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The left and the right used to fight about what to do.
Now the left and the right fights about what is true.
~~Rachel Maddow
TRMS, 11/1/12
To claim that Governor Romney has lied during his campaign for the presidency is an understatement. In fact, Romney's false claims fill web page after web page with examples, but four particular false claims are worth examining because no one should ever be rewarded for telling lies. If Governor Romney gets away with lying and essentially saying anything he thinks the audience wants to hear, no matter how much those words conflict with what he has said in the past, then future campaigns for the White House will become a horrible mess of false claims, lies, smears, distortions and deceptions that most voters will have an impossible time to unwind and sort out. This year offers voters a choice between the lesser of two liars, but these four egregious lies from Gov. Romney stand out as worthy of notice and examination.
Obama made the recession worse
Early on in the campaign, during the primaries, Romney repeated, over and over the claim that "The President did not cause the recession, but he has made it worse." Jackie Calmes explains:
In the most extensive analysis of the government response, in mid-2010, the economists Alan S. Blinder and Mark Zandi used a Moody’s Analytics simulation of the economy and concluded that the effects on economic growth, job creation and inflation “are huge, and probably averted what could have been called Great Depression 2.0.”
Obama "gutted" work requirements for welfare
This is the ad that Gov. Romney is running in swing states:
Jamelle Bouie covered this claim in WaPo, "Why Romney keeps lying about Obama and welfare," and explains:
It’s been three weeks since Mitt Romney first took fire for asserting that the Obama administration “gutted” work requirements in welfare. When the first ad was released, PolitiFact took the lead in debunking its claim that under Obama’s plan, “they just send you your welfare check,” giving it the highest rating of “Pants on Fire.” FactCheck.org followed suit, and the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler offered a similar denunciation, giving the ad “four Pinnochios.”
What Obama meant by "you didn't build that"
This particular lie was covered last night by Lawrence O'Donnell during the rewrite segment of his show, The Last Word. Via MSNBC:
The irony of this particular lie, which was the theme of the Republican Convention in Tampa this year, is that the Tampa Convention Center, where they met, was paid for with mostly public money. Yes, the government built that, owns that and runs it. David Badash explained:
The GOP’s 2012 convention theme will be, “We Did Build This!” — which is amusing since the Republican National Committee convention will actually be held at the Tampa Bay Times Forum, which is publicly-owned and is managed with taxpayer funds. The media center for the RNC Convention is the Tampa Convention Center, which is also publicly-owned, and was built with $140 million in taxpayer funds.
Chrysler is shipping jobs to China
The biggest Romney lie to make news recently was covered not just by left wing bloggers and MSNBC. This whopper is so blatant, so absurd, that the beltway media (The National Journal and The Hill) finally covered this lie. This false claim is so egregious that even the corporate executives with Chrysler pointed out the deceitfulness of this claim. Jill Lawrence explained:
Romney’s statement in Defiance, OH prompted a blog post by Gualberto Ranieri, Chrysler’s senior vice president for corporate communications. “Let’s set the record straight: Jeep has no intention of shifting production of its Jeep models out of North America to China. It’s simply reviewing the opportunities to return Jeep output to China for the world’s largest auto market. U.S. Jeep assembly lines will continue to stay in operation,” he wrote.
In a radio ad, the Romney campaign went even further and falsely claimed that General Motors (GM) was also shipping jobs to China: “Under President Obama, GM cut 15,000 American jobs, but they are planning to double the number of cars built in China, which means 15,000 more jobs for China. And now comes word that Chrysler plans to start making Jeeps in, you guessed it, China.”
This led GM spokesman Martin to state: “We’ve clearly entered some parallel universe during these last few days. No amount of campaign politics at its cynical worst will diminish our record of creating jobs in the U.S. and repatriating profits back to this country.” Think about this. When was the last time you can recall corporate leaders calling out a presidential candidate for lying?
Of course, the utter deceitfulness of Romney's claim is not stopping him from running an ad on television and the radio repeating this lie over and over and over.
This led GM spokesman Martin to state: “We’ve clearly entered some parallel universe during these last few days. No amount of campaign politics at its cynical worst will diminish our record of creating jobs in the U.S. and repatriating profits back to this country.” Think about this. When was the last time you can recall corporate leaders calling out a presidential candidate for lying?
Of course, the utter deceitfulness of Romney's claim is not stopping him from running an ad on television and the radio repeating this lie over and over and over.
makes a good living deceiving gullible reactionaries
Governor Romney must believe that 50.1% of swing state voters are stupid, lazy and/or gullible. No doubt, Glenn Beck's following of millions makes it clear that some people are very gullible and ignorant about the facts of reality. More important, Romney's post-truth campaign is undermining American elections going forward. If Romney is successful lying his way into the White House, our democratic order -- already under severe threat from the monied interests unleashed by the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision -- will be undermined. Juan Cole explains:
The mainstream media and even Democrats have been slow to call Mitt Romney's deliberate falsehoods "lies." But after just calling them what they are, it is also important to analyze their meaning. Lies on Romney's scale do not simply show contempt for the intelligence of American voters. They show contempt for democracy....
The right needs to learn that the American people will not be hoodwinked by a slick salesman, especially not an especially deceitful plutocrat like Governor Romney. Despite the fact that President Obama is not the progressive many of his supporters were hoping for, having a liberal corporatist in the White House is far better on many levels (listed below) than rewarding mendacious Mitt Romney for being a believable liar.
The country does not need another President; Obama has done a good job as commander and chief which is why moderate Republican and former Secretary of State under George W. Bush, Colin Powell, endorsed him recently. President Obama needs another Congress. If you give the President another term as President this coming Tuesday, then vote party line. Otherwise, we will have a continuation of the status quo that few voters are happy with. This election, it's important to be counted.
Get out and vote.
These previous posts show just how extreme, dishonest and of poor judgment Gov. Romney has demonstrated he is.
- Beck is ecstatic over Romney's choice for V-P (Ryan is Beck's "soulmate")
- Romney's record shows plutocratic view towards American workers
- Romney the judicial extremist
- Ditch the Tea Party reactionaries
- Like Beck, Ryan is hypocrite and liar
- Beck ignores the Romney voter suppression efforts under way and pushes fraud myths
- Murdoch bombshell the media is ignoring (Guess who NewsCorp is supporting?)
- The many lies of Beck's "soulmate," Paul Ryan
- Beck sees the invisible Obama too
- Bill Clinton buried Beck's deceitful propaganda
- Tale of two [Facebook] pages
- Beck dons rodeo clown hat to distract followers from Romney's tape
- Governor Romney: the flip-flopper who will say anything to get elected
- NY Times David Brooks believes Beck's cherry-picked story about Romney
- Know any undecided voters?
- For Obama or not for Obama?
- Beck is lying about MSNBC and his own history (what's new?)
- Beck is gloating over Romney's deceitful victory
- Like Beck, Romney is a liar and a hypocrite
- How does Secretary of State Beck sound?
- Beck's predictable response to Biden
- Romney's "binders full of woman" comment based upon another lie
- WTF? Romney's son Tagg owns voting machine in OH
- Guess who hosted a fund-raiser for Mitt Romney
Before voters are taken in by Romney's lies,
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