Swingin' A Dead Cat

If you like to do a bit of traveling, as our staff does, you tend to notice that most places around the world have their own quirky habits and sayings that make them unique. One of the more bizarre but catchy regional phrases we've picked up over the years is supposed to be used for those times when you're telling someone you feel like a certain object or experience seems to be everywhere you turn: That you "can't swing a dead cat without hitting (the subject in question)."

For example, "Mr. Romney delivered a foreign policy speech on Monday in which you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a lie."

As multiple journalists reported Monday, including our friend and colleague Rick Ungar, Mr. Romney's foreign policy speech on Monday was yet another vague stack of lies and reversals of his previous policy claims. It's true that some portions of Romney's speech tried to make his approach seem different than President Obama's; however, if you believed what Mitt was saying on Monday, you'd also have to believe that what he's said multiple times in the past about foreign policy was a lie.

For example, Mr. Romney insisted he'd increase the size of the U.S. Navy - except he has no idea of what kind of ships the Navy needs, or how he'd be able to pay for them. The best guess by expert military journalist Spencer Ackerman is that Romney's naval wish list would add $30-40 billion to a federal budget that Romney also promises to somehow cut.

That says nothing of Romney's trade claim that President Obama hasn't signed any trade agreements - well, other than the three President Obama signed last October with South Korea, Panama, and Columbia. Or Romney's claim to support a two-state solution between Palestinians and Israelis - a solution he derided in that infamous 47% video this summer, when he thought his words were being spoken in private.

As we said earlier, you couldn't swing a dead cat through Mitt Romney's foreign policy speech without hitting a lie.

There was one other topic you also couldn't swing the cat around without hitting on Monday - self-proclaimed polling experts determining that the race is now over for President Obama.

It's a day like Monday when we loathe the corporate media culture that's turned many of the folks we once trusted into self-aggrandizing ratings whores. Many of those who cherry picked the polls on Monday, are the same hacks who helped enable the jobs report conspiracy theory last Friday. Frankly, some in the mainstream media seem willing to set themselves on fire if it would get them the attention and ratings they crave. Cherry-picking poll results to get a rise out of the audience is child's play, compared to wearing fire or swinging a dead cat.

Here's the truth: Single polls do not matter, except the one on election day. Accurate polling looks at trends, as we've told you many times over the years. It's one of the reasons we put such faith in Nate Silver and his team at FiveThirtyEight.com. They get the final numbers right because they get the aggregated polling trends correct, over time.

So what was Nate's take on Monday's polls? Other than the Pew poll - which may indeed be an outlier - Nate pointedly noted Mr. Romney's polling on Monday was weak. In aggregate, Mitt would have made no real gains at all without that odd Pew poll. In fact, by Monday evening, tracking polls already showed a shift back towards Obama. Yet how many of those same ratings whores will be excitedly selling today's polling trend back towards Obama with the same vigor they tried to sell those horserace polls on Monday?

We bet by the end of today, you'll be able to swing around as many dead cats as you want, and not hit a single member of the mainstream media who apologizes for their poll hysteria yesterday.

Firsts

Although today may seem like just another Monday for you and most other Americans, today is Columbus Day. It's still an official U.S. Federal holiday, even though the age-old idea that Columbus actually discovered America has long-since been thoroughly disproven.

The fact is, Columbus was an ambitious man who made the mistake of thinking he'd landed in India when he landed in the Americas. That fact, however, was one Columbus was never willing to accept - maybe because he wasn't starting from the same place in his thought processes, a concept known as 'first principles.'

One of our staff members has been doing a good bit of thinking about first principles lately, in light of two news stories: the pile of lies that Mitt Romney told at the first presidential debate that many in the media continue to mull over, and a new contraception study released over the weekend.

The debate over the debate is the story we're fairly sure you saw over the weekend, if you took in any serious media. As more and more journalists look back over the facts of the debate, many of our colleagues seem to be coming around to the position we originally took last Thursday - that no one who lied as much as Mitt Romney did could have possibly won the debate. Even former GOP rival Newt Gingrich admitted Romney wasn't honest during last week's debate.

