My feeling is that Mitt Romney took advantage of the 90 minutes he had on the same stage as the president to elevate his status and to motivate his base. He helped himself more than the president helped himself. But Romney has been losing since the Sun came up the day after the debate. While there has been criticism of the president for lacking energy or not correcting Romney’s lies, the main focus has been on Big Bird and Romney’s lies. Obama committed no gaffes. He told no whoppers. Mitt Romney reminds me of a pageant winner who is stripped of their title for cheating or posing in Playboy. It’s like, “We declared you the winner but your morals are not consistent with the standards the board expects in Miss America.”
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Here we go again.
Can anyone list a specific statement put forth by Romney in the debate that was a “lie”?
Well I’m pretty sure he said global warming is real at one point.
Not all of these are from the debate. But here’s about 50 lies Romney told during the debate or just before or after it.
Have you actually read these?
Where are the “lies”?
For example, the article claims that Romney’s assertion that the unemployment rate has decreased is due to people leaving the workforce is a lie, then proceeds to produce a chart that shows the labor force participation rate has decreased!!! Romney’s assertion is true.
It claims that Romney’s claim that Obama wants to increase taxes on small business is a “lie”…but if the Bush tax cuts expire, almost one million small business owners will see an increase in their personal income tax rate. Romney’s statement is true! The fact that only three percent of small business owners are in this group is irrelevant…as Romney illustrated in the debate, these three percent of businesses employ over 50 percent of individuals employed by a small business! Where’s the lie?
It claims that Romney’s assertion that gas prices have doubled under Obama is a lie. But it’s true! You can certainly argue that Obama is not responsible for the increase, but that is a matter of opinion, not “fact”…Romney’s statement is true!
Should I address the other 47 “lies”?
Here is what is going on…liberals define their ideology as “the truth”, then claim that anyone who disagrees with that “truth” is “lying”.
You’re going to pull a hamstring straining that hard.
In general Romney lies damned near every time he opens his mouth because he lies by omission. Part of what he says might include a fact but he distorts the truth because he doesn’t put it in full context. It’s still lying.
For example when Romney says gas prices have doubled “under the president”, he is clearly phrasing it to try to lay the cause on Obama. He is depending on his audience to be uninformed about why gas prices are really “up”. The last thing Romney will ever admit is that 6 months prior to Obama entering office gas prices were higher than they are now. In fact between 2002 and 2008 the price of gas more than doubled. Then they plunged. It was the global economic collapse that sent prices suddenly lower near the president’s entry into office. So of course they doubled. Much of the economy has recovered and prices are reflecting the high global demand again.
Also what Romney is tapping into is the belief among some of the deluded that $2/gal. gasoline is an American birthright. That’s the kind of fantasy narrative that Michelle Bachmann and other GOP extremists have been pushing.
Well, I guess it depends on what a “lie” is.
Here’s a list of things he said:
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/10/04/958801/at-last-nights-debate-romney-told-27-myths-in-38
-minutes/
Whaddaya wanna bet that Nick-Sam-I-am doesn’t reply to this directly but does post later that “no one here can site any lies”.
That post quote actual lines that were false an in many cases these were simple, undisputable lies. let’s look at just a few choice examples:
“I want to take that $716 billion you’ve cut and put it back into Medicare…. But the idea of cutting $716 billion from Medicare to be able to balance the additional cost of Obamacare is, in my opinion, a mistake.”
The biggest lie of the night because it was repeated so often.
“I don’t have a $5 trillion tax cut. I don’t have a tax cut of a scale that you’re talking about.”
Just about every non-wingnut fact-checker on the planet nailed him on that one. The first sentence is literally true as the estimates are more like $4.8T – but the second is flat out wrong.
“The president’s put it in place as much public debt — almost as much debt held by the public as all prior presidents combined.”
And the lies they keep a-comin’. Given that Obama inherited an economy in free-fall and a budget structure that already had massive deficits built-in the new debt numbers had to be high, and Romney could have literally told the truth about the numbers while falsing claiming it was Obama’s fault, ignoring Bush’s role. But no, that wasn’t enough for him – he had to make a statement that is measurably wrong.
