Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

From a conversation on Twitter yesterday about financial reform:

Brian Beutler: Corker warns that the GOP is screwing up by lying about reg reform: http://bit.ly/d9HXyw

Matt Yglesias: Has “lie like crazy” ever failed as a political strategy?

Bizarrely enough, it looks like the answer might be yes. GOP wordmeister Frank Luntz famously advised Republicans a couple of months ago to attack any financial reform bill as a “bailout” regardless of what was actually in it, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell took that to heart and has been doing exactly that ever since.

Unfortunately for McConnell, it turns out there really is a limit to just how baldly you can lie and get away with it. The Senate reform bill quite plainly bans bailouts, and McConnell found himself under attack from all corners. President Obama called him out on this, PolitiFact labeled his statements flatly false, fellow Republican Bob Corker told reporters McConnell was wrong, and even Mark Halperin refused to dredge up some unlikely way to defend him. And guess what? It might actually be working:

After a week of attacking the pending legislation as a ticket to new taxpayer “bailouts,” McConnell is striking a different tone. Monday on the Senate floor, he called for lawmakers to move beyond “personal attacks and questioning each others’ motives” to “fixing the problems in this bill.”

And McConnell conceded, after being chastised by no less than President Obama in his weekly radio address, that “both parties agree on this point: no bailouts. In my view, that’s a pretty good start.”

….”I’m happy to hear my counterpart, my friend, Senator McConnell talk about the need for more negotiations,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.), in remarks on the floor following McConnell’s speech Tuesday. “We don’t stand in the way of that.”

Granted, McConnell might just be changing tactics. And his change of heart may be motivated more by politics than the pummelling he took over this. After all, the bailout lie wasn’t really any worse than the death panel lie. The big difference is that healthcare reform was unanimously opposed by conservatives, so nobody minded the lie. Financial reform is a little different, and relentless hostility could pretty easily backfire. That makes lies a little more costly.

Still, we seem to have reached a limit of some kind, and McConnell crossed it. Maybe we should name this the McConnell Line or something so that we know when future politicians have crossed it.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate