The Carly Fiorina Show (Reality Reeling)

Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina wants to be a CEO again, only this time the letters stand for Chief Erroneous Obfuscator.

GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina said she did not misspeak during Tuesday night’s debate when she said that Gen. Jack Keane retired early because he “told President Obama things that he didn’t want to hear.”

But Keane, who served during the Bush administration, retired before Obama became president.

(Phelps)

To the one, lying is nothing more than we’ve come to expect of Carly Fiorina; it is, after all, her track record.

To the other, though, what the former HP boss knows is pretty much the same thing we all recognize, that truth doesn’t matter in the Republican Party.

And that’s the thing; she will pay little to no penalty during the GOP primary for being a liar. The only question is whether her business acumen can make that pitch in the general, should she win the nomination.

After all, if she wins the nomination and must, as part of her pivot, explain her lies, she has two main avenues for defending herself, either repeat the lies or make up new lies. That is, she can either hold the line or pretend she didn’t say anything at all. According to her track record, the actual historical record is irrelevant to her candidacy.

The only question is whether the rest of American voters are as gullible as Republicans.

This is the Carly Fiorina Show.

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Image notes: Top ― Carly Fiorina, former chairman and chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard, addresses the Iowa Freedom Summit in Des Moines, Iowa, 24 January 2015. (Photo: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images). Right ― Tweet by Jordyn Phelps, 15 December 2015).

Phelps, Jordyn. “Carly Fiorina Digs in on Claim That General’s Retirement Was Due to Obama Dispute”. ABC News. 16 December 2015.

The Carly Fiorina Show (Next Level)

“Yes she met him in a green room, but not in a green room before a show. It was before a conference.”

―Anna Epstein

The Carly Fiorina Show really does distinguish itself according to strange rules forged in some alternate universe. Then again, former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina is a Republican, and running for president at that. And this year the conservative market licks its lips for lies, as Dr. Ben Carson so aptly reminds. Ms. Fiorina, for her own part, works hard to keep up.

Which brings us to the WSJ/FBN debate; Steve Benen observes:

Gerard Baker, the editor in chief of the Wall Street Journal, reminded Carly Fiorina, “In seven years under President Obama, the U.S. has added an average of 107,000 jobs a month. Under President Clinton, the economy added about 240,000 jobs a month. Under George W. Bush, it was only 13,000 a month. If you win the nomination, you’ll probably be facing a Democrat named Clinton. How are you going to respond to the claim that Democratic presidents are better at creating jobs than Republicans?”

If anything, Baker’s numbers were tilted in the GOP’s favor, since Obama’s totals are dragged down by including the early months of his presidency, when the economy was in free fall. Nevertheless, the point is accurate―since World War II, more jobs are created under Democratic presidents than Republicans―prompting Fiorina to reply, “Yes, problems have gotten much worse under Democrats.”

She’d just been reminded of the opposite, which made the exchange a little unnerving. I kept waiting for one of the candidates to drop the pretense and declare, “I reject this version of reality and replace it with one I like better.”

The Carly Fiorina Show (Another Day, Another Lie)

“Just so we’re clear, Fiorina lied, then she defended the lie, then she repeated the lie, and then she grudgingly conceded that the ‘fact-checkers are correct’. But she still sees herself as a victim of a media ‘attack’.”

―Steve Benen

Here’s the tricky part: “This is what the liberal media always does; it attacks the messenger trying to avoid the message.”

This can be taken two ways:

• “It attacks the messenger [who is] trying to avoid the message” ― While it would, in fact, be the more accurate interpretation according to the facts, we can rest assured this is not Ms. Fiorina’s meaning, lest she be complaining that messengers seeking to avoid the message might be subject to scrutiny for the attempt.

• “It attacks the messenger [while] trying to avoid the message” ― This is more likely what Ms. Fiorina meant, except it’s dysfunctional. To wit: The media “attacks” [calls out] the “messenger” [bearing false witness] while trying to avoid [propagating] the [false] message.

In other words, it seems Ms. Fiorina thinks she’s only being treated fairly if the news media carries water for her presidential campaign.

Then again, what is a serial liar supposed to say?

Carly Fiorina’s alleged presidential merit is her business acumen. Her demonstrable political demeanor, however, is straightforward dishonesty.

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Image note: Carly Fiorina, former chairman and chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard Co., pauses while speaking during the Iowa Freedom Summit in Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday, Jan. 24, 2015. (Detail of photo by Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Benen, Steve. “Fiorina finally admits she flubbed her facts”. msnbc. 2 November 2015.

The Carly Fiorina Show (See Dick)

“There was no major scandal or faux pas to bring Fiorina down. While the impact of her debate performance may have worn off over time, why did she suffer this fate while Trump, Ben Carson and Marco Rubio have continued to gain from their debating styles?”

―Dick Morris and Eileen McGann

Call it a personal weakness: I love me some Dick.

Dick Morris, that is.

It is an eternal question: How does Dick Morris still get work? After all, who the hell still listens to Dick frickin’ Morris? True enough, people like me, but that’s the thing. Check this out:

Fiorina showed an eclectic knowledge of national affairs and fluently recited key facts about our weakened defense posture. She seemed like a nonascorbic, scandal-free alternative to Clinton.

