for people's happiness.

So, Sen. Obama's "bitter" and "clinging" to guns theory may just be another example of an unhappy liberal projecting his emotions onto others.

Hat tip: Marginal Revolution

Is it all about hate?

Nora Ephron, an Academy Award nominated playwright, says the upcoming Democratic primary in Pennsylvania will be about hate:

[N]ow that there are only two Democratic candidates, it's suddenly horribly absolutely crystal-clear that this is an election about gender and race. .... This is an election about whether the people of Pennsylvania hate blacks more than they hate women.

Of course, as a true liberal, she doesn't admit to harboring hate herself. No, she projects it onto white men:

And when I say people, I don't mean people, I mean white men.

(Note that, according to Ms. Ephron, white men aren't even 'people.') She says her opinion of white men comes from her personal experience:

[W]hite men cannot be relied on, as all of us know who have spent a lifetime dating them.

Ms. Ephron is married to Nicholas Pileggi. He has my sympathy.

PREVIOUSLY, liberal theories of identity group politics were discussed here, here, here, and here. For more on Ms. Ephron's hate, see Ed Morrissey, and Top of the Ticket.

News of the unhinged: Air America Edition

Talk show host Randi Rhodes has been suspended from Air America radio after she called Hillary Clinton a "big f**king whore" several times and referring to Geraldine Ferraro as "David Duke in drag".

The left often talks of conservative radio hosts as being "hate mongerers" who "poison" the airwaves. But, episodes such as this one with Randi Rhodes, another Air America episode, and among many, many, many others, illustrate that such talk is merely psychological projection.

RELATED: With compelling and witty personalities such as Ms. Rhodes, FullosseousFlap observes: "And, they wonder why progressive talk radio cannot sell advertising……"

Racism

Gov. Rendell has declared that Pennsylvania's Democrats are racist. (Of course, he doesn't say of this of the good Democrats. No, he says it is true of the "conservative white" wing of his party.) Susan Estrich, formerly Michael Dukakis' presidential campaign manager, sees the same problem:

We who are Democrats would like to believe that race is not a factor in the polling of our party members, but maybe we’re wrong.

No one doubts, or at least no one who is honest does, that both racism and sexism come into play as people decide between Clinton and Obama....

Bob Krumm has much more on the racism and sexism that Democrats believe is currently dividing their party.

VAGUELY RELATED: It is claimed that Democrats make accusations of racial vote suppression not because they are true but because they raise the turnout of their voters. Vote suppression allegedly was done by both the Clinton and Obama camps in the recent primaries. So, when Democrats accuse Republicans of vote suppression, there may be an element in it of psychological projection.

Projecting hate

Prof. Arthur C. Brooks writes in today's Wall Street Journal on academic research into politics and hatred. Before explaining the research, he starts with some illustrations of lack of self-awareness:

A politically progressive friend of mine always seemed to root against baseball teams from the South. The Braves, the Rangers, the Astros -- he hated them all. I asked him why, to which he replied, "Southerners are prejudiced."

The same logic is evident in the complaint the American political left has with conservative voters. According to the political analysis of filmmaker Michael Moore, whose perception of irony apparently does not extend to his own words, "The right wing, that is not where America's at . . . It's just a small minority of people who hate. They hate. They exist in the politics of hate . . . They are hate-triots."

The University of Michigan's American National Election Studies survey asks American adults to rate their warmth toward people or groups on a thermometer scale from 0 to 100.

• 28% of people who called themselves "extremely conservative" gave Clinton a zero in 1998
• 10% of the "extremely conservatives" rated Gore with a zero in 1998
• 60% of people who called themselves "extremely liberal" gave Bush a zero score in 2004
• 60% of people who called themselves "extremely liberal" gave Cheney a zero score in 2004

On this, Prof. Brooks writes:

To put this into perspective, note that even Saddam Hussein (when he was still among the living) got an average score of eight from Americans. The data tell us that, for six in ten on the hard left in America today, literally nobody in the entire world can be worse than George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

So, the U of Michigan surveys are consistent with the idea that, when liberals talk about others being intolerant or filled with hate, it is projection.

Hat tip: Michelle Malkin

Those who love to hate

Air America host Randi Rhodes didn't show up for work today:

Fellow host Jon Elliott claimed on the liberal radio network that Rhodes had been mugged while walking her dog, Simon, on Sunday night. Elliot, who said Rhodes lost several teeth in the attack, waxed about a possible conspiracy.