As the contraception study and the story of Chris Columbus remind us however, many of us in the media may not be starting from the same first principles as Team Romney, or the extremists on the right.

The two-year contraception study released over the weekend basically gave women any kind of birth control they wanted for two of years at no cost. The study found that no matter what the women's background, education, religion, or economic level, abortions were reduced by 75%. The study comes just as millions of women will begin to get access to contraception without insurance co-pays, thanks to a part of Obamacare that we discussed in detail earlier this year.

In short, the study proves that all those on the extreme right who have been fighting for years against low or no-cost contraception, or for abstinence-only education, have in fact been responsible for INCREASING the rate of abortions, not protecting the sanctity of human life, which is their stated goal.

That's now a scientific fact that's not up for debate, unlike many of Mitt Romney's statements at last week's debate, which distorted and obfuscated undebatable facts.

That's where first principles come in.

Most educated people now think that Columbus was educated, but pridefully stupid - too proud to admit his factual error about landing in the Americas. In a similar manner, many people who see this contraception study may think the extreme conservative anti-abortion rights crowd will now see the error of their ways, and change their tactics.

Both groups are wrong, just as many of us in the media who have factually proven Mitt Romney didn't win last week's debate are also wrong.

If you're starting from the premise that debates should be about facts, you're not starting from the same premise as Team Romney. They wanted to win the battle against the first draft of history, which deals almost exclusively in appearance, not fact. As far as they're concerned, facts weren't important - only appearance.

Likewise, the extreme anti-abortion groups don't really care about preventing abortions, especially using methods like those outlined in the new contraception study. Sexuality, to them, is something to be feared, and the reproductive system is something to be controlled. That's their first principle.

As for Christopher Columbus? His first principle was to become wealthy, not to discover the route to India and East Asia. His principle, like the others, worked for a while, at first. But the Spanish crown eventually took his title, holdings and money.

In the end, facts matter. But often, not at first.

Friday Funday: Truth, Lies, And Friendship

By the time you read this today, chances are good that one or more members of our staff will be at the 2012 North Central Chapter National Cartoonists Society meeting in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Not only is the North Central Tooners a professional group of incredibly talented individuals - they're also our friends.

Like any group of professionals, we don't all have the same ideas about important topics like politics, the future of cartooning, and what beverage tastes best after a late night of roaming the streets of Sioux Falls and having some pirogis.

For the member of our Daily Felltoon staff who also toils in the national broadcast media, Wednesday night's unprofessional reaction by some of our broader media colleagues was a bit of a surprise. We're all used to overreaction by the extreme media blowhards, especially those in right-wing radio, who've become experts at making mountains out of molehills.

What surprised us - and especially our broadcast staffer - was the level of pure whorish groveling that so many in the mainstream media fell to immediately after the Presidential debate.

As we stated yesterday, at best, the debate was a wash for both candidates. President Obama's performance didn't meet the high expectations too many had set on him, while Mr. Romney's petulant, mendacious performance had neither facts or details in it anywhere. That didn't stop most of the media having a massive knee-jerk reaction after the debate Wednesday night.

By Thursday morning, however, members of our staff and a few other ethical journalists had been working late into the night, making sure everyone knew exactly how many lies Mitt Romney told in that debate. By Thursday afternoon, some of our media colleagues began to feel guilty about selling out and hopping on board the Romney wagon - so they began to turn their opinions around about who actually won, based on the fact that Romney had given no facts.

Many professionals in the larger media are now grudgingly accepting what we first noted - or sagely following our lead - that the debate was, in fact, a wash, mostly because of Mitt Romney's horrendous lying.

While we're glad our broadcast staffer now feels a bit more vindicated, the rest of our staff has to say - we're glad our main focus is in physical and digital print. For cartoonists especially, there's an unwritten rule that we create and draw what we do - and we don't worry about responding or apologizing. Our work stands on it's own, for better or worse - and then we move on.

Many of our friends in the North Central Tooners feel the same - and those who don't, don't judge the others.

We hope this weekend, whatever group of friends you have, they accept you for who you are, whatever your opinions are.

We also hope your friends pick up the bar tab, as we're certain our friends in Sioux Falls will. Right, guys?