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August 30, 2012 04:40 PM UTC

Tallying Up The "Pinnochios"

  • 28 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

By all accounts, GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan gave an energetic and workmanlike speech before the Republican National Convention in Tampa last night.

The problem is, news coverage is leading off today detailing the wealth of false statements in Ryan’s speech–more than the quality of its delivery. Nonpartisan fact checkers like the AP have done an uncharacteristically good job unpacking everything Ryan said:

Laying out the first plans for his party’s presidential ticket, GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan took some factual shortcuts Wednesday night when he attacked President Barack Obama’s policies on Medicare, the economic stimulus and the budget deficit…

RYAN: “And the biggest, coldest power play of all in Obamacare came at the expense of the elderly. … So they just took it all away from Medicare. Seven hundred and sixteen billion dollars, funneled out of Medicare by President Obama.”

THE FACTS: Ryan’s claim ignores the fact that Ryan himself incorporated the same cuts into budgets he steered through the House in the past two years as chairman of its Budget Committee, using the money for deficit reduction. And the cuts do not affect Medicare recipients directly, but rather reduce payments to hospitals, health insurance plans and other service providers.

In addition, Ryan’s own plan to remake Medicare would squeeze the program’s spending even more than the changes Obama made…

Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler:

In his acceptance speech, GOP Vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan appeared to suggest that President Obama was responsible for the closing of a GM plant in Ryan’s hometown of Janesville, Wisc.

That’s not true. The plant was closed in December, 2008, before Obama was sworn in… [Pols emphasis]

Brett LoGiurato of Business Insider:

Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan’s speech is getting slammed for some pretty heavy inaccuracies. One line, though, stuck out more than the rest, particularly because it’s Ryan who is attacking President Barack Obama on the subject: “It began with a perfect Triple-A credit rating for the United States; it ends with a downgraded America.”

…Look at who the S&P blames in its statement:

Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress [Pols emphasis] continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues…

One more from the AP:

RYAN: “The stimulus was a case of political patronage, corporate welfare and cronyism at their worst. You, the working men and women of this country, were cut out of the deal.”

THE FACTS: Ryan himself asked for stimulus funds shortly after Congress approved the $800 billion plan, known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Ryan’s pleas to federal agencies included letters to Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis seeking stimulus grant money for two Wisconsin energy conservation companies…that company, he said in his letter, would build “sustainable demand for green jobs.”

Setting aside partisan opinions on some or all of these issues, the overarching problem for the Romney-Ryan ticket coming out of this is that an acceptance speech is supposed to build trust with voters who don’t know you. You’re supposed to make your case for election, sure, but you need to leave the voters with a sense that your rousing speechification is believable.

With most coverage today focused on Ryan’s factual challenges, that test was not met.

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28 thoughts on “Tallying Up The “Pinnochios””

  1. …they have to lie, or no one would vote for them.

    And that the average American voter will not take the time or energy to get at the facts.

    Ignorance is great for conservatives.  Nah, right wing extremists.

    Oh, Good Morning ArapaGOP, wherever you and your crickets are.  

    1. The republicans are taking a lesson from the Nazi playbook….repeat a lie often enough and people will come to believe it.

      The repubs have won the medicare argument because they has succeeded in reframing the message….saying that Obama is going to “steal” over $700,000,000 from medicare.

      The repubs have also won the welfare argument because they have succeeded in reframing that message….saying that Obama eliminated the work requirement.

      This is where having a talk radio superiority really helps…because not only can the repubs broadcast their falsehoods, but listeners then repeat the lies to their neighbors, friends and family.

      1. Republicans haven’t “won” the medicare argument.

        You need to take a break from your right wing propaganda indoctrination dude and realize that just because a Republican says they are winning doesn’t mean that they are (e.g. h-man).

        1. I don’t think Republicans have won these arguments, but they are doing quite well with them. A lot of us were probably expecting to run against Ryan’s plan and Romney’s latest stated positions, but the extent to which they’re willing to simply make things up in order to provoke racial and generational animosity is surprising to all of us, even those of us who have been around for a while.

          Voters believe that politicians are under some obligation not to lie on TV. They think the government would somehow step in and keep it from happening. They have heard stories of people getting prosecuted for fraud and believe that any big enough lie would count as that. So they can’t imagine this welfare ad that’s been running hundreds of times a day isn’t at least a little bit true. Because who would lie about something like that?

          Similarly, they don’t understand what the Medicare debate is all about. We haven’t found the single sentence that explains what the $700 billion meant and what Ryan would do to Medicare. Maybe something like “President Obama cut waste and fraud out of Medicare payments to save money and protect seniors’ care. He believes today’s seniors and their children and grandchildren have a right to guaranteed benefits when they retire. Paul Ryan’s plan would eliminate that guarantee for future retirees, pitting grandparents against their grandchildren and taking us back to the days when seniors had to choose between food and medicine.”

