Headlines from The Economist aren’t normally the sort to make you spit out your coffee, but every once in a while they still manage to surprise me with a masterpiece of political absurdity that stands in sharp contrast to their well-sourced (if nevertheless biased) economics and foreign policy coverage. This week’s edition opens with the amazing claim that Mitt Romney has, throughout his primary campaign, been pandering not only to the far right, but to the left as well.
If this left you scratching your head and wondering if perhaps you had blacked out on Ambien for a couple of weeks and missed the part where the “severely conservative” plutocrat showed up at an Occupy camp with a bongo drum, you’re not alone. But no: The Economist claims, with what I can only assume is a straight face, that Romney has been pandering to the left by criticizing China for alleged currency manipulation. Continue reading