As usual, a lengthy and compellingly thorough piece by Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone:
... And this is where we get to the hypocrisy at the heart of Mitt Romney. Everyone knows that he is fantastically rich, having scored great success, the legend goes, as a "turnaround specialist," a shrewd financial operator who revived moribund companies as a high-priced consultant for a storied Wall Street private equity firm. But what most voters don't know is the way Mitt Romney actually made his fortune: by borrowing vast sums of money that other people were forced to pay back. This is the plain, stark reality that has somehow eluded America's top political journalists for two consecutive presidential campaigns: Mitt Romney is one of the greatest and most irresponsible debt creators of all time. In the past few decades, in fact, Romney has piled more debt onto more unsuspecting companies, written more gigantic checks that other people have to cover, than perhaps all but a handful of people on planet Earth.
By making debt the centerpiece of his campaign, Romney was making a calculated bluff of historic dimensions – placing a massive all-in bet on the rank incompetence of the American press corps. (A safe bet if ever there was, says Sid.) The result has been a brilliant comedy: A man makes a $250 million fortune loading up companies with debt and then extracting million-dollar fees from those same companies, in exchange for the generous service of telling them who needs to be fired in order to finance the debt payments he saddled them with in the first place. That same man then runs for president riding an image of children roasting on flames of debt, choosing as his running mate perhaps the only politician in America more pompous and self-righteous on the subject of the evils of borrowed money than the candidate himself. If Romney pulls off this whopper, you'll have to tip your hat to him: No one in history has ever successfully run for president riding this big of a lie. It's almost enough to make you think he really is qualified for the White House...
Another bit of actual reporting in a publication that'll never be read by those who need it most. Reading comment threads here, it's clear that information filters are fully in place with teabaggers, and there's no amount of truth-telling that'll change it. Obama is divisive, they say, ignoring whence the divisiveness arises; ignoring the fact that Rs began to plot their obstruction on inauguration day. He didn't denounce the ten-member NBPP, they wail, falling for the distractions stovepiped into their heads by the Foxorovians; he whispered to Medvedev an obvious statement about American politics, they shiver, seeing goblins placed under their beds by Rush and Sean and Glenn, personally.
