I am struck this primary season by the ease with which candidates play outside the bounds of truth. Rhetorical flourish - even excess - is to be expected in the political arena, but what is new in this Presidential cycle is the bold use of blatant untruth by the candidates themselves. From Newt Gingrich's labeling of the President as a "Kenyan anti-colonialist," to the oft-used meme that the President is a Socialist, these candidates seem to have no problem saying anything to fire up the base... true or not.
Listening to Mitt Romney's victory speech in New Hampshire on Tuesday night had plenty more examples of this disregard for the truth. The President didn't go around the world apologizing for America. He didn't go around the country saying "it could be worse." There are several lines that jump off the page at me.
Romney: President Obama wants to put free enterprise on trial.
No he doesn't. In fact, in his speech in Osawatomie, KS, Obama said "the free market is the greatest force for economic progress in human history." What the President continues to speak out about is the abuse of that system. Romney has chosen to run on his "job creator" success. More on that later.
Romney: He wants to turn America into a European-style entitlement society.
This is ridiculous. Besides the fact that there is no backup for this claim, no examples of such an aim, facts do not back this up. Take the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a.k.a the dreaded
Romneycare"Obamacare." The Affordable Care Act, in contrast to European-style medicine, is based on the free market patient-insurer model rather than the single-payer system that is found in almost every industrialized country. Romney knows this... it's based on the plan he instituted in Massachusetts. (More on that below.)
Romney: He is making the federal government bigger, burdensome, and bloated... He raised the national debt...He enacted job-killing regulations; I’ll eliminate them. He lost our AAA credit rating; I’ll restore it. He passed Obamacare. I'll repeal it.
Discretionary spending at the federal level continues to shrink. The deficit we face is largely due to three things: the Bush-era tax cuts, Medicare Part D, and decreased tax revenue (which is due to loopholes in the tax code and the recessed economy.)
This link contains several illustrative charts in that regard. In addition, President Obama insisted that the cost of the war show up in the budget, a departure from the Bush practices. This immediately showed deficit that had previously been hidden. The shortfall in the budget could be immediately closed by simply letting all of the Bush tax cuts expire. And ending the wars. Robert Reich has thoroughly debunked the GOP talking points when it comes to the deficit
here. As far as "Obamacare" goes, the US Government Accountability Office has said that repealing it would
blows a hole in the deficit.
The truth is that I could go line-by-line and continue to expose the lies, but honestly, it would take too long. And this is just one speech... one speech that the media has largely lauded as Romney's strongest speech, without so much as a mention of the ridiculous lies contained within. His standard stump speeches and media appearances contain just as much made-up mularkey. And pious baloney. Romney, who - as stated before - is running as a "job creator," has run into problems when it comes to supporting his claims. The assertion that he created over 100,000 net jobs has been widely debunked,... even by his own campaign. One expects spin and stretching in politics, no matter how revolting even that may be. But this is different. What Romney and other Republicans have resorted to is making up lies that fit their narrative: that this President is somehow "other," an alien that doesn't understand - or even hates - America and its ways, and is out to destroy our way of life. They try to paint him as incompetent, unintelligent, and un-American. They accuse him of treason. They make ridiculously false claims that he can't understand the economy because he's never had a job. They make accusations that would have outraged the world only a few years ago, but this venomous attack has become so common that it hardly, if at all, registers as outrageous.
This kind of blatant tearing down of the man and the office of President is what is truly un-American. It is time for sober-minded patriots to stand up and speak out against the attacks against the rightful and honorable President of the United States. One can disagree with the policies or positions of the President without resorting to such dishonorable levels.
(h/t to my cowriter, R.L. Alitheia- rlalitheia.wordpress.com)