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NationofChange / Op-Ed
Published: Wednesday 31 October 2012
“Ryan’s plan includes the same $716 billion of savings but gets it from turning Medicare into a voucher and shifting rising health-care costs on to seniors.”
Romney’s Latest Lie, His Former Lies, and Why We Must not Put Liars in the White House
Over the weekend, Romney debuted an ad in Ohio showing cars being crushed as a narrator says Obama “sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China. Mitt Romney will fight for every American job.”
In fact, Chrysler is retaining and expanding its Jeep production in North America, including in Ohio. Its profits have enabled it to separately consider expanding into China, the world’s largest auto market.
Responding to the ad, Chrysler emphasized in a blog post that it has “no intention of shifting production of its Jeep models out of North America to China.”
“They are inviting a false inference,” says Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert on political advertising.
This is only the most recent in a stream of lies from Romney. Remember his contention that the President planned to “rob” Medicare of $716 billion when in fact the money would come from reduced payments to providers who were overcharging — thereby extending the life of Medicare? (Ryan’s plan includes the same $716 billion of savings but gets it from turning Medicare into a voucher and shifting rising health-care costs on to seniors.)
Remember Romney’s claim that Obama removed the work requirement from the welfare law, when in fact Obama merely allowed governors to fashion harder or broader work requirements?
Recall Romney’s assertion that he is not planning to give the rich a tax cut of almost $5 trillion, when in fact that’s exactly what his budget plan does? Or that his budget will reduce the long-term budget deficit, when in fact his numbers don’t add up?
And so on. “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers,” says Neil Newhouse, a Romney pollster. It is not even being dictated by facts.
There are two lessons here. First, lies financed by deep pockets are hard to refute, but they must be refuted. Otherwise, there is no accountability in our democracy. So far, the American media have not adequately refuted Romney’s lies. They seem to believe that dissembling is permissible, or that pointing out this extraordinary lying machine is itself an act of partisanship.
Second, anyone who tells or countenances such lies cannot be trusted to hold the highest office in our land, because he has no compunctions about feeding false information to the public. In recent memory we’ve had a president who told us there were “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq, when in fact there were none. We dare not risk another George W. Bush.
This article was originally posted on Robert Reich's blog.
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ABOUT Robert Reich
ROBERT B. REICH, one of the nation’s leading experts on work and the economy, is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. Time Magazine has named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including his latest best-seller, “Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future;” “The Work of Nations,” which has been translated into 22 languages; and his newest, an e-book, “Beyond Outrage.” His syndicated columns, television appearances, and public radio commentaries reach millions of people each week. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, and Chairman of the citizen’s group Common Cause. His widely-read blog can be found at www.robertreich.org.
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By Kiley Kroh
13 comments on "Romney’s Latest Lie, His Former Lies, and Why We Must not Put Liars in the White House"
November 01, 2012 12:14am
Romney's a plutocrat and talks like a jackass. What's the President? A mutocrat? Obama plays mute and goes along with the status quo. A Romney presidency may finally instigate the masses to rise and crush our sorry two-parties-for-one system. Obama will just keep it going. Do the right thing, go Green this time.
November 01, 2012 8:54am
MUSE:
So, just how does voting for Jill Stein change anything in the real world? No, I want specifics, not just feel-good rhetoric. How will a vote for Jill for president change anything in our world?
I give you a very brief quote from the Sierra Club Insider, the official newsletter of this environmental organization. (You do care about energy and the environment, don't you, or is that just a pose?)
Anyway, here's what the Sierra Club said about this election:
"The contrast between Obama and Romney on the issues we care about couldn't be clearer."
Then it goes on to list some of the good things Obama accomplished, and some of the bad things Romney is promising. And in an "Infogram" they provide more specifics about what Obama has done. I urge you to go to their website and check it out. Maybe you'll finally wake up to the fact that Obama's not the same as Romney, that he has done a lot for energy and the environment, and we can expect him to do more in a second term.
But note those words "COULDN'T BE CLEARER" about the differences between the two candidates. (And like it or not, one of these two will be occupying the White House for the next 4 years.) Yet all I hear from a few stubborn Greens is "yadayada, they're both the same, no choice, no difference, nada, etc., etc., ad nauseam. "
Yet Bernie Sanders, the most progressive voice in the US Capitol, and the Sierra Club, an environmental group founded in 1892, say there's a BIG DIFFERENCE between the two.
I know some Greens are voting for Obama, but they're the kind who are realists, not walking around with their heads in the clouds, but making clear PRAGMATIC choices in this crucial election.
But go ahead and feel pious and elect Romney with your vote, then keep quiet about the disaster you helped install on Pennsylvania Avenue for 4 years. Deal?
October 31, 2012 11:42am
OM Goodness ! Has any of you listened to Obama recently !
The list of lies is long and dates back to before he was elected !
(and that doesn't count white lies and lies of omission )
But, go ahead, kid yourself. You aren't kidding the rest of us.
And, I must say, the BEST liar was Clinton.
HE was an expert. He was called "Slick Willey" in Arkansas for a reason.
AND, don't forget the famous quote : "It depends on what your definition of is is""
October 31, 2012 1:06pm
Obama and Clinton did not lie us into wars that cost American lives and bankrupted the nation.