“What I support is no change for current retirees and near-retirees to Medicare.”
Only if he can claim that what he supports is different than the published plans on his website.
“Preexisting conditions are covered under my plan.”
Even his own spokesperson “corrected” this immediately after the debate.
“I think about half of [the green firms Obama invested in], of the ones have been invested in have gone out of business. A number of them happened to be owned by people who were contributors to your campaigns.”
This is only true if “about half” can be extended to cover 3 out of 26.
Mitt is a pathological liar. Sam-Nick is a pathological liar. They all are pathological liars. They have to be … you cannot hold the beliefs they do (Obama raised taxes, government employment is way up under Obama, Obama cut the military, Obama was born in Kenya, the earth is cooling, etc.) without being pathological liars.
That was our previous troll’s line too. I wonder if the troll gets overtime pay for posting all those words on a holiday weekend?
The most damning claim you can make about Romney’ tax claim is that he hasn’t specifically stated which deductions in the tax code he will eliminate.
I wish he were more specific…for example, he should eliminate all mortgage interest deductions on second homes, and limit the deduction in first homes.
Sorry, Lack of specificity is not the same as lying
On the other hand, claiming you aren’t proposing $5 trillion in tax cuts when in fact you are proposing $5 trillion in tax cuts is, well, a lie.
Now, Romney says that his $5 trillion tax cut won’t add to the federal debt because he’ll eliminate deductions and exemptions from the tax code. That’s a separate and distinct claim.
It’s also a claim that Mr. Romney has consistently refused to document in any detail. Furthermore, it’s a claim that has been shown by the Tax Policy Center to be impossible to support without raising taxes on at least some households with incomes under $250,000 a year.
Reagan lowered the top marginal tax rate to 28 percent, yet was able to INCREASE federal revenue…
Bush’s last tax cut took effect in 2003…federal revenue increased from 2003 through 2007, only decreasing in 2008 when the Barney Frank/Federal Reserve induced housing bubble burst.
Sorry…you can lower tax rates and increase tax revenue…it’s been done!
Ah yes, The Laffer Curve. I love that one. It never gets old.
A parable:
Thanks for the comment, but you didn’t respond to the situation Romney’s dealing with.
Nobody’s done what Romney’s proposing: $5 trillion in tax cuts without a loss in revenue because he’ll close exemptions and deductions without making those with incomes under $250,000 pay for it. The Tax Policy Center documented that it can’t be done under current circumstances.
And Romney continues to refuse to offer an explanation for how he thinks it’s possible.
P.S. Reagan did it with the help of Bill Bradley,Dick Gephardt and Dan Rostenkowski, to give credit where credit is due. Part of how they did it was by closing all sorts of loopholes for corporations and affluent individuals.
Actually, Reagan had to turn around and implement the largest tax increase (at that time) in American history because of the hole the first cut blew in the deficit.
The most damning claim you can make about Romney’ tax claim is that he hasn’t specifically stated which deductions in the tax code he will eliminate.
No, the most damning claim is that high-income people don’t take enough deductions to come within a country mile of being able to make Mitt’s rate-cuts deficit neutral.
Your response was completely intellectually dishonest.
You started by stating:
Can anyone list a specific statement put forth by Romney in the debate that was a “lie”?
And then repeat yourself in a follow-on post:
Where are the “lies”?”
I gave you numerous specific examples – including his SPECIFIC claim that his plan covers pre-existing conditions which even his own spokesperson SPECIFICALLY disowned afterwards (he said it would be left to the states to cover that).
You ignored every one of the SPECIFIC citations of SPECIFIC lies in your response and then state:
Sorry, Lack of specificity is not the same as lying
You are not engaging in a conversation – in fact the repetitive nature of your posts with the wording-slightly-altered and the frequent timing of the posts is consistent with automated commenting programs.