"Is this an attempt by the right-wing, hate machine to silence one of our own?" he asked on the air, according to Talking Radio, a blog. "Are we threatening them? Are they afraid that we’re winning? Are they trying to silence intimidate us?"

The problem with Elliott's story is that Ms. Rhodes was not mugged: she fell:

Rhodes' lawyer told the Daily News she was injured in a fall while walking her dog. He said she's not sure what happened, and only knows that she fell down and is in a lot of pain. The lawyer said Rhodes expects to be back on the air Thursday. He stressed there is no indication she was targeted or that she was the victim of a "hate crime."

So what explains Mr. Elliott's outburst? He was not alone in his paranoid fantasies of persecution. Liberals across the internet had the same reaction.

One explanation is projection. Throwing pies at conservative speakers is a popular way for liberals to express themselves. Just last Thursday, Barnes and Noble reportedly had to call security because the intellectuals on New York's Upper West Side couldn't handle listening to a neo-conservative talk. It is natural for them to imagine (`project') that conservatives would express themselves the same way.

Having watched the faces of people who express such fantasies, an additional factor appears to me to be more important. When they imagine their opponents as pure evil, they feel better about themselves. It improves their self-esteem to believe that the other half of America is filled with hate.

PREVIOUSLY, we have discussed psychological projection in relation to Islamism, The New Republic, Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), and Alec Baldwin. The comfort that liberals derive from imagining the worst in those who disagree with them was discussed previously here.

UPDATE: Reportedly, Randi Rhodes, initially uncertain about what happened, told Air America that she was mugged. Elliott still appears to be the author of the fantasy about the right-wing hate-machine attack. Ms. Rhodes statement is quite interesting, worth a listen.

TNR's Projector-in-chief

Marty Peretz of Editor-in-Chief of The New Republic comments on Al Gore's Nobel:

Yes, the prize is rightly his. No one has devoted himself with such dedication and intellectual probity to a cause as important as this one. No one. So he deserves the Nobel. And the country deserves Al Gore to make another run at the presidency, he having lost his last try through chicanery and the arrogance of a party for which lying is second nature. Or maybe first.

It was The New Republic which published dishonest stories by Stephen Glass and Scott Beauchamp. When Editor-in-Chief Peretz talks of parties for whom lying is second or first nature, it appears to be a case of psychological projection.

Who was it who does not want peace?

"Israel in fact does not want peace. It cannot survive without aggression, treachery and military messages," Syrian Information Minister Mohsen Bilal said Thursday, a day after IAF aircraft allegedly violated Syrian airspace in an overnight operation.

Psychological projection?

UPDATE: Israellycool catches Reuters' caption writers in a lie about this incident.

Democrat psychology

How about this for an example of psychological projection:

"We can do this, but you have to keep in mind Republicans care more about catching Democrats than catching terrorists," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. "They have spent years taking Roosevelt's notion that we have nothing to fear but fear itself and given us nothing but fear."

Psychological Projection, Hollywood Style

Actor and liberal activist Alec Baldwin a describes Vice President Cheney as "crypto-fascist" and "hate-filled." Today, the tape of a phone message that Mr. Baldwin left for his daughter was made public:

"I'm tired of playing this game with you. I'm leaving this message with you to tell you you have insulted me for the last time. You have insulted me. You don't have the brains or the decency as a human being. I don't give a damn that you're 12 years old, or 11 years old, or that you're a child, or that your mother is a thoughtless pain in the ass who doesn't care about what you do as far as I'm concerned. You have humiliated me for the last time with this phone.

And when I come out there next week, I'm going to fly out there for the day just to straighten you out on this issue. I'm going to let you know just how disappointed in you I am and how angry I am with you that you've done this to me again. You've made me feel like s --- and you've made me feel like a fool over and over and over again. And this crap you pull on me with this expletive phone situation that you would never dream of doing to your mother and you do it to me constantly and over and over again. I am going to get on a plane and I am going to come out there for the day and I am going to straighten your ass out when I see you.

"Do you understand me? I'm going to really make sure you get it. Then I'm going to get on a plane and I'm going to turn around and come home. So you'd better be ready Friday the 20th to meet with me. So I'm going to let you know just how I feel about what a rude little pig you really are. You are a rude, thoughtless little pig, OK?"

So, when Alec Baldwin describes someone else as "hate-filled," it would seem to be an example of what psychologists call "projection," a defense mechanism that is considered normal for a child.