And Romney plans to lie about the threat of WMDs in Iran. He as much as said so. Only a Republican would be stupid enough to buy into those lies a second time.
October 31, 2012 1:06pm
CHRIS:
I don't hate you or wish you harm,but would you stay in your privileged playground and play with your fellow plutocrat-panderers? You just come here to exhibit your condescension and raise some BPs.
October 31, 2012 10:56am
Especially a bad liar like Mitt who cannot remember what he said a minute ago....and one who seems to live in a parallel universe whose reality does not touches that of earthlings.....
October 31, 2012 10:17am
Willard surely deserves a place of honor in the Demagogue's Hall of Infamy. He can lie so glibly, without blinking an eye or betraying a smirk, even while staring into the TV cameras.
True, another George W, but Romney even does him one better, for at least Jr. Bush had trouble - maybe a genetic defect? - concealing his smirk when he told his boldest lies.
Willard says he "inherited nothing" with wide-eyed innocence, and he beats his drum and says he can get Americans back to work, because he "knows how to run a business." Really? Did Romney start up businesses that employed thousands of workers in good-paying jobs, or didn't he, in fact, take over businesses and shipped those good jobs to China? How many people did Bain employ?
It's hard for disaffected Americans to believe any politicians these days, but Mitt's cynical use of his acting skills to spread lies and misinformation is something that makes even hardened skeptics bug-eyed in disbelief and amazement.
The only way I can laugh at Mitt's lying ways is by revisiting the "Mitt Romney Style gangnam" video on YouTube. The actor's lyrics about "you should elect me cause I've got so much monay (sic)" seems so appropriate at this juncture.
Mitt and his coach and supporter, that ugly bigmouth, Donald Trump, should both be fired and retired from public view. They're both bullies, though with contrasting styles.
I can only hope that voters will make the right choices in this election, and frankly I'm worried about the voters in the largely blue-state Northeast. Being hammered by Sandy and millions without power, and Election Day only a few days from now? One can only hope that the Electoral College votes of those states will still be going to the Dems, because if Obama-supporters can't vote in time, probably the Romneyites will have the same problems, which means that the early voters may carry the day.
And now the idiot who was in charge of Bush's "Katrina" FEMA is criticizing Obama for being in too much of a hurry to help the people suffering after Sandy swept through? Too much, too soon, eh? Consider the source. The whole point about government being inefficient when the Republicans rule the roost is that by showing the masses they can't depend on the national government in times of crisis, they'll all jump on the "shrink-government" bandwagon. Oh, they're cunning, those Republicans!
And why else did that corporate puppet, Jr. Bush, run up such monstrous budget deficits, if not to give the Republicans another handle on shredding the "safety net" that working Americans need and count on?" Oh, the deficits, the deficits, the sky is falling! Gotta get that big-spending Democrat out of office! And we gotta cut all those swollen entitlements!" Ignoring, of course, that the Republican president came into office with a supposed budget surplus and a still-sound economy, while Obama inherited two unpaid wars, an economy in free-fall, and the largest trade and budget deficits in our history.
And how Willard goes on about that. "Obama's policies aren't working. I'll create 12 million jobs, so elect me!"
But Willard never details how he'll create those 12 million jobs, or even which country they'll be in. But heck, it sounds like a winning message, eh, Bishop Romney?
And nowadays my recording machine keeps me busy deleting all the messages from Washington touting the great qualities of Mitt, and my TV screen is swamped with messages about "Obama's failures" from the thinly disguised Super Pacs opposing the President. They have money to burn, they do, and they're desperate. But I don't take many phone calls these days, and watch even less TV than before.
Will money trump reason this election? Tune in after Election Day to find out.
October 31, 2012 10:50pm
If we had good investigative journalism today, we would see that Romney and Bain 'unemployed' far more American workers than were 'employed' during the blood-sucking done on their PE acquisitions.
October 31, 2012 11:03am
fantastic post, and so true!
October 31, 2012 9:56am
I think we also had a recent president who claimed not to have had sex with a certain intern, and another who claimed not to have known about an illegal arms for hostage operation occurring in the White House basement. Perhaps there's something in the water in DC.
October 31, 2012 10:24am
SUNFLOWER:
You have a good point, but it shouldn't be carried too far. While I disapproved of Wee Willie's jollies with Deep-Throat Lewinsky, that was not a betrayal of public trust, but a betrayal of marital vows with Hillary. In short, private morality, or lapse in same, and that's a whole different ballgame than betrayals of public trust. Public morality versus private morality.
I frankly don't care if my president is male or female, black, brown or white, straight or gay, and what they do in their private lives. But I do care a lot about what they do in matters of public trust and public policy. That's the only morality lapses that'll get me fired up.
October 31, 2012 11:05am
And that other guy? Actually, I'm just trying to ruffle Robert's feathers a little to get him off his high horse. I think it would be hard to find a politician in the last sixty years at least that hasn't lied repeatedly with the possible exception of George McGovern.
October 31, 2012 1:02pm
It's a matter of degrees of lying. Mitt Romney has broken the record for lying by a huge margin. He has become the very face of dishonesty.
Has the nation not suffered enough because of the lies of Dubya Bush? Should we elect another under the control of the Project for a New American Century?
PNAC's plan? Invade countries that have mineral resources you covet and take them. Just like Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. Sorry, I'm not buying Mitten's lies, they are too damaging.