Rep. Paul Ryan’s national debut- his speech at the Republican National Convention- could have been an opportunity to be honest with the American Sheeple about himself, his views, and the GOP vision for America. Not surprisingly, what we got was a speech that Sally Kohn of FoxNews.com called “1. Dazzling…2. Deceiving…3.Distracting..” When a columnist from Fox News calls you out for lying, you have to know that you’ve bs=usted the needle on the mendacity meter.
The extent to which Ryan is willing to go to bend the truth past the breaking point is truly stunning to behold. Even though Ryan had to know that everything he said would be thoroughly parsed and fact-checked to the nth degree, he personified Romney/Ryan’s commitment to running a post-truth campaign. And by “post truth,” I mean shamelessly lying so egregiously as to blow by the point of mendacity. Whether it was blaming President Obama for the closing of a GM plant in Janesville, WI, that closed before the President even took the Oath of Office, or failing to mention his numerous votes to raise the deficit when Captain Codpiece © was President, Ryan was lying. From beginning to end, from start to finish, Ryan’s speech was a patchwork of lies, deception, misinformation, half-truth, and convenient omissions.
There should be no doubt that Ryan was knowingly and shamelessly lying. And if he’ll lie to America on national television during the biggest speech of his life, there’s no way we should trust him if he becomes the second most powerful man in the world.
I’d thought about taking at crack at fact-checking Ryan’s speech, but it dawned on me that, with so many others doing exactly the same thing, there was no reason for me to re-invent the wheel. Not when so many with more resources could accomplish it far more easily and efficiently. The reality is that Paul Ryan’s career trajectory is built on a foundation of lies. His status is dependent on those on the Right and in the Mainstream Media holding their noses as they swallow the lies and dishonesty whole and without question.
With the number of media outlets fact-checking Ryan and finding him wanting in the veracity department, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the sheer volume of lies being foisted upon the American electorate by the Romney/Ryan campaign. Since it won’t do any good to bury my readers in the minutiae of Ryan’s dishonesty, I’ll lean on Aviva Shen from ThinkProgress to lay out the six most egregious lies from his shameless and thoroughly dishonest performance in Tampa:
“A downgraded America.” Ryan blamed the president for the nation’s credit downgrade in August 2011 after Republicans threatened to allow the government to default on its debt for the first time in history. But the ratings agency explicitly blamed “Republicans saying that they refuse to accept any tax increases as part of a larger deal.”
“More debt than any other president before him, and more than all the troubled governments of Europe combined.” Romney has made the almost identical claim, that Obama has amassed more debt “as almost all of the other presidents combined.” But their math doesn’t add up: when Obama took office, the national debt was $10.626 trillion. It has increased to slightly above $15 trillion.
Shuttered General Motors plant is “one more broken promise.” Ryan described a GM plant that closed down in his hometown, Janesville, Wisconsin, and blamed Obama for breaking his promise to keep the plant open when he visited during his campaign. But Obama never made that promise, and the plant shut down in December 2008, before Obama even took office.
Obama “did exactly nothing” on Bowles-Simpson. Ryan said, “He created a bipartisan debt commission. They came back with an urgent report. He thanked them, sent them on their way, and then did exactly nothing.” In fact, Ryan was instrumental in sabotaging the commission, leading the other House Republicans in voting against the plan.
“$716 billion, funneled out of Medicare by President Obama.” Ryan’s favorite lie is a deliberate distortion of Obamacare’s savings from eliminating inefficiencies. Furthermore, Ryan’s own plan for Medicare includes these savings. Romney has vowed to restore these cuts, which would render the trust fund insolvent 8 years ahead of schedule.
“The greatest of all responsibilities, is that of the strong to protect the weak.” Ryan closed the speech with an invocation of social responsibility, saying, “The truest measure of any society is how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves.” However, numerous clergy members have condemned Ryan’s budget plan as “cruel,” and “an immoral disaster” because of its devastating cuts in social programs the poor and sick rely on. Meanwhile, Ryan would give ultra-rich individuals and corporations $3 trillion in tax breaks.
If the President has been the complete, abject failure that Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney would have us believe, why do they feel the need to lie so shamelessly about him? Perhaps it’s because they know that Barack Obama hasn’t been a failure, except perhaps in the imagination of hyper-partisan Conservatives who fault the President for having the temerity to consume oxygen needed by good, God-fearing, Conservative White patriots. Romney and Ryan know the truth in their hearts, but they no doubt understand that they can’t win if they run on the truth…and so they’re reduced to lies, propaganda, misinformation, selective editing, and character assassination. And they’re doing it without shame or remorse.
Andy Borowitz may be a brilliant satirist, but it’s difficult to see the satire in this sendup of Ryan’s speech:
TAMPA (The Borowitz Report)—In his speech to the Republican National Convention last night, Vice-Presidential nominee Paul Ryan test-drove what the Romney-Ryan campaign says will be a major theme for the 2012 Republican campaign: “lying about everything.”
“The question was, how many whoppers could you pack into one speech?” the campaign adviser Tracy Klugian said. “All I can say is, when Fox News accuses a Republican of lying, you know you’ve witnessed something historic.”
Mr. Ryan pronounced himself pleased with his performance, noting that he only strayed into the truth when he recited the names of his wife and children.
Welcome to the first post-truth Presidential campaign of the new millenium. The truly amazing (and infinitely sad) aspect of this point in our history is that Romney/Ryan stands a decent chance of winning in November.
I suppose a Romney/Ryan victory will merely prove the GOP’s working theory that the truth is for losers and Liberals…because it seems the American Sheeple aren’t all that concerned with the shameless, non-stop mendacity that characterizes the GOP ticket. Nor is most of the Mainstream Media.
And you wonder why I fear for the future of this country?