And the purpose of this exercise was to demonstrate that any why your every post is worth of a megatroll rating. Debating alternate viewpoints is to be encouraged – spamming a comment board as you do is not.
I refuted your first two purported “lies” regarding Medicare and Romney’s tax proposal (see above)…you just didn’t like the answer.
Regarding the Debt, Obama has increased the debt by 6 Trillion, while all other Presidents added 10 Trillion to the debt. Is that “almost as much”? Hmmm…It certainly is the case that if Obama is reelected, and continues to run 1.1 Trillion dollar annual deficits, he will have added 10 Trillion, matching or surpassing the previous 43 Presidents combined! And please stop blaming Bush…Obama has increased federal spending as a percentage of GDP to 25 percent, the highest level since World War II!
You wrote here:
I refuted your first two purported “lies” regarding Medicare and Romney’s tax proposal (see above)…you just didn’t like the answer.
But what I was responding to was this:
The most damning claim you can make about Romney’ tax claim is that he hasn’t specifically stated which deductions in the tax code he will eliminate.
I wish he were more specific…for example, he should eliminate all mortgage interest deductions on second homes, and limit the deduction in first homes.
Sorry, Lack of specificity is not the same as lying
Not a word about medicare in there. And you did mention the word “tax” but your response didn’t address the point – that he LIED (that’s L-I-E-D) when he said his tax cut’s were not on the scale of $5T.
Nope, as expected you even lie about your own lying.
Are you claiming that Obama did not reduce Medicare payments to Providers?
Do you actually believe you can reduce payments to providers without reducing the quantity and/or quality of service?
How? Free Lunch?
Well, it could be that providers are being overpaid and would provide the same services at a lower cost.
The American Hospital Association agreed to their share of the cuts because they figure their members can make it up on the increased revenue from the 30 million newly insured patients that Obamacare will create.
Another large chunk of the Medicare savings in Obamacare comes from reduced payments to insurance companies. If you want to argue that insurance companies can’t afford some reduced revenues at the same time that Obamacare is creating 30 million additional clients for those same insurance companies, please feel free to go ahead and make that argument.
Finally, as Bill Clinton said at the DNC, “it takes some brass” to criticize Pres. Obama for the $716 billion in Medicare cuts to insurance companies and hospitals, and then turn around and use that $716 billion in your own proposal as Romney & Ryan have done.
You heard it here first, folks: Medicare is so perfectly run that there is absolutely no way to save money by making it more efficient.
Truly, government health care is the very definition of the perfectly-run operation.
Most of the cuts are to the insurers. Their immoral profit margins, not to mention their private death panels make these companies among the most despicable. It is a pleasure to see them taking a cut at the bottom line. No one expects a free lunch except insurance CEOs with their insane bonuses.
As others have noted, you are intellectually dishonest, just like Nick and any of your other prior incarnations.
A dialogue with you is truly wasted time.
Where do I start? How about “”Pre-existing conditions are covered under my plan.” There’s no factual basis for that statement. It’s a positioning statement unencumbered by an actual position. Which come to think of it, describes Romney’s candidacy.
Mitt Romney: Joe Isuzu with prep school polish.
Probably everything he said was a lie except for his desire to cut PBS. Every Republican president since Tricky Dick has wanted to cut that funding. I believe him.
Nick, is that you? Naughty boy.
Not only a serial liar.
Also a cheat:
Pretty sure it’s just a handkerchief. I’ve seen other photos/clips of Romney using it to wipe his lips during the debate.
I hadn’t seen the debunking. Please drop a couple of donuts.
Please stop with this. It’s been debunked already. Regardless, it makes the Dems look like sore losers to point this out.
Agreed.
I had several courses in physics, statistics and mathematics at both the under and graduate level. In all that I can remember, you were allowed either a 5×6 index card (both sides), an 8×11 sheet of paper (one side) or (NOT my favourite) ANY book you could carry in to the classroom (it was a game theoretic application of statistics course. the prof was a fucking sadist.).
Who cares if he did?
