Morning Jolt - The Nation Trembles after the Journalistic Bombshell of . . . Report-Card-Gate

NRO Newsletters . . .

Morning Jolt

. . . with Jim Geraghty

August 3, 2012

In This Issue . . .

1. The Nation Trembles after the Journalistic Bombshell of . . . Report-Card-Gate

2. By the Time You Get This, You May Already Feel Depressed about the Economy

3. Jon Stewart Makes Harry Reid Pay for Letting Him Down

4. Addendum

Here's your Morning Jolt.

Happy Friday!

Jim

1. The Nation Trembles after the Journalistic Bombshell of . . . Report-Card-Gate

The 2012 presidential campaign is now effectively over. I just don't see how Romney can be elected after this . . .

New information has come to light about Romney's personal background that young voters can easily relate to: high school report cards. Yes, somehow Boston.com got its hands on a report card from Romney's freshman year of high school.

Romney took English 3, Elementary Algebra, Biology, French 1, and Art 3. He is credited in his art class for having a "real ability in painting," but admitted that Romney is "not as industrious or as responsible as he might be."

The rest of the report card contains similar comments about Romney's potential to do better in class, and under additional comments, the following is written about Romney's overall performance.

"Mitt is doing well. He is a more responsible citizen this year."

This just in: The editors of the Onion would like reality to stop outpacing their ideas.

Dustin Siggins is incredulous: "But seriously, his high school report card? Someone at The Boston Globe was paid to research this, and then New England's biggest newspaper actually wasted online space to publish it? Can we see even half that much effort over Obama's college records, since they were only 28 years ago instead of over 45 years ago? Personally, I don't care about the President's college records, but if we're supposed to be in an uproar about Romney's taxes, and care how he did in freakin' art class, perhaps those could also be found?"

The good folks at Breitbart, among others, have made it a personal mission to complete "The Vetting," an examination of earlier chapters of President Obama's life, arguing that the Obama story that the voters were told in 2008 is a collection of half-truths and convenient omissions designed to make an unaccomplished, ambitious machine politician look like a messianic embodiment of hope and change.

And now even some of Obama's most sympathetic defenders are acknowledging that the story Obama told in 2008 was indeed a story, not quite the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. From a review of the David Maraniss book:

The Maraniss book serves as a historical corrective for Obama's 1995 memoir, "Dreams From My Father," which the author said compressed people and events and wasn't meant to be strictly factual. For instance, Obama's book says his family broke up when his father left Hawaii in 1963; Maraniss finds that Dunham actually moved the baby to Seattle within a month of his birth in August 1961.

While the book raises questions about some of Obama's choices, it won't appeal to those looking for conspiracies.

An effort like "The Vetting" is good for history. But it may or may not be useful for the effort to replace Barack Obama in the White House with Mitt Romney. Fairly or not, just about everyone who would care about Obama's past already knows how they're voting in November. There are some folks who are convinced that Obama's college transcripts would reveal strikingly bad grades; we can probably assume that if Obama were a straight-A student, we would have seen them by now. Others think his course load must contain some embarrassing evidence of devotion left-wing causes. But how many persuadable voters are out there who will make their decision in 2012 based on what courses Obama took in the late 1970s and early 1980s?

As a wise voice said to me recently, Obama probably was every bit the anti-establishment, quasi-revolutionary radical that some suspect in his younger years . . . and then he got married, had kids, matured some, and went sort-of establishment. Not establishment enough to say, recoil in horror the moment he learned Bill Ayers spent his younger years building bombs, but establishment enough to be careful about leaving fingerprints about associating with the likes of Ayers, Bernadette Dohrn, the leftist New Party, etc.

You're probably a different person than you were five years ago, and almost certainly a different person than you were ten years ago. The you of 1992 might not even be recognizable -- in thinking as well as appearance. The Barack Obama of 2012 has given the Right plenty to complain about and to cite in the debate of this year -- there's not much need to go spelunking through decades past to persuade the electorate.

2. By the Time You Get This, You May Already Feel Depressed about the Economy

It's the first Friday of the month, and you know what that means! Time to tune in to CNBC, watch the anchors breathe in with eager anticipation and then, at 8:30 Eastern . . . watch everyone let out a long, slow, exhale of disappointment as the unemployment rate (probably) stays the same, or (maybe) goes up or down one tenth of one percentage point. Smart economic minds will go into the details of the numbers, point to this one particular figure which look like a bright spot and this other figure which looks really troubling, the partisans will spin their messages, every political figure will issue a brief statement that today's troubling numbers/despite today's improved numbers, the situation is dire and the policy proposal they've been touting for a year must be enacted now, blah blah blah . . .

You know what the whole thing means. The economy is crappy. It's been crappy, for a really long time, and it's probably going to remain crappy for a good long while.

The preview:

"It seems that the economy is pretty much locked in to this sort of dreary trajectory," says Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Pierpont Securities. "Conditions are not quite weak enough to suggest an outright recession, but the near-term outlook is clearly deficient."

Jobless claims have been erratic throughout the last few weeks, largely due to temporary layoffs in the automotive industry. It's tough to glean anything fundamental from that data heading into Friday's report. ADP also reported 163,000 private-sector jobs were added last month. But ADP's inconsistent history of being an accurate predictor of the government's monthly report is well documented.

In other words, this monthly report appears tougher than usual to forecast.

James Pethokoukis shares one economic model that forecasts doom for the president's reelection bid:

Political scientist Douglas Hibbs looks at two factors when forecasting presidential elections: a) per capita real disposable personal income over the incumbent president's term, and b) cumulative U.S. military fatalities in overseas conflicts.

And he's predicting a near-landslide win for Mitt Romney over Barack Obama, with Obama losing by about as big a margin in 2012 as he won back in 2008. Under Hibbs Bread and Peace model, Romney wins 52.5% to Obama's 47.5%.

Obviously, there's no guarantee it will shake out that way, but it's . . . interesting.

3. Jon Stewart Makes Harry Reid Pay for Letting Him Down

Theory: Of course, comedian Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, is liberal. He wants to love Democrats. But it means that when they behave really egregiously, he's motivated to really rip into them because they've disappointed him.

Charlie Spiering summarizes:

Jon Stewart ridiculed Senate Majority leader Harry Reid last night for accusing Mitt Romney of not paying any taxes for 10 years.

"Here's a rule of thumb, if you have to follow your claim with the words, 'I don't know if this is true' then shut up." Stewart said, comparing Reid to Donald Trump.

Stewart then launched a segment called "You Harry Reid are Really Really Terrible" and proceeded to ridicule Reid.

"You're the Senate Majority Leader, you can't just run to the Side-Boob Gazette with ridiculous speculations," Stewart said, jokingly referring to the Huffington Post.

It gets even better, when Stewart depicts George Romney furiously denouncing Reid via Ouija Board.

4. Addendum

The lovely Cait Meisenheimer focuses our attention on one of the hidden tragedies of these Olympics: "Can we just get a moment of silence for all the unicorns that had to [meet their Maker] so gymnasts could have their hair glitter?"

It reminds me of Dennis Miller's family tale, "I have never lived in Las Vegas, but years ago I had relatives who did live here and worked in the sequin mines."