Since I posted the full video of President Obama's speech the Veterans of Foreign Wars yesterday, it's only fair that I also post Mitt Romney's speech to the same convention.
We talked yesterday about some of the more important flaws in the Republican's remarks, and Heather Hurlburt documented some pretty dramatic lies Romney told during the speech, but there was another excerpt I wanted to highlight.
Consider this excerpt, which struck me as important:
"A healthy American economy is what underwrites American power. When growth is missing, government revenue falls, social spending rises, and many in Washington look to cut defense spending as an easy out. That includes our current president.
"Today, we are just months away from an arbitrary, across-the-board budget reduction that would saddle the military with a trillion dollars in cuts, severely shrink our force structure, and impair our ability to meet and deter threats. Don't bother trying to find a serious military rationale behind any of this, unless that rationale is wishful thinking. Strategy is not driving President Obama's massive defense cuts. In fact, his own Secretary of Defense warned that these reductions would be 'devastating.' And he is right."
At this point, we could note the irony of the Republican presidential hopeful condemning spending cuts, arguing that it would hurt the economy if Washington spent fewer tax dollars, but let's put that aside and focus on a more glaring problem: Romney thinks the automatic defense cuts are "President Obama's massive defense cuts." They're not.
The Republican presidential candidate is actually condemning defense cuts offered by his congressional Republican allies.
Why did Obama's "own Secretary of Defense" warn that "these reductions would be 'devastating'"? Because they weren't his boss' idea.
As we discussed last week, there are deep, automatic defense cuts set to kick in at the end of the year. But the history matters: as part of last year's debt-ceiling deal, policymakers accepted over $1 trillion in cuts that would be implemented if the so-called super-committee failed. Democrats weren't completely willing to roll over -- they wanted to create an incentive for Republicans to work in good faith
Republicans agreed: if the committee failed, the GOP would accept defense cuts and Dems would accept non-defense domestic cuts. The committee, of course, flopped, which put us on the clock for the automatic reductions (the "sequester") that Republicans contributed to the very process they insisted upon.
Romney believes these cuts would undermine the military during a time of war. That's not a crazy position, and the Obama administration tends to agree. But when Romney tells voters the cuts are Obama's idea, he's either lying or ignorant. There's no other option.
Postscript: It's worth clarifying, in case there's any confusion, that the Obama administration has endorsed some defense cuts, but those reductions have been endorsed by the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs, who believe the cuts are responsible and would not undermine the strength and/or readiness of the military. That's not what Romney's talking about -- he referred specifically to the "arbitrary," automatic cuts that are "just months away." Those cuts are the GOP's idea.
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" Those cuts are the GOP's idea."
Yes, but they happened on "Obama's Watch", ergo he owns them.
Also the awful weather this summer, the drought/floods, and any plague of locusts that may happen to come along.
The Good Stuff? That's because we are a God Fearing Christian Nation of self-made small business owners!
Those "cuts" came about as a part of a compromise between the parties.....
Uh, huh. And now one side wants to forget about the part it didn't want. You know which side we're talking about, don't you? The Republicans.
I find myself disappointed that they still haven't figured out a way to blame the drought on Obama. I guess it's the idea that any human being, even the evil cryptoislamofacistchicagothugnotatallanglosaxon usurper, could affect climate that hangs them up.
Be disappointed no more:
- Will The Epic Drought 'Darken Obama Reelection Prospects'?
- Could the drought cost Obama votes this fall?
given the military history of the romney family, i would think he would pretend the vfw didn't exist. the leadership of that organization, like that of the nra, has long been hijacked by screwballs with their own agenda's. that's why a bona fide war hero like lloyd bentson is booed and a shirk like dan quayle is cheered within a week of each other. romney is one of the few acquarius age politico's who can make dubya and quayle look like war hero's (at least they found a uniform to fit them).
I bet a lot of those "vets" had the "Louisiana Experience"
General George Patton: "Thirty years from now, when you're sitting around your fireside with your grandson on your knee and he asks you, "What did you do in the great World War II," you won't have to say, "Well... I shoveled @!$%# in Louisiana."
Well, first, the trillion dollars is not all defense cuts. Those are $500 Billion.
Second, it's $500 billion over 10 years. $50 billion a year out of an almost $800 billion budget, most of which will be "paid for" when we withdraw from Afghanistan.
The pentagon budget will only actually realize something like a 1% reduction of it's annual increases by 2020.
So much for "gutting the military", eh?
Damn you... Don't you know facts have a liberal bias? BIAS!!!! WHAT ARE YOU, A PARTISAN?!?!?!
