When Clint Eastwood gave his now infamous speech at the RNC one of his most popular lines with his audience was"
"I haven't cried that hard since I found out that there are 23 million unemployed people in this country," Eastwood said. "This administration hasn't done enough to cure that."
Why were we so ready to believe the old man when he spoke? The republican convention has been all about lies to appease their low-information base. Why should an iconic actor be any different? He seems to have done a brilliant acting job lying because I don't see a push back on his obviously inflated and manufactured figures. He is like all the rest of them. They're never too old to accumulate more money. I'm sure he wants to keep his Bush tax breaks for millionaires and get even more. He's probably planning like the rest of them to take it with him or feels like if he leaves enough money to his many children that they will like him more after he is gone.
CNN Money
But the U.S. Labor Department, which puts out the official government jobs data, counts 12.8 million people as unemployed -- not 23 million.
Even if you add in unemployed people who are not counted in that total because they are not actively looking for work -- a category the Labor Department terms "marginally attached" -- that number rises to just over 15.3 million.
To get to the 23 million figure you have to add in part-time workers. Or perhaps add in the seasonal summer
youth workers. But whatever you do to get to that figure it takes creative accounting and a lying ryan like neglect of facts and embellishment. To give the benefit of a doubt let's assume that Eastwood was
fed the inflated number as Romney has
used it before. Still it's quite sad to see a national icon repeat a lie with out verifying.
So Dirty Harry lied and has a teabag hanging from his cowboy hat. Not such a hero after all.