The Truth SHOULD Be Important

It is stunning to me that an entire Presidential campaign is running on outright lies, but it is.  And if you are not paying attention, shame on you.

As much as I hate the taste of my own bile, I have made myself watch the speeches at the RNC convention.  Last night, Paul Ryan took the stage as the VP nom and opened his mouth to spew forth a pile of aural BS wide and deep enough to bury the Titanic.

No matter.  Lie was heaped upon lie, but all to loud applause.  The cheering of those who have still been pissing themselves over losing in 2008, those who cannot stand being out of power, those who exist on a steady diet of FOX, Rush, and bullshit. 

Yes, if bullshit was a menu item, they were well fed last night.

Lies don't bother Romney, Ryan, or anyone bankrolling their bid to "take back our country."  (Point of order - no one has yet been able to answer my question, "From what?")  They even have their head pollster responding to being called out on the blatant lies with this gem, "We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers."

Translation:  Don't mind our pants being on fire.  Just listen to what we say.

And their base will.  Because their base has some of the lowest effort thinkers in this country.  Willfully ignorant, lacking in intellectual curiosity.  Simply content to have their inner narratives fed and fed steadily.  No matter that the spoon is obviously heaped up with steaming dung - they gladly shovel it into the gaping maws of their suspect gray matter.

Oddly, the biggest call out of Ryan's Pinnochioisms comes this morning from progressive FOX News columnist, Sally Kohn.

Pay attention.  I told you this the last time around.  If you are not checking facts, digging, CARING - you do not deserve to vote.

Sally's column:

1. Dazzling

At least a quarter of Americans still don’t know who Paul Ryan is, and only about half who know and have an opinion of him view him favorably.

So, Ryan’s primary job tonight was to introduce himself and make himself seem likeable, and he did that well. The personal parts of the speech were very personally delivered, especially the touching parts where Ryan talked about his father and mother and their roles in his life. And at the end of the speech, when Ryan cheered the crowd to its feet, he showed an energy and enthusiasm that’s what voters want in leaders and what Republicans have been desperately lacking in this campaign.

To anyone watching Ryan’s speech who hasn’t been paying much attention to the ins and outs and accusations of the campaign, I suspect Ryan came across as a smart, passionate and all-around nice guy — the sort of guy you can imagine having a friendly chat with while watching your kids play soccer together. And for a lot of voters, what matters isn’t what candidates have done or what they promise to do —it’s personality. On this measure, Mitt Romney has been catastrophically struggling and with his speech, Ryan humanized himself and presumably by extension, the top of the ticket.

2. Deceiving

On the other hand, to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to facts, Ryan’s speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech. On this measure, while it was Romney who ran the Olympics, Ryan earned the gold.

The good news is that the Romney-Ryan campaign has likely created dozens of new jobs among the legions of additional fact checkers that media outlets are rushing to hire to sift through the mountain of cow dung that flowed from Ryan’s mouth. Said fact checkers have already condemned certain arguments that Ryan still irresponsibly repeated.

Fact: While Ryan tried to pin the downgrade of the United States’ credit rating on spending under President Obama, the credit rating was actually downgraded because Republicans threatened not to raise the debt ceiling.

Fact: While Ryan blamed President Obama for the shut down of a GM plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, the plant was actually closed under President George W. Bush. Ryan actually asked for federal spending to save the plant, while Romney has criticized the auto industry bailout that President Obama ultimately enacted to prevent other plants from closing.

Fact: Though Ryan insisted that President Obama wants to give all the credit for private sector success to government, that isn't what the president said. Period.

Fact: Though Paul Ryan accused President Obama of taking $716 billion out of Medicare, the fact is that that amount was savings in Medicare reimbursement rates (which, incidentally, save Medicare recipients out-of-pocket costs, too) and Ryan himself embraced these savings in his budget plan.

Elections should be about competing based on your record in the past and your vision for the future, not competing to see who can get away with the most lies and distortions without voters noticing or bother to care. Both parties should hold themselves to that standard. Republicans should be ashamed that there was even one misrepresentation in Ryan’s speech but sadly, there were many.

3. Distracting

And then there’s what Ryan didn’t talk about.

Ryan didn’t mention his extremist stance on banning all abortions with no exception for rape or incest, a stance that is out of touch with 75% of American voters.

Ryan didn’t mention his previous plan to hand over Social Security to Wall Street.

Ryan didn’t mention his numerous votes to raise spending and balloon the deficit when George W. Bush was president.

Ryan didn’t mention how his budget would eviscerate programs that help the poor and raise taxes on 95% of Americans in order to cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires even further and increase — yes, increase —the deficit.

These aspects of Ryan’s resume and ideology are sticky to say the least. He would have been wise to tackle them head on and try and explain them away in his first real introduction to voters. But instead of Ryan airing his own dirty laundry, Democrats will get the chance.

At the end of his speech, Ryan quoted his dad, who used to say to him, “"Son. You have a choice: You can be part of the problem, or you can be part of the solution."

Ryan may have helped solve some of the likeability problems facing Romney, but ultimately by trying to deceive voters about basic facts and trying to distract voters from his own record, Ryan’s speech caused a much larger problem for himself and his running mate.

Sally Kohn is a writer and Fox News contributor. You can find her online at http://sallykohn.com or on Twitter@sallykohn.

Comments

[Theresa Lee]

Do you know how to tell when a politician is lying? Their lips are moving!

I haven't seen anything from either of the two major parties worthy of voting for, but I will have to figure out what I think is the lesser of the two evils by November.

[SusanInFlorida]

I am one of the many past voters who has refrained from voting because of the downright lies being told by both sides. I am neither Democrat nor Republican, I vote for the best person for the job. Unfortunately, the only people applying are liars and thieves. Many of my friends feel the same way and will also refrain from voting this November.

