Hey gang! Today we’re putting on our hazmat suits and diving in to a very special episode of PostScript. It involves the more than 5,000 comments to Ruth Marcus’s piece about Mitt Romney needing to apologize for accusing other people of apologizing — a piece containing this awesome line: “Oddly enough, Romney’s evidence for Obama’s alleged apologizing is bereft of certain words — like apology, or sorry, or regret. To Romney, apologizing means never actually having to say you’re sorry.”

Anyway, PostScript was a little worried that the commentary would tediously echo yesterday’s acrimonious, polarized commentucopia about whether Romney had disgraced himself. But it did not. Today’s comment-palooza is a rarity of comity and intellect and affection.

First the commenters got angry, and existential. Then they got nice to each other even when they disagreed. Two commenters took over the thread as others dropped off, possibly in awe. Possibly, they looked away, embarrassed. It’s almost ... sweet. Let’s go.

Part one: existential. Commenters wonder why we are here.

hit4cycle

This column is typical of ossified leftist group-think.

wyatt3

It surprises me when posters like hit4cycle post a response to an article with a one-size-fits-all description of the columnist writing a “typical ossified leftist group-think” piece. If you already know the type of column you’re about to read, have already decided it won’t be one which is “truthful”, i.e., doesn’t support your own preconceptions, then why do you waste your time reading it and writing a post about it?

satxusa

hit4cycle, I rather enjoy reading other folks’ views and have changed some of my thoughts based on reasoned input from others. It is not good to have conversations only with those who agree with you, otherwise you start to get the feeling your views are perfect and always superior.

I’ve encouraged some of my liberal friends to pretend to have conservative thoughts and to share them with their own liberal friends to see just how good these friendships really are and if their friends are as tolerant of others as they constantly say they are. Few take me up as they know liberals are VERY intolerant of alternative world views and they don’t wish to lose these friends.

A word of caution about polling and the presidential race going into the weekend: We don’t really know yet whether anything has changed after the conventions. If you thought Barack Obama was a slim favorite before Tampa, that’s really all you should think now; if you thought Mitt Romney was a slim favorite, then there’s no real reason – yet – for you to change your mind.

What we do know is that Obama got a nice healthy bounce out of his convention and that Romney did not. That’s given Obama a six-point lead in the latest Gallup reading, taken over the week after the convention; according to the one average of polls set to emphasize recent polls more, he’s leading by about four points.

I’ve always loved Jennifer Granholm. The former governor of Michigan is wildly intelligent, beyond articulate, tough as nails and oh-so-easy-on-the-eyes. She had me eating out of the palm of her hand with her over-the-top (and instant classic) speech at the Democratic National Convention last week. But my admiration soared to new heights upon seeing her 1978 appearance on “The Dating Game.”

The suspenders. Those hip-hugging high-waisted jeans. That cotton-candy explosion of hair! You’d swear she was the fourth “Angel.” As my mom would say when she sees an artfully decked-out dame, “Can’t tell her NUTHIN’!” In 1970s parlance, the then-19-year-old who had moved to Los Angeles from British Columbia to pursue acting was “a fox.”

The week began with President Obama bouncing out of Charlotte with a post-convention bump in support. By Wednesday, Mitt Romney had stepped in it with his undignified swipe at the president in the middle of an ongoing crisis in Egypt and Libya. And like a moth to a flame, Sarah Palin piled on with her own brand of snark.

Meanwhile, we learned more people have health insurance. The gap between rich and poor has increased. And the iPhone 5 was announced. So much more happened, but there’s only so much that can go on the p-Op quiz. So, you know the drill: Sharpen your pixels and get crackin’.
Mitt Romney makes comments on the killing of U.S. embassy officials in Benghazi, Libya, while speaking in Jacksonville, Fla. (Charles Dharapak/AP)

The thing about today’s turn in the campaign, in which Republicans have decided to gang up on the press, is just how tired and pointless the whole exercise is. It is, of course, nothing new; every losing Republican presidential campaign in the last 20 years (at least) has turned to it, from “Annoy the Media, Vote for (George H.W.) Bush” on.

Hey, Republicans! You have a president who has presided over a mediocre economic recovery and just had a foreign policy episode that certainly could be characterized as a mistake: Why are you giving up? Because you know what? To any experienced political observer, that’s exactly what this media-bashing sounds like.

My guess is, too, that it either sounds whiny or just irrelevant to most voters. No doubt it gets terrific responses from hard-core Republican voters, the kind who show up to campaign rallies, but you know what? Those voters aren’t your problem. Your problem is voters who voted Republican in 2002 and 2004 but turned against you because Iraq went bad and the economy went worse. They might be interested in returning, since Barack Obama hasn’t given them all that much, but they’re really, really, unlikely to be convinced that a media conspiracy against your candidate is the whole problem.

For 30 years, every time Republicans have fallen behind, they trot out the same tired press-bashing. It never works. Perhaps it’s time to try something else?