I disagree, it should be pointed out. seems to me the “handkerchief” falls too heavily on the podium. It’s not just a small square of white lawn, falls too heavily for that. OTOH I’m fine with Obama’s debate performance since imo he held his ground while Mitt racked up 38 minutes of bullying the moderator and lying, which is what I think ultimately ppl will take away from it.
What pleases me is that the network news didn’t just roll over and declare Romney as the New President. I caught the tail end of a national news broadcast on Friday that went after Romney for the PBS malarky, pointing out that the entire annual budget for PBS was equal to six hours of Pentagon time spent. And they cheerfully touted Big Bird and Sesame Street as well.
The fact checkers have also been vocal about what Romney lied about and contrasts are being made between what he’s said for the past couple of years versus what he said during the debate, and people can see that those don’t match up.
While I would have preferred a more aggressive line taken by Obama during the debate, there are at least others who have stepped up to sift through Romney’s bullshit and speak up. Given time, it will be clear to everyone what a disaster he is, and only the most hardcore lunatics will vote for him.
We just have to hope their numbers are fewer than ours.
The new Mitt didn’t even bother to either factcheck his new positions against his website or to amend still 18-month old website policy positions.
Republicans have always talked about cutting PBS; they seem to have a penchant for pissing off every single one of my childhood idols from Bill Nye to Mr. Rogers…to LeVar Burton:
Former ‘Reading Rainbow’ Host LeVar Burton On Mitt Romney’s PBS Attack: ‘I Was Outraged’
The GOP sense of priorities is laughable when it isn’t treasonous. Remember the emergency meeting they held last year when O’Keefe slapped some edited footage together?
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/house-gop-declare-emergencyover-npr-funding.php
No emergency about jobs though.
A month before Obama enters office with two wars and an economic collapse to rival the Great Depression and the GOP hastily met back then to determine their greatest priority: Obstruct and make Obama a one term president.
http://swampland.time.com/2012/08/23/the-party-of-no-new-details-on-the-gop-plot-to-obstruct-obama/
To be fair, toddlers are just part of the 47% that will never vote for Mitt, and therefore, aren’t entitled to free stuff like watching Big Bird. His message to toddlers is the same as it is to others among the 47% — get off your lazy ass, get a job, and buy your own goodies OR choose richer parents that buy lots of stuff for their kiddies.
My childhood idol Fred Rogers defends PBS funding by talking about his show before Senate Communications Subcommittee in 1969. Nixon had proposed drastic cuts (cutting their $20 million grant in half.) Best argument for non-commercial kids programming ever.
Whoa, have you seen the OfA and Dems September fundraising numbers! I’d heard $150 but the actual amount is $181 mill total & all from donors who gave less than $250. Which means that can still give more in this last month right! Question, with the new Citizens United world, can any other Dems compete with the Obama campaigns ability to get their supporters to contribute? I adj because thinking about 2016, other than maybe Hilary who else could raise the amount of funds needed to compete against the Superpacs?
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/obama-camp-announces-record-fundraising-in-september?m=1
Here the thing about the debates, I suspect it did increase Mittens support among his base. I understand he’s already seen increased fundraising and allegedly volunteering (ill believe that when I see evidence), but in an aggregate of local news headlines in swing states, the front page news as of Friday had Hugh headlines about the job rates & unemployment, which pushed Romney debate performance off the front page and just in time for the fact checking headlines to begin.
Also I read somewhere that Obama was NOT happy with his debate performance. The advisor said don’t expect to see the same Obama from the first debate again. One thing we know about Obams is that he is very competitive (Kobe Bryant talked about playing basketball with the Prez & saying Obama can trash talk with the best of ’em & plays hard to win) &i suspect he will not let another debate like the last one happen again.
also seems to have increased $ in – very good, b/c it’s $ not going to down ticket races
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/romney-campaign-gets-fundraising-boost-after-debate
He is never happy with himself–always expecting perfection so I’m not surprised that he is not happy.
