"Mitt Romney seems to still think that he can simply use the press as a delivery mechanism for his campaign’s messages and expect them to be reported relatively uncritically. This explains a lot that at first blush seems odd about his strategy from why he thinks his refusal to release more tax returns should simply be the end of the issue, to why he doesn’t think he should be held accountable for previously stated political positions, to why he doesn’t expect backlash when his campaign produces blatantly dishonest attack ads. The press has evolved, thank God, since 2000. They’re now willing and able to produce Marshall McLuhan when his name comes up."
-- Salon's Alex Pareene on the number of Annie Hall "Marshall McLuhan" moments we've seen in Mitt Romney's campaign lately
The thing is, I think Romney does know that the press will call him out for his bullshit -- his consistent, almost sociopathic mendacity -- but he also knows that all the heavy doses of reality in the world won't matter. Once the lie is out there, it's out there. It's eaten up by his audience of idiots desperate to believe anything that makes Obama look bad and they'll take those lies right to their friends and into the voting booth with them in November. The conservative POV over the past three-and-a-half years has been a willingness to buy into all kinds of anti-Obama insanity without letting things like empirical evidence to the contrary get in the way. Romney knows this and exploits the hell out of it.
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