Then, what happened?

There was no major scandal or faux pas to bring Fiorina down. While the impact of her debate performance may have worn off over time, why did she suffer this fate while Trump, Ben Carson and Marco Rubio have continued to gain from their debating styles?

While The New York Times contributed to her fall with a front page article chronicling―and bashing―her record at Hewlett Packard, it was the bloggers who brought Fiorina down. The Times story regaled the saga of how Fiorina had induced HP to buy Compaq despite evidence of its declining clout, and emphasized the 30,000 layoffs under her tenure as CEO.

The bloggers really did a number on Fiorina, explaining her lack of conservative credentials. They quoted her 2010 comment, during her contest with Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer that Roe v. Wade was “settled law” and noted her endorsement of Marco Rubio’s plan for amnesty for immigrants here illegally, her support for Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court and her willingness to weaken Proposition 13, which holds down property taxes in California.

The blogs left Fiorina bleeding.

For Morris and McGann, “the larger story here is the extreme sensitivity of the Republican primary electorate’s evidence of impurity in the presidential candidates”, which itself leads off the sort of petulant paragraph that reminds why we all love us some Dick. The entire article is historical-romantic comedy―hiroco? Gesundheit!―gold. And the thing is that there is plenty of evidence of conservative electoral puritanism, but what of the rest of the Republican Party? It is not just that Morris and McGann omit entirely Ms. Fiorina’s astounding dishonesty about Planned Parenthood, and her stubborn, clumsy retort to the resulting controversy really would not seem encouraging to establishment Republicans who still bear questions of electability in their analyses.

The Donald Trump Show (Coattails and Kid Gloves)

Why is it always Donald, Donald, Donald?

Over at The Hill, it seems a fine way to spend a weekend:

• Oh, yeah …: The Hill staff offer an overview of the Sunday interview shows, including notes about Donald on Trump, Lindsey on Trump, Carly trying to hop on Trump’s coattails, and a strange reminder that former U.S. Senator Jim Webb is running for the Democratic nomination.

• Speaking of Sunday shows: Mark Hensch reports on Meet the Press attempting to consider a nexus of ideas: Donald Trump and flip-flop.

• Imagine that: And Alexander Bolton explains why the obvious advice for Jeb Bush is to “walk a fine line” in dealing with the Donald, or, as the headline has it, “Treat trump with kid gloves”.

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Image note: Donald Trump announces his candidacy for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination in New York City, New York, 16 June 2015. (Photo: Justin Lane/European Pressphoto Agency)

The Carly Fiorina Show (One Percenter Hope Pilot Episode)

Welcome to the Carly Fiorina Show. By most accounts, it will be a short run. Then again, compared to the rest of the clowns in the GOP campaign car, one might expect Ms. Fiorina would bring some significant, serious presence to the present.

These are, of course, Republicans.

Former Hewlett-Packard Co Chief Executive Carly Fiorina on Monday announced she is running for president, and took a shot at Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, who she said represents a political class that Americans are “disgusted” with.

Once one of the most powerful women in American business, Fiorina registers near the bottom of polls of the dozen or so Republican hopefuls and has never held public office.

She is positioning herself as an outsider with real-life experience earned through years in the corporate world.

As Alistair Bell and Bill Trott report for Reuters, the newly-minted Republican candidate faces the obvious consideration:

Fiorina, 60, said the former first lady and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, belong to an out-of-touch political elite.

“She reminds people that there is a huge disconnect between that political class and the hopes and concerns of hard-working Americans everywhere,” she told reporters on a conference call.

“I see that disconnect everywhere I go. I see people just disgusted, honestly, with the way the playing field is tilted against them, the disconnect between what they’re thinking about and what they perceive people in Washington are thinking about,” Fiorina said.

Previously described as the “anti-Steve Jobs”, Ms. Fiorina will likely struggle to define herself as the anti-Hillary. Reuters puts her at less than one percent in a recent poll; this is problematic, but hardly an impossible challenge. Given the early critique of Hillary Clinton’s performance, one wonders whether Fiorina will last long enough to endure the sort of scrutiny normally reserved for the former Secretary of State.

And these are, after all, Republicans. There really is nothing to be done about that.

She said on Monday that her first phone call as president would be to the prime minister of Israel to assure the Jewish state of America’s support.

The second call, she said, would be to the supreme leader of Iran to warn him of U.S. sanctions unless he allowed unfettered access for inspectors to Tehran’s nuclear program.

Boilerplate is as boilerplate does; it serves a function of some sort. But calling Hillary Clinton out of touch, or an elitist, and then pandering to Israel are not exactly compelling opening bids. If she wishes to double her support to somewhere near two percent, Carly Fiorina will need an actual pitch.

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Image note: Carly Fiorina speaks at the Iowa Freedom Summit in Des Moines, Iowa, 24 January 2015. (Photo: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Bell, Alistair and Bill Trott. “Former HP CEO Fiorina enters 2016 race, takes shot at Clinton”. Reuters. 4 May 2015.