Wumbologist wrote:Coito ergo sum wrote:Wumbologist wrote:
Yeah, but an intentionally taken out of context quote like "You didn't build that" is a perfectly good thing to build an entire campaign around, right? Despite the misrepresentation having been thoroughly debunked?
If your test for who you support is that they don't take their opponent "out of context" then you would never vote. To suggest that Obama doesn't take his opponents out of context and twist their words to suit his agenda, well, that just doesn't hold up. Since there have been elections, parties have sought to twist the words of their opponent and put them in the worst possible light. To demand that Romney stop doing it, while not demanding the same of Obama would be an exercise in hypocrisy as well as futility.
Don't go around pretending that "binders" is a big deal when "You didn't build that" was championed by Romney, is all I'm saying.
I never said it was a big deal. Criticize Romney all you want about using binders. Most people would have no problem with a businessman using binders, even in this day and age. And, when we're talking about a guy in his late 60s, it is more than expected. In my office, there are binders still, and I use them. Depending on what you need them for, they can be useful and practical.
Moreover, the comment in the debate referring to binders referred to the MassGAP program.
Those “binders full of women” actually came from a coalition called Massachusetts Government Appointments Project, or MassGAP, that had formed in August 2002 to address the shortage of women in high-ranking government positions. They had started assembling groups of applicants, taking several months to reach out to women’s organizations around the state and preparing to present potential hires to whichever candidate won the election.
“We contacted both candidates before the final election,” said Liz Levin, who was chairman of MassGAP until 2010. “This was an effort that we put our hearts in. We wanted to make sure that people knew how many good, qualified, terrific ladies there were.”
Romney agreed to work with the group, Levin said, and he appointed Kerry Healey, the incoming lieutenant governor, to be the liaison to MassGAP. Several weeks after the election, they presented several hundred applicants to Healey, said Levin, who is an Obama supporter but stressed that MassGAP is a bipartisan group.
And yes, there were binders.
“There were actual binders involved,” Levin said. “Big binders. They were big. It was before stuff was done, like it is now, electronically.”
http://www.boston.com/politicalintellig ... story.html
So, the claim wasn't that Romney uses binders day to day, today, in this regard. He may use binders for some things; who knows? I wouldn't have a problem with him doing that if he did. For some purposes, binders can be quite useful, as I said. But this was a program that Romney worked with, but he didn't tell them how to amass and organize the data. They presented the binders to him.
So, if you want to talk about "taking things out of context" -- start with your own thought processes. It seems you have no problem with doing it. None whatsoever.
