When are patriotic, morally upright, truthful Americans going to stop putting up with politicians lying to them? I'm mainly talking to you, Republicans, because right now your party is committing the worst Blatant Lie offenses.
Recently Mitt Romney, the guy who most likely will be your presidential candidate, got a Pants on Fire rating from the highly respected PolitiFact, which sorts out truths from falsehoods.
Romney approved a campaign ad that claimed Obama said, "If we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose." But that's not true, says Politifact.
Here’s what Obama said in the October 2008 speech, which came about two weeks before he defeated Sen. John McCain:
"Even as we face the most serious economic crisis of our time, even as you are worried about keeping your jobs or paying your bills or staying in your homes, my opponent's campaign announced earlier this month that they want to ‘turn the page’ on the discussion about our economy so they can spend the final weeks of this election attacking me instead," Obama said in the speech. "Sen. McCain's campaign actually said, and I quote, ‘If we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose.’"
So the comment is drastically different than the way it's portrayed in the Romney ad. Obama was actually saying that his opponent’s campaign three years earlier had said, "If we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose." That context is not included in the Romney ad -- and leaving it out sends a profoundly different message.
Well, that's putting it mildly. PolitiFact doesn't like to use the word "lie." Pants on Fire, though, and lie are synonymous. This wasn't an innocent mistake. Romney knew damn well that Obama was quoting McCain.
He just chose to lie.
Is this who we want to be President of the United States, someone who has no moral convictions backing up his political credentials, someone who will do anything to win an election, someone who denies reality in favor of fantasy?
It's disgusting, all this blatant lying by politicians.
I'm not saying that Republicans are the only ones guilty of this. Democrats lie also. But Romney is guilty of one of the worst lies: claiming that an opposing politician said something that he or she really didn't.
It'll only stop when voters punish candidates for not speaking the truth, not respecting facts, not coming down on the side of objective (or intersubjective) reality. Saying so doesn't make it so, Mitt Romney.
Amazingly, on the radio I heard a spokesman for Romney claim that because Obama spoke those misleadingly edited words, it was OK to use them in the ad. After all, they were Obama's words, because he said them. Well, turnabout is fair play.
Did you know that Mitt Romney wants to raise everybody's taxes? This must be true, because Romney spoke those words. Check it out.
More evidence of how Romney is out to deceive America:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BUaUyBjLJH4
It's good to see that reporters and commentators are calling this like it is: a lie. Romney approved the lie. He's unfit to be president of the United States -- not only because he's a liar, but for many other reasons also.
Posted by: Blogger Brian | November 24, 2011 at 11:03 AM