Mitt Romney's welfare lie was repeated quite a bit at the Republican convention last night, though the number of people willing to acknowledge its detachment from reality is growing.
Every independent fact-checker has rejected the lie, as have Bill Clinton and the Republican architect of the 1996 welfare reform law. When Newt Gingrich was asked to defend the claim, he conceded there's "no proof" to support Romney's claim.
As of this morning, we can add Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) to the list.
MSNBC's Chris Jansing asked the far-right governor, "[F]act checkers have called these ads and these statements erroneous. So why are so many Republicans still making this argument?" Brownback largely dodged the question, so the host followed up. "But you agree these claims that the work requirement has been abolished are false?" she asked.
"As far as I have seen," Brownback conceded.
Romney political director Rich Beeson was on NPR yesterday, and Steve Inskeep highlighted the dishonesty of the claim. Beeson would only laugh -- audibly -- and say "reasonable people can have a disagreement over this."
First, racially-charge lies aren't funny. Second, "reasonable people" should be able to agree to at least try to tell the truth, and to stop repeating a lie once it's been exposed as a lie.
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But hey! It's the Obama campaign that's been negative, right, with all those mean facts and horribly accurate data?
If Romney didn't want awful things to be said about him and his running mate, maybe they should have tried not being awful human beings. It's a thought.
Lies, damn lies and Romney.
(Thank you Mark Twain.)
LA Times, last night: "Rick Santorum repeats inaccurate welfare attack on Obama" http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-santorum-welfare-obama-20120828,0,1255653.story
Reality has a well-known "liberal bias."
Now that's a bumper sticker I would pay for!
TCinLA, if that's your quote it's brilliant. Even if it's not yours, I thank you for posting it. I suggest everyone use this whenever possible.
"Reasonable people" does not define the current tea stained Republican Party in any reasonable way.
Hard to believe that Brownback would say something counter to Republican talking points. I expect him to recant, re-shape and/or retract his statements.
Or say he was quoted "out of context."
And then there are those "reasonable" people who reason away lying with platitudes like That's politics for you! or They all do it.
And although the guy was proven to have blatantly lied repeatedly on more than one issue, these same folks will steadfastly believe that he would never lie to them after he is President. The guy looks you straight in the eye and without blinking lies like a rug, but he won't do that after he's Prez. Right!
He lies to get what he wants and if he wants something after he gets what he wants, he will lie to get what he wants and . . . .
But these aren't "reasonable" times, nor are the GOP "reasonable people". Besides Brownback will change his story the next time around, I heard that Rove and the Koch brothers gave him a call.
This is the way the rest of the campaign is going to be conducted. Tell lies and then walk it back. Attack the President for something he didn't do and then walk it back. Make false charges about the President and walk it back. Disgusting. Obama should put in campaign ads every Republican who agrees that Romney's statements are untrue.
Mike, I normally agree with you, but I must disagree with you on this.
There is little to no chance that the Romney campaign will ever walk anything back.
I know Romney won't walk back the lies, but he is letting the surrogates do that so he can later claim he corrected his "misstatements."
Oh, go ahead, and push your "theory" that the earth is round! Meanwhile, out here in Kansas, we can plainly see that it is, indeed, flat. And flat is good, whether you are plowing fields or keeping an eye out for Liberal Muslim Terrorists trying to sneak up on you from over that so-called "horizon"!
Outright lies will not help Romney with all independents; just the dumber ones and there may not be as many of them as he thinks. calling Obama the food stamp president resonated with the base for Nwoot. Romney's lies also tickle them but it doesn't greatly expand his already esstablished base.
His problem is that his base has no where else to go and he has no confidence this is true.
Brownback's dick is not the size of a raisin.
As far as I've seen.
Mitt should distrust his handlers who have pushed and lured him into untenable positions. He has previously kept himself buffered from damage and had a bail-out position. His ego may be huge, but he is not stupid. By the time all the dirt is exposed he will be sorry he chose to run.
After the Bain docs leaked on Aug 27 he's got to be concerned that more are yet to come and where are they coming from???
Is anyone else concerned that Gov. Romney may not be the dynamic, take charge, fix-it leader that he (apparently) once was? Is the man we see today the same man that had been described by his wife and previous colleagues? If not, why not?
Why would someone with $250 million dollars, who REALLY DOESN'T want to be president, run anyway?
There's no real passionate 'got to help the people' guy hiding in Mitt -- so why is he putting himself through this potential debacle?
Could it be this is all just like a set of expensive golf clubs? Or because "Dad" did? Or because Rove and the Koch boys need a GOP surrogate to complete the Republican takeover of America...
unsuprisingly, they lie as much as he lies.
Yes, it cold be that they are not truthful. Or, it could be that they saw him then differently than we see him now. Could he have changed? Has the campaign taken its toll on his health?
Since Romney claims Mormon is part of the Christian Religion and Cardinal Dolan is giving the closing Blessing, do you think he can remind them of the 9th commandment? The one that states "Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Thy Neighbor". Or will the Catholic Church make allowances for what Commandments can be broken and by whom.
They do NEED very much to DECLINE the WELFARE ROLES and many women r on it for what? Having a kid they were not rready or finanically able to have... BUT... U must offer jobs and make it MANDSTORY for all kids in AMERICA to GRADUATE HIGH SCHOOL!!!!!
Twitt wants to be president because in Mormon prophesy the Mormons will rule the world. This is to fulfill that prophesy.
Something I'm not seeing in articles or comments is a discussion of how Obama should be countering this attack. This attack is as much about class-warfare as it is about race, though the idea is that poor people are also mostly minorities. However, to avoid being blamed for "playing the race card", perhaps it would be better if this were framed as a class-warfare attack issue, not a race issue?