          I don’t know, maybe that’s too long, maybe it doesn’t punch hard enough to break out of the whole “political ad fatigue” that makes people tune out ads. But the case against Ryan doesn’t write itself in voters’ heads. The campaign was right to hit Ryan hard and early, but needs to keep it up as he tries to define himself as a decent guy. Maybe an ad based on the five lies from his convention speech would help bring him down a bit.

          The difficulty with an opponent who literally doesn’t care whether what he’s saying is true or false as long as it gets a few more angry old white men to vote for him is that even pointing out the lies will result in thoughts like, “Yeah, well, all politicians lie, both sides are guilty, what are ya gonna do?” But we need a way to make sure everyone understands exactly what Ryan’s Medicare plan is, and right now they don’t.

          The harder pushback is on race. Everyone agrees that Romney’s welfare ad is racist and totally false, but I don’t know what a good response would be from the Obama campaign that doesn’t make it worse. What needs to happen is for a single non-racist Republican to criticize the ad, but I’m not sure there are very many left.

          1. is what’s wrong.

            If anyone here is saying there is no danger of the loons winning the message war on medicare it’s certainly gotten by me. I can’t recall anyone here saying any such thing or saying that defeating Romney is a slam dunk or any of the other straw dog suppositions I constantly encounter in dwyer’s rantings.

            But since GW, aided by rightie talk radio, clearly lost this same message war and since rightie talk radio has clearly lost so many other wars such as stopping McCain’s nomination, stopping Obama’s election, stopping Mittens nomination, getting personhood measures passed, even in places like Mississippi, the constantly repeated dwyer mantra that the rightie media is always completely victorious and forget about it unstoppable is demonstrably false.

            I used to kind of miss dywer but dwyer does self parody so well, dywer would be kind of superfluous.  

        2. the Colorado Cassandra def needs to tune out the RW talkers.

          BC cites “Dwyerism” as a burgeoning ideo-religion with a sole prophet shouting true knowledge of the ways of the GOPers.  Truth is “D-ism” fount of knowledge is about as credible as a sideshow Tarot reader.

          Nov ’12 we’ll here about how disaster was nearly averted and we were all to blame for the almost demise of our republic but luckily the devoted martyrs of D-ism saved us from our ignorant ways.  D is at the center of a great piece of fiction in his/her own mind.

      2. ….got good training.

        Fucking A, dude.  When even FOX calls up Lyin’ Ryan, what you think he’s not?

        Fucking facts.  A Republicans worst enemy.

        Let’s talk “entitlement” facts soon, eh, big boy?

  2. ….does the man own a suit that fits him?

    Or does he just raid his Dad’s closet before every big speech?

    The last guy I know who performed on stage with THAT big a suit was David Byrne in “Stop Making Sense.”

      1. Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, Business INsider and every other media outlet with half a brain and a web site accuses your man crush of lying his ass off last night- and you wanna complain about me rhyming his name with lying?

        WTFE.

        Feel the message slipping away yet?

        Maybe the failure of Personhood will save  Coors and Coffman and others from having to comment in a way that is uhhh less than comfortable.

        But Gessler is an embarrassment. Lamborn is worse.  ANd your VP nominee is a liar.

        GLWT.

  4. Tues night I chose to watch CNN because of the 3 majors with extensive coverage their’s is the non-biased. Wed night I watched on PBS and CSpan. Mark Shields on PBS is biased but Judy Woodruff may be also.

    I thought Gov Martinez gave the best speech. Ryan displayed lying behavior not only with his words but with his constant throat clearing

  5. Paul Ryan’s Speech In Three Words: Dazzling, Deceitful, Distracting

    On the other hand, to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to facts, Ryan’s speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech. On this measure, while it was  Romney who ran the Olympics, Ryan earned the gold.

      1. I was just adding to the stack of online reactions to Ryan’s fallacious fiction last night.  Okay, I’ll admit it. Maybe there was some schadenfreude on my part because it was trending on the FOX News website and on the front page throughout the night and morning.

        Even the WSJ said it was full of crap, though, and they don’t have liberal commentators any more (if they ever did, even before Murdoch bought it…).

        Hell, even Paul Ryan knows that Paul Ryan was wrong on several points in his speech, since he’s written more factual versions in previous communications.

        The Romney-Ryan campaign has come out and admitted that they don’t care about the facts.  Lying “works” for them, so they’re sticking to it.  It’s that simple, and the campaign admits it.  Sad that anyone still supports the ticket…

  6. I’m not going to address your amateur efforts to expose my personal background other than to say I have put capital at risk, you know capital formation to start a business, acquire customers, hire people, meet payroll and pay taxes/fees.

    One business worked out and still operates, the other didn’t make it. There was no one to blame and I’m not bitter.

    not sure selling “artisan” Sarah Palin jerk-off socks on Etsy counts as a business but I’m sure ‘turdpole saw moderate success with that one.  I guess his Marilyn Musgrave series of socks counts as his failure.

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