Lie, Lie, Lie
The above quote from Michael Tomasky describes perfectly the strategy in play by Mitt Romney in this election season. It’s a version of the Big Lie (make it big and repeat it often) which Republicans have used effectively over the last decade. It was used on John Kerry in 2000 when Swiftboaters successfully turned a Kerry strength (war hero) into a liability (war fraud). The entire Iraq debacle was a Big Lie on steroids as was most of what transpired during the Bush presidency.
The election victory of a black liberal in 2008 elevated the Big Lie to a new level and this time it was tinged with racism as the right worked overtime to cast doubts on Obama’s patriotism, his religion and even his place of birth. The intent, of course, was to portray Barack Obama as being anything other than a true blue American.
And now, finding themselves unable to fight against the real Obama, Republicans and the Romney campaign have created a fictional Obama to do battle with as a means to divert attention from their own failed policies and ideas which they are unable to defend. Muddying the waters and blatant lying are the tools they use to accomplish the task. The lies to date have included:
- Obama wants to gut Medicare
- He has raised taxes on the middle class
- The health care law will increase the deficit by a trillion or more
- The stimulus failed
- Obama is a reckless spender
The Big Lie of late is Romney’s claim that President Obama has removed work requirements in federal welfare law. Blatantly untrue but that hasn’t stopped Romney from pushing the lie with a series of ads and stump speeches. Republicans feel empowered to continue with the Big Lie strategy because of a media which has allowed them, for the most part, to get away with it.
It is going to have to be up to the Obama campaign to hammer home the truth day in and day out and call the liars out at every turn. That and forcing Republicans to defend their indefensible positions on taxation, health care, abortion, gay rights, women’s issues, Medicare and Social Security is the only way to go.
Word just in that Republican Congressman Todd Akin will be helping Dems out. He’s staying in the Senate race.
Representative Todd Akin said definitively on Tuesday that he would not leave the race for the Senate in Missouri, saying on Mike Huckabee’s radio show that “there’s a cause here” and that an outpouring of grass-roots support would propel him to victory without the support of the Republican establishment.
Nice. Dems owe Akin one for keeping the spotlight on Republican’s anti-women abortion policies.
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(The Romney and Ryan source photographs are Creative Commons licensed images from photographer Gage Skidmore.)
Seniors for a Democratic Society 