Not just a random error or exaggeration. By design. Thomas Edsall points out that the two central themes that the Romney ads are pounding away at, using their enormous financial advantage, have BOTH been evaluated by the three top fact-check organizations as fabrications. And seen together,
“Sharp
criticism has done nothing to hold back the Romney campaign from continuing its
offensive — in speeches and on the air — because the accuracy of the ads is
irrelevant as far as the Republican presidential ticket is concerned. The goal
is not to make a legitimate critique, but to portray Obama as willing to give
the “undeserving” poor government handouts at the expense of hardworking
taxpayers.”
The goal is not
to inform or lead or even criticize, but to mislead and divide…and combine this
with Romney himself repeatedly accusing the President of running a divisive
campaign. So many layers of cowardice;
so bad for America.
A third,
equally misleading—and intentionally so—message has been Paul Ryan repeating
that the President inherited a tough situation and made it worse. Professor Robert McElvaine, points out that
the first part of this claim is a ‘gross understatement,’ and the second part
is a ‘gross misstatement.’
“The
bottom line is that over the 64 years leading up to the inauguration of
President Obama, jobs were created more than twice as fast under Democrats as
they were under Republicans.
Even
a glance at the graph shows that Barack Obama and his policies did not make the
“difficult” — disastrous would be a more accurate term — situation he inherited
worse.”
We can see the job creation situation pretty clearly in the following graph:
In the wake of Citizens United, we should not
underestimate the power of the professionally packaged efforts to distract and
mislead us. Every citizen should
bookmark www.factcheck.com and check it
regularly, along with Politifact and The Washington Post’s fact checker, Glenn Kessler. Because the data simply does not support the claims being made....
Do not let the handful of extremely un-American billionaires bankrolling these ads get away with re-writing our recent history. Do not let them set up house in your head and distort your thinking. Whether to favor the vision for America offered by the incumbent or the challenger…in this election, more than any other in my lifetime, it is absolutely essential that we all put in the work to get the facts so we can trust our own judgment…
Bookmark these
sites and check them every day…see this as your patriotic duty, because it is
up to regular Americans to stand up and do the right thing…if these factcheck
sites are among our daily sources of news we might be strong enough to take on the
advertising juggernaut let loose on Average Americans by Citizens United.
Great post, Bill!
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