Stepping Through the Mirror

*headdesk*

Yeah.  Seriously.  Read it for yourself.

To understand Mitt Romney, you have to understand the most difficult passage of his political life: how he changed his position on abortion. Not the story he tells about it, but the real story. Romney began his political career as a pro-choicer. In the story he tells, he had an epiphany, a flash of insight, and committed himself thereafter to protecting life. But that isn’t what happened. The real story of Romney’s conversion—a series of tentative, equivocal, and confused shifts, accompanied by a constant rewriting of his past—paints a more accurate picture of who he is. Romney has complex views and a talent for framing them either way, depending on his audience. He values truth, so he makes sure there’s an element of it in everything he says. He can’t stand to break his promises, so he reinterprets them.

[Emphasis added.]

Because really.

Merriam-Webster’s #1 Word of the Year for 2006:

1. truthiness  (noun)

1 : “truth that comes from the gut, not books” (Stephen Colbert, Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,” October 2005)

2 : “the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true” (American Dialect Society, January 2006)

(via the-feature)

Salon exclusive: How Maggie Gallagher’s college pregnancy made her a single mom, and a traditional marriage zealot

BY MARK OPPENHEIMER

For three decades, conservatives’ proposals for dramatic changes to the programs have reflected a divide-and-conquer strategy inspired by the Leninist movement.

Governor Walker has been touting the state’s balanced budget. Yet his administration submitted a report to the federal government asking for clearance to cut thousands of people from Medicaid because the state faces a three billion dollar deficit.

State Representative John Andrew (Kip) Smith “is a sponsor of Georgia House Bill 464, which would “require random drug testing” for citizens on public assistance. In response to Smith’s legislation, State Rep. Scott Holcomb introduced a bill last month that would require all state lawmakers to be subject to random drug testing.”