Republicans Have Been Emboldened by a Lazy Media that Won’t Call Out Their Lies

Hard on the heels of a recent study by Dartmouth University confirming the major disconnect between the Right Wing and objective reality, the rise of completely indefensible lies by Right Wing leaders seems equally troublesome. While it's commonplace on Sodahead to hear Right Wingers come up with untenable fantasies (like "death panels", "government takeover of healthcare", "Obama has spent more than all other Presidents combined", etc.), it's a lot more dangerous when it's the Speaker of the House of Representatives, or a major party candidate for the Presidency of the United States. One can only wonder whether they are knowingly lying about all of these easily disprovable claims or if the disconnect with reality has become so profound that they literally cannot tell fact from fiction any more.

Article excerpt follows:

Republicans Have Been Emboldened by a Lazy Media that Won’t Call Out Their Lies
By: Rmuse
June 26, 2012

One would think that when politicians give statements or speeches that are disseminated by the media, they most certainly would not be bald-faced lies because there are too many, nearly instantaneous, sources to check for veracity. However, at this point in time it is best to assume that every Republican utterance is mendacious, and it is in part because their veracity is never challenged and they know they are saying exactly what a certain demographic wants to hear whether it is true or not. This week, John Boehner nearly equaled Willard Romney as the biggest liar in the Republican ranks followed closely by ex-governor and senatorial candidate from Wisconsin, Tommy Thompson. The media is remiss to label any politician a liar, but there comes a point when misleading, embellishing, or mischaracterizing fails to describe what Republicans have become; habitual and dangerous liars.

In a television ad for his campaign for the U.S. Senate, Tommy Thompson said that if voters send him to Washington, he will “stop the government takeover of health care by repealing Obamacare.” In 2010, Politifact deemed “government takeover of healthcare” the “Lie of the Year,” and regardless if one supports the Affordable Care Act or not, it is certainly not government takeover of healthcare. Thompson’s grievous lie, however, pales in comparison to Speaker John Boehner who, in a memo to his rank-and-file that was “shared widely with reporters,” said that with the “economy still recovering, the GOP needs to keep its focus squarely on jobs.”

Boehner promised in the lead up to the 2010 midterm elections that Republicans’ highest priority was jobs, jobs, jobs, and yet for the past year-and-a-half, he led his teabagger caucus on a job-killing spree with Draconian spending cuts. Besides, Boehner is still sitting on President Obama’s jobs measures as well as nearly 3 million construction jobs he will not allow to come up for a vote unless the oil industry gets their coveted KeystoneXL pipeline approval. The only thing Republicans have focused on since January 2009 was obstructing all of the President’s agenda, and punishing women, children, seniors, and Veterans with severe budget cuts to make room for more tax cuts for the wealthy, and lest not forget, that when Boehner was informed that the Republican spending cuts would kill 1.1 million jobs, he cavalierly said, “so be it.” Then there is the king of liars, Willard Romney.

In the past week, Willard told no fewer than 30 lies that were not just mischaracterizations or misstatements, but “enormous whoppers.” There is not room here to enumerate all thirty of Willard’s flagrant lies, but some are just too outrageous to ignore. For one, Romney said, in referring to healthcare reform, that President Obama “jammed through a bill and didn’t really try and work for a Republican vote.” The truth is that for months the President searched in vain for even one Republican to support the healthcare reform bill and was met with obstruction throughout the entire process. Romney also said that the president’s trillion- dollar stimulus failed to create jobs;” it is generally agreed that it created more than 3 million jobs as well as started the economy growing immediately. Romney also borrowed 2010’s lie of the year and said that “under Obamacare we’ll get a healthcare system run by the government.” Of course it is untrue, but with Willard’s pathological lying disorder, nothing is too outrageous; especially if it frightens stupid Americans, and that is a major reason Willard, Boehner and men like Thompson continue lying.

If the segment of the population that falls for Republicans’ unbelievable lies were not so incredibly racist, fundamentally religious, and monumentally uninformed, they would see Republicans for what they really are; lying bastards. If the corporate media were not panting for a corporate-controlled Congress and White House, they would do their jobs and either call Republicans liars, or at least use the mounds of data available to disprove the assertions they know are false. In fact, the media has become the Republicans’ propaganda arm since 9/11 when they let the Bush-Cheney duo lead America into two disastrous wars this country will continue funding for a generation at least, if not longer.

Republicans are going to lie because they have no record to stand on, but the real blame rests with the media and a lazy segment of the population who depend on sources like Fox News to do their thinking for them. For example, two weeks ago a retired electrical engineer who is also a racist and devout conservative repeated Ted Nugent’s assertion during an interview for a 2nd Amendment article that President Obama is “dismantling the Constitution,” and his verification was “that’s what they’re saying.” The man said that “if they (Ted Nugent) were lying, why wasn’t the media correcting him?” Whether the media is attempting to appear objective, or are afraid to contradict Republicans’ fallacious statements is irrelevant, they bear a responsibility to inform the public, not campaign for Republicans.

Let’s face it, if Republicans were called on every one of their lies during interviews, on political talk shows, or during the evening news, they may abandon lying as their modus operandi. However, when Willard assails the Affordable Care Act as government-run healthcare, and Boehner says the GOP’s focus is jobs while a three-million job transportation bill sits on his desk and the media is silent, Americans will continue hearing nothing but lies. As tempting as it is to wonder if Romney’s Mormonism or Boehner’s Catholicism encourage lying as a political tactic, the truth is they are both just lying for political expediency to win elections, enrich the wealthy, and punish the American people.