Yeah, well, facts are biased whenever they don't serve whatever political purpose. My congressman was on the local news tonight bloviating about how the budget cuts are bad and how he voted against them, yada yada. One quick internet search shows he voted for the final bill.
Most people would say he voted FOR the cuts. But really, he voted against the amendment before he voted for the bill so he really DIDN'T vote for it.
Or something. Everything in politics spins like vinyl. Every "fact" is both for and against something. Everyone voted for it before they voted against it, or voted against it before they voted for it.
As to being a partisan...yes, I am...I'm on my own side.
I find myself disappointed that they still haven't figured out a way to blame the drought on Obama.
No, they're blaming it on the End Times... The Bible says God will end the world with fire this time.
We need to have a designated 'rebuttalist' follow Romney around so that after each of his speeches we can inform the audience of all the glaring errors and omissions just presented.
Most of them are as offended by the truth as much as romney is
Exactly john , I have pretty much had it with dems acting just like conservatives , and giving them cover for our 300 times bigger military spend than the rest of the world , while cutting unemployment bennys and food stamps
I also can not read what romney has to say any more , at this point the guy never speaks a truth , with the media giving him a big thumbs up , if obama tried to sell a line of crap like ronemy is doing there , there would be a media storm for 3 weeks about it
Most thinking people are aware that paying for the afgan war is completely separate from the bloated monstrosity of the DoD , with cover like this given to the dems on defence spending , I doubt I will be part of the dem party for much longer , let the conservatives put america out of her misery
The day after last Thanksgiving I was listening to a program on NPR. There was a discussion on military spending. A caller said he worked at a place that manufacture a type of brush that is used for among things cleaning out the guns on US Army tanks. He said his company sells these brushes that are used for a few months and then discarded for $120.00. To everyone else they are sold for $39.00. Why do they do that/ Because they can get away with it!
If 1 quarter of the money wasted on brushes could be stopped it would save millions. If the military would be more efficient and make sure they weren't being taken it would help greatly. I wish they would.
Eeew! Romney's campaign is so rotten it's beginning to stink--it's the corpse of the previous administration.
By my count the 'un-american' one is Romney, with a major advisor/bundler just revealed as registered foreign agent for Hong Kong, as well as a convicted war criminal.
The U.S. military budget is bloated. It constitutes 42.8% of the total world military spending.
There is a common sense (and occasionally humorous) solution in the "Why Do We Have the Most Powerful Military in the World (No. Seriously, Why?)" post on the "Grumbles From an Old Grouch" blog. (grumblesfromanoldgrouch.com)
Republican defense cuts are not republican defense cuts if republicans say that they are Obama's defense cuts.
If a republican defense cut happens in a corporately owned media forest and no one hears it, is it still a republican defense cut?
If RMoney's campaign cuts and splices sentences from an Obama speech and the corporately owned media report it as 'the Obama campaign says', is it still a lie?
Republicans are returning to the old argument that the Dems are soft on defense despite the fact that they agreed to the automatic cuts. I would not be surprised that this was their strategy all along when they agreed to the cuts. But now the possibility that defense contractors will lose business because of the cuts looks more likely, the Republicans have worked themselves into a corner. They are looking at the possibility that Romney is going to lose and the Republicans may lose the House. This puts the Republicans and their benefactors at a disadvantage if Republicans are forced to negotiate on the budget. Grover Norquist's pledge of no tax increases is becoming a noose around the Republicans necks.
Whenever RoMoney opens his mouth it is to speak to his audience to reinforce what they already believe. Therefore, I do not believe it is an "either/or" situation. It is definitely a "LIE."
He can't be that ignorant because to make up a lie, one has to at least be familiar with the truth.
And all the professional REMFs, er, I mean "veterans" (of the wars of the warehouses at Cam Ranh Bay) in the VFW cheered him.
For those unfamiliar with the term, REMF means "rear echelon mother frakker (only not that last word)", the place where one finds the Professional Veterans.
And let us not forget that the reason the committee flopped is that Republicans on it refused to compromise at all, and would only agree to an outcome of all spending cuts and no tax increases.
I just wanted to point out about tonights show... Ezra is hosting again, and he seems to be surprised any time someone in Washington misleads the people and gets caught (even though many on the right usually have been pointing out the disingenuousness of the claim from the start).
Did MSNBC scare away everyone that is decent on teleprompter that actually has an analytical brain? If MSNBC didn't, please call someone besides the stenographer, ezra next time anyone is out? BTW yall couldn't re-sign Rattigan and seem to be about to give Ezra his "own" show (though someone will obviously have to tell him what to write/say).
Think about that, I don't see eye to eye with rattigan on some things but, would anyone trade him for Ezra and say to themselves, "Boy I really think we are a stronger network now."?