I am pleased that he avoided so many of the possible pitfalls. Even though the pundits were furious that he didn’t go for the 47% and other attacks, I think that would have been a disaster.
Did you see Mitt’s Hannity appearance? I think he had prepared his “sincere” face and some perfect responses which he would have delivered if asked at the debate to an audience of 70 million. It would have been a serious counter to all the ads the President has been running in the swing states–but he was not given that chance. So now he has to run around to only the friendly shows and places to try and deliver those messages. As it is, we definitely won the day after and then as a bonus got a jobs report good enough to scare the conservatives into crazy conspiracies.
I think it also scared the President’s supporters just enough to reengage and turn out for events, donations, volunteer shifts.
All in all I am very pleased.
Oh and Big Bird–what a beautiful thing this is!
Also seem to remember that the President got Romney to confirm his support for turning Medicare into vouchers.
New OfA Ad: Dishonest
http://ofa.bo/KT5fE1
Can’t see the ad – you have to be logged into facebook to see the video at your link.
Why Obama now
great video
http://whyobamanow.org/
That is wonderful. Thanks.
I got goosebumps watching the video at your link.
You know how you feel when you’ve watched a really compelling movie at the movie theater, and you just sit there for a minute after the move ends, because it was so powerful that you don’t want to break the spell, don’t want to get up and walk out, and don’t want to even talk about it yet?
That’s how I feel after watching the video at your link.
My nephew just turned 18 on wednesday, and I’m going to send him your link and the link to “wake the fuck up”.
Shared widely ~ thanks Errol.
Exactly. The analogy I’ve been thinking of is Barry Bonds. Sure, he broke Hank Aaron’s home run record, but so what? Everyone knows he cheated.
True. But so did McGwire and Sosa and hundreds of others. It was an era of cheating and only fools didn’t participate.
Kind of like the Reagan era from 1981-today on Wall Street.
Here’s what I’ve noticed. Obama supporters on blogs and the intertubes who I consider poli-addicts, myself included, are still talking about Obama’s debate performance, but the general man on the street discussion is about the fact that Romney wants to FIRE BIG BIRD. that’s what being discussed around the water cooler, add to that the job numbers and also the record haul that the Dems had in September ($181 million $30 mill more than the $150mill record last time) and Obama debate performance will prob be a wash.
I’m as reclusive as the next Internet commenter, but it really behooves us to get out of our own bubble too. yes, 67 mill watched the debate, but I contend with nothing but gut feeling that the majority of those who viewed were already solidified in who they were gonna vote for or were already leaning towards one over the other anyway and no one really changed their vote, even with Obamas performance. I’m a true believer that there is no such thing as a true undecided voter. They know who they are voting for, but the question for them is whether to vote at all. as for independents I tend to think of those people as either Dem or Rep, who primarily vote the majority of the time for one party, but once in a cycle votes outside party line. I just think u can’t please those people no matter what u do, so just keep to core principles and hope that this is the cycle where they vote with u.
Also, not everyone can afford cable and the Disney channel. nowadays without cable if u want quality family programming for your young kids to look at PBS is the way to go, and Big Bird, Sesame Street is a big part of that. Notice too Romney said Big Bird and not Elmo, cause I bet they researched that line and thought hey don’t hate on Elmo, so they went with Big Bird, but yes Elmo is the big thing, but by “attacking” Big Bird, Romney taped into 40 years worth of formative years of a big part of the voting population, even Repub. I,m 35, soon to be 36, and damn if I don’t STILL remember songs I learned from Sesame Street.my cousin is 25 and literally learned his alphabet from school yes, but a large part is from the Sesame Street ABC cassette tape his mother bought him long before Elmo.
people really shouldn’t underestimate the power of Sesame Street.
I said it first!!! At least on Booman’s page
And don’t forget, PBS also airs Downton Abbey. Cancel that, and there will be riots.
some newspaper headlines and the country
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a330/nellybell28/e1b236543706739de55656c6b9675585_zps7a531489.jpg
Thank you, Lamh. I needed that.