There is no easy fix for our economy these days. College degrees which are costly are worth nothing today. I see graduates handing out hamburgers or serving drinks at bars. We have too many "free" programs for lazy people, big business is bullying the common employee into accepting unlawful things in the workplace and there is no one to stand up for the employees' rights because the unions have been bashed and stymied by big government. I'd like to protest by burning my bra in public, but at my age, that wouldn't be a pretty sight! LOL

[Linda S to James]

I think it is disingenuous for either side to play the "one man bears all, does all" card.

This country was firmly in the shitter before President Bush left office, there simply is no disputing the set of circumstances which led to that. As for 9/11, hindsight is 20/20, right? I don't think a day goes by that President Bush doesn't wish his administration had acted differently, hadn't let things go by the wayside, hadn't let things pass the sniff test that smelled to high heaven.

President Obama isn't Harry Potter either. Given the morass he was dumped into, I am amazed at the things this administration has managed to accomplish. I wish every day that so much of his first term had not been spent trying to be a grown up while dealing with a bunch of pisspantsed Republicans with ONE item on their agenda: Obstruction.

But please do regale me with tales of how we would be living in an economic wonderland, having a chicken in every pot, and riding unicorns under a McCain/Palin White House.

[James]

Fact: SUV production at Janesville ended in Dec 2008. Truck production ended in April 2009 during Obama’s term. The plant is not officially closed either. It is technically on “standby”.
http://gazettextra.com/news/2009/feb/19/gm-plant-last-day-finalized/

Fact: Ryan did NOT blame President Obama for the shut down of the GM plant in Janesville.

When then candidate Obama was speaking to the workers at that plant in Janesville, he said, I believe that if our government is there to support you, and give you the assistance you need to re-tool and make this transition, that this (General Motors) plant will be here for another hundred years,”
http://www.gazetteextra.com/obama0213.pdf

Ryan’s words were the following:
“When he talked about change, many people liked the sound of it, especially in Janesville, where we were about to lose a major factory.
A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said: “I believe that if our government is there to support you. this plant will be here for another hundred years.”
That’s what he said in 2008. Well, as it turned out, that plant didn’t last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day. And that’s how it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight.”

President Obama was able to secure the government support for GM that he wanted and yet the plant remains closed.
Ryan’s comments can also be taken as a comment on the economic recovery or the lack thereof.
From the WSJ, “Auto industry observer David Cole, chairman emeritus of the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Center for Automotive Research, said it would be premature to say the Janesville plant will never reopen. ‘If we get back to any kind of a reasonable market, with 15- or 16 million sales, then I think that's going to require Janesville as well,’ he said. But the economy is recovering more slowly than people anticipated. ‘That's really the key factor.’"

Obama went there and campaigned and essentially led those workers to believe what they “hoped” for. It is a symbol of his entire presidency – empty hope, failed promises, and an anemic recovery. He told them one thing and then the opposite occurred when he was president.

That sounds like a fair thing for Paul Ryan to say especially at a political convention.

[James]

About the downgraded credit rating...

The Republicans were willing to raise the debt ceiling as long as the Democrats would commit to substantial spending cuts as well. In the end, the two sides finally came to an agreement.
Ryan said, “It began with a perfect Triple-A credit rating for the United States; it ends with a downgraded America.“
Many times on this blog I have seen you fall back on the argument that the World Trade Center bombing happened when Bush was President – he is therefore responsible. I don’t really like the argument, but it can be a tough one to refute. Similarly Barack Obama was President when our nation’s credit rating was downgraded. Shouldn’t he bear responsibility for that? He is captain of the ship, albeit a disfunctional ship.

[Katy]

another good "fact check" article on Romney's speech.

http://xfinity.comcast.net/articles/news-politics/20120830/US.CVN.GOP.Convention.Fact.Check/?cid=hero_media

[Katy]

'Honey Boo Boo' ratings top Republican National Convention." [real headline from today's news] How very sad....

I watched last night, but was not impressed. Mitt might as well have said, "by the end of my first term, everyone in America will be rich." And I'm SOOOOO sick of, as you said many times before, "US history began when Obama took office." According to most of the speakers, he's the reason for the economic crises, for the two wars overseas, and somehow taking this country away from us, whatever the hell that means.

And you want to talk ignorance of the people at the convention? Our local news reporter spotted a black woman with a camera going around the convention floor talking to people. When he asked her what she was doing, she said she was from Comedy Central (I believe) and she was asking where all the black people were. One woman's response was, "why we had a black speaker here last night, very nice man. I need to find out who he was." REALLY??? She didn't know who he was???

But the worst was Clint Eastwood's speech. GEEEEZ, some of his comments....time for the senior's home there Clint!

[Another Lori in TX]

I had to laugh tonight - my 13 year old daughter came into the room while we were watching Mitt Romney's speech. She stood there for a few minutes and then left saying, "That man is obnoxious"! lol

[Nikki in NYC]

I didn't find him all that likeable. Because I knew he was telling falsehoods.

I am just dying, dying I tell you, to hear Bill Clinton's keynote speech next week. No one eviscerates like the Clinton Machine. Between him and Hillary, they know where every body in DC is buried. There should be some fine bloodshed next week. With a smile, of course.

[Chicky]

I am scared to death of the amount of people buying this brand of bullshit. I get into daily arguments on these issues, and no matter how much I talk FACTS, the people I am "debating" with continue to buy the lies. I am so afraid that this is what we are going to end up with in November.

[Tracy in Placer County California]

Wow. I am constantly befuddled by the sheeple that let others do their thinking for them A friend of mine posted this on FB today "Guppies just swallow what they are fed. You could feed them excrement, and they'd eat it. Lies get swallowed too. Don't swallow blindly." perfect except it should/could read GOPies.