Even a Fox News columnist has joined more liberal media in saying that Ryan's speech last night was "full of lies and misleading assertions." Of course, the Fox pundits on tv had a lot of praise to heap on him, but they did not address the discrepancies and distortions.
So here's part of what Sally Kohn, the Fox News columnist wrote:
"To anyone watching Ryan’s speech who hasn’t been paying much attention to the ins and outs and accusations of the campaign, I suspect Ryan came across as a smart, passionate and all-around nice guy — the sort of guy you can imagine having a friendly chat with while watching your kids play soccer together. And for a lot of voters, what matters isn’t what candidates have done or what they promise to do —it’s personality. On this measure, Mitt Romney has been catastrophically struggling and with his speech, Ryan humanized himself and presumably by extension, the top of the ticket. . . .
"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 . . . .
"Fact: While Ryan tried to pin the downgrade of the United States’ credit rating on spending under President Obama, the credit rating was actually downgraded because Republicans threatened not to raise the debt ceiling.That's pretty clear and to the point. And from one who we'd ordinarily expect to be on his side.
"Fact: While Ryan blamed President Obama for the shut down of a GM plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, the plant was actually closed under President George W. Bush. Ryan actually asked for federal spending to save the plant, while Romney has criticized the auto industry bailout that President Obama ultimately enacted to prevent other plants from closing.
"Fact: Though Ryan insisted that President Obama wants to give all the credit for private sector success to government, that isn't what the president said. Period.
"Fact: Though Paul Ryan accused President Obama of taking $716 billion out of Medicare, the fact is that that amount was savings in Medicare reimbursement rates (which, incidentally, save Medicare recipients out-of-pocket costs, too) and Ryan himself embraced these savings in his budget plan.
"Elections should be about competing based on your record in the past and your vision for the future, not competing to see who can get away with the most lies and distortions without voters noticing or bother to care. Both parties should hold themselves to that standard. Republicans should be ashamed that there was even one misrepresentation in Ryan’s speech but sadly, there were many."
Remember also that these were not some inadvertant distortions slipped into a speech at a campaign rally. This was a carefully scripted, multiply-vetted speech in the spotlight of a national convention to accept the nomination for Vice President.
Mitch McConnell defended Ryan against the criticism over what he said about Obama not embracing the Bowles-Simpson plan when Ryan himself voted against it. McConnell made the following outrageous assertion:
"Divided government has frequently done very big things, and had an opportunity to last year. We gave [Obama] every chance to get out from under his desk and to do something big for the country. . . . They didn't want a fix. We stepped over all kinds of trip wires . . . to try to get them to deal with the big problem, which is making the entitlement programs fit the demographics of our country. And they didn't do it. So the president has not led. There's no question about that."A Democratic spokesman countered by saying that McConnell "has a PhD in revisionist history." This is the same McConnell who said three years ago that the Republicans' aim was "to ensure that Obama is a one-term president" -- and then proceeded to put up every imaginable roadblock to thwart his every effort to lead and to provide for the needs of the country.
Ralph
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