This time on Social Security.
She's really trying to set some kind of record, I believe.
In an AP piece today, she made the following seemingly alarming assertion about Obama's alleged stance on Social Security:
He said he would reinstitute a pay-as-you-go rule that calls for spending reductions to match increases and would shun what he said were the past few years' "casual dishonesty of hiding irresponsible spending with clever accounting tricks." He called the long-term solvency of Social Security "the single most pressing fiscal challenge we face by far" and said reforming health care, including burgeoning entitlement programs, was a huge priority.
Well, not exactly.
In fact, not at ALL, because this is what Obama ACTUALLY said today:
Now, I want to be very clear: While we are making important progress towards fiscal responsibility this year in this budget, this is just the beginning. In the coming years, we'll be forced to make more tough choices and do much more to address our long-term challenges, from the rising cost of health care that Peter described, which is the single most pressing fiscal challenge we face by far, to the long-term solvency of Social Security.
By misreading his words, whether willfully or lazily, she completely inverted what he said, which was clearly that "the rising cost of health care" was in fact what he viewed as "the single most pressing fiscal challenge we face by far", and NOT "the long-term solvency of Social Security". You'd really have to be massively dense, a very poor or perhaps sleep-deprived reader, or intentionally dishonest, to misconstrue what he said to mean that "the long-term solvency of Social Security" was "the single most pressing fiscal challenge we face by far".
And we wonder why the media still refers to Social Security as being "near broke" and "in crisis". Of course, it didn't help that Obama himself repeated and thus reinforced such memes during the campaign. THIS is what happens when you parrot dishonest RW talking points in order to curry faux bipartisan favor with the Broderites and avoid a real fight. At least he finally appears to get it.
I think.
Cross-posted on OpenLeft as a Quick Hit:
AP's Liz Sidoti gets it wrong AGAIN, this time on Social Security