The headline on the Washington Post’s opening Web page was irresistible: “Romney aides: No Mideast turmoil if he were president.”  The headline of the actual article, by Philip Rucker, though, is headlined “Romney team sharpens attack on Obama’s foreign policy.”  Both headings are accurate. Romney’s foreign policy team—drawn, apparently, entirely from the farthest-right faction of […]

Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post’s Fact Checker, wrote last evening: The controversy over a statement issued by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo is an interesting example of how words and context matter. State Department officials reportedly tried to dissuade the embassy staffer who wrote it from posting it, but he did so anyway. Nuland’s comment on Thursday […]

At his press conference, Romney accused Obama of “having that embassy reiterate a statement effectively apologizing for the right of free speech.” Romney claimed that the embassy had said, in his paraphrase, “We stand by our comments that suggest that there’s something wrong with the right of free speech.” This, too, was a Romney lie. […]

After expressing sorrow about the deaths, Mr. Romney told reporters on the campaign trail that the Obama administration had tried to appease Islamic extremists who should have been condemned instead. He said a statement issued by the American Embassy in Cairo before the deaths criticizing an anti-Islamic video was “akin to an apology” and a […]

[A]n unusually high foreign tax credit in 2008 raises questions about the size and source of Mr. Romney’s foreign income that year and how it was treated for tax purposes.  — Tax Credits Shed Light on Romney,* James B. Stewart, New York Times, Aug, 24 I don’t follow finance-industry news very closely, and the only […]

I like Truthout.  I’m on its email list and so I receive daily notices about newly posted articles on the site.  I don’t read them all, but the ones I read usually are worth the time.  And I was deeply flattered when, two years ago, on the basis of two lengthy articles I posted here […]

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney escalated his attacks on President Barack Obama’s welfare waivers Monday, suggesting that welfare recipients make up President Barack Obama’s political “base.” In an interview with USA Today, Romney defended his much-criticized ads, which falsely accuse the president of removing the work requirement in welfare. He insisted that the spots were accurate and […]

Having now read the Gawker articles summarizing some of the Bain documents leaked to Gawker and published there today, I’m speculating that the leaker of the documents is also Harry Reid’s source for Reid’s allegation that Romney paid no taxes for at least a decade, and that the leaker believes that the documents suggest either that Romney […]

In poker a “tell” is the physical giveaway or tic that lets you know someone is lying about his or her hand. In politics it’s the mode of evasion a politician chooses to sidestep a truth he or she doesn’t want to admit or to avoid saying something against self-interest. In his debut interview with Fox […]

… And when, exactly, did he pay that at-least-13% per year?  Might some of it have been paid under the 2009 IRS amnesty plan for people who’d been hiding money in secret overseas bank accounts, after the Swiss banks suddenly agreed to reveal to the IRS the identities of American account holders? Just wondering.