Monday, September 26, 2011

Romney's Big Lie

Steve Benen exposes GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's big lie on his Political Animal blog in Washington Monthly.

Here's the line from last night’s debate that Mitt Romney simply loves to tell: “The president went about this all wrong. He went around the world and apologized for America.” If someone makes a bogus claim, he or she is merely wrong. When someone repeats the bogus claim after learning the truth, they’re lying. When someone builds a national campaign message around the obvious falsehood, they’re shamelessly lying.

But this plainly dishonest claim is at the core of Romney’s entire campaign message — it’s in every speech; it’s in every debate; it’s even in the title of his book. And the underlying point of the lie isn’t just over some routine policy dispute — Romney desperately wants Americans to question the president’s love of country. The “apology” claim is a lie, but it’s also an ugly smear. The fact that Romney repeats this incessantly says a great deal about his character, or in this case, the lack thereof.


Sure enough, non-partisan fact-check website Politifact.com has evaluated this statement and ruled it "Pants on Fire."

This is one of my biggest complaints about the GOP: for all of their self-righteous moralizing Republicans sure do lie a lot. Take a look at the rest of the ratings from the latest GOP Presidential debate. Of eleven statements evaluated, seven had serious problems with the truth (Pants on Fire, False, or Mostly False) while four were either True or Mostly True.

Further, take a look at Politifact's ratings for all of the 2012 GOP Presidential candidates. Every one of them has more Pants on Fire, False or Mostly False statments than True or Mostly True statements except Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. Of 18 True statments for Romney, 8 were for accurate exposure of the lies of his GOP rivals (low hanging fruit to be sure). Compare this with President Obama whose True or Mostly True ratings outnumbered Mostly False, False or Pants on Fire ratings 151-94. Obama has fewer Pants on Fire ratings (four) than Perry, Romney, Bachmann or Cain despite having several times more total ratings.

--Ballard Burgher

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