[Vision2020] Facts Take a Beating in Acceptance Speeches

[Art Deco]

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August 31, 2012
Facts Take a Beating in Acceptance Speeches By MICHAEL
COOPER<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/michael_cooper/index.html>

Representative Paul D.
Ryan<http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/candidates/paul-ryan?inline=nyt-per>used
his convention speech on Wednesday to fault President
Obama<http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/candidates/barack-obama?inline=nyt-per>for
failing to act on a deficit-reduction plan that he himself had helped
kill. He chided Democrats for seeking $716 billion in
Medicare<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/medicare/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>cuts
that he too had sought. And he lamented the nation’s credit rating —
which was downgraded after a debt-ceiling standoff that he and other House
Republicans helped instigate.

And Mitt Romney<http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/primaries/candidates/mitt-romney?inline=nyt-per>,
in his acceptance speech on Thursday night, asserted that President Obama’s
policies had “not helped create jobs” and that Mr. Obama had gone on an
“apology tour” for America. He also warned that the president’s Medicare
cuts would “hurt today’s seniors,” claims that have already been labeled
false or misleading.

*The two speeches — peppered with statements that were incorrect or
incomplete — seemed to signal the arrival of a new kind of presidential
campaign, one in which concerns about fact-checking have been largely set
aside. *

* *In recent weeks, the Romney campaign has broadcast television
advertisements leveling the widely debunked assertion that Mr. Obama had
gutted the work requirements for welfare recipients. The Obama campaign,
for its part, ran a deceptive ad saying that Mitt Romney had “backed a bill
that outlaws all abortion, even in case of rape and incest,” although he
currently supports exceptions in cases of rape, incest or when the life of
the mother is at risk.

The growing number of misrepresentations appear to reflect a calculation in
both parties that shame is overrated, and that no independent arbiters
command the stature or the platform to hold the campaigns to account in the
increasingly polarized and balkanized media firmament. Any unmasking of the
lies or distortions, the thinking goes, rarely seeps into the public
consciousness.

But an interesting question unfolding is whether there is a tipping point
at which a candidate becomes so associated with falsehoods that it becomes
part of his public persona — which hampered Vice President Al Gore during
his run for president in 2000, when his misstatements on the campaign trail
were used to stoke the perception that he could not be trusted in general.

In the case of Mr. Ryan’s speech, the jury is still out. It was received
rapturously by the Republican
Party<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/r/republican_party/index.html?inline=nyt-org>faithful,
but his many questionable assertions ensured that much of the
analysis on Thursday focused on his accuracy more than his acumen.

The Obama campaign fanned the flames with a Web video mocking Mr. Ryan,
showing anchors from CNN and Fox News questioning some of his statements.
And Stephanie Cutter, the president’s deputy campaign manager, was blunt.
“There’s no delicate way to say this: last night Paul Ryan lied,
repeatedly, knowingly and brazenly,” she said.

Here are some of the misleading section of their convention speeches:

*Deficit Commission*

One of Mr. Ryan’s most pointed attacks on Mr. Obama was on the deficit. “He
created a new bipartisan debt
commission<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/national_commission_on_fiscal_responsibility_and_reform/index.html?inline=nyt-org>,”
Mr. Ryan noted. “They came back with an urgent report. He thanked them,
sent them on their way and then did exactly nothing.”

Left unsaid: Mr. Ryan served on that commission himself, and his opposition
to its final proposals helped seal its fate. The panel, known as the
Simpson-Bowles deficit commission, made a number of recommendations that
Mr. Ryan ultimately
opposed<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/us/politics/01obama.html?ref=nationalcommissiononfiscalresponsibilityandreform>on
the grounds that they would have raised some taxes whilefailing to cut
enough<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/us/politics/02fiscal.html?ref=nationalcommissiononfiscalresponsibilityandreform>from
health programs. His dismissal of the plan was seen as a significant
blow to its chances of success, since it soured other House Republicans on
it.

*Credit Rating*

In his attack on the president’s time in office, Mr. Ryan said: “It began
with a perfect AAA credit rating for the United States. It ends with the
downgraded America.”

When Standard & Poor’s lowered the nation’s credit rating, it was in large
part because of the standoff last year over the debt
ceiling<http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/n/national_debt_us/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>—
which needed to be raised so the government could borrow
money<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/28/us/politics/28default.html?pagewanted=all>to
pay for spending that Congress had already approved. The White House
had
asked Congress to simply raise the debt ceiling; Mr. Ryan and House
Republicans balked at doing so without reaching a deal on significant
spending cuts <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNZ4dsg_yg0>. The ensuing
standoff took the nation to the brink of default.

In its statement explaining the downgrade, Standard & Poor’s
wrote<http://www.standardandpoors.com/ratings/articles/en/us/?assetID=1245316529563>that
“the political brinkmanship of recent months highlights what we see as
America’s governance and policy making becoming less stable, less effective
and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt
ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in
the debate over fiscal policy.”

*Medicare*

Mr. Ryan spoke out forcefully against the “$716 billion funneled out of
Medicare by President Obama,” without noting that his own past budget
plans<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/22/us/politics/costs-seen-in-romneys-medicare-savings-plan.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all>had
counted on the same savings. And he pledged to protect Medicare
without
explaining how the Romney-Ryan plan would change it. Mr. Romney said that
the Medicare cuts would “hurt today’s seniors.” In fact, the savings would
come not from trimming benefits for current recipients, but from cutting
the projected growth in
reimbursements<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/22/us/politics/costs-seen-in-romneys-medicare-savings-plan.html?pagewanted=all>to
hospitals and insurers over the next decade. The Medicare debate is
shaping up as central to the election: Democrats say that the Romney-Ryan
plan to reshape Medicare would force future beneficiaries to pay more for
their health care, while Republicans fault Mr. Obama for cutting $716
billion in its projected growth.

Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan have proposed limiting the government’s open-ended
financial commitment to Medicare. Under their plan, the government would
contribute a fixed amount on behalf of each beneficiary, and future
beneficiaries could use that money to buy private insurance or to help pay
for coverage under the traditional Medicare program. It would apply only to
people currently under 55.

Mr. Ryan’s earlier plans called for capping the rate at which Medicare
spending would grow — which analysts from groups including the Kaiser
Family Foundation found <http://www.kff.org/medicare/upload/8179.pdf> would
lead to higher out-of-pocket costs for future beneficiaries. The Romney
campaign now says that their plan would work
differently<http://www.mittromney.com/blogs/mitts-view/2012/08/policy-memo-6400-medicare-question21>from
Mr. Ryan’s original proposal, and would have the flexibility to raise
the proposed cap on spending if it does not keep up with costs.

The $716 billion cut to Medicare that Mr. Obama made will reduce
payments<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/health/policy/battle-over-medicare-savings-intensifies-between-obama-and-paul-ryan.html>to
health maintenance organizations and hospitals and other health care
providers. Mr. Ryan initially counted on the same savings in his budget
plans.

*G.M.’s Janesville Plant*

Mr. Ryan appeared to criticize Mr. Obama for the closing of a General
Motors plant in Mr. Ryan’s hometown of Janesville, Wis. — a decision made
before the president was elected and before his bailout of the auto
industry, which was credited with saving a number of other factories. He
noted that Mr. Obama had visited the plant in 2008 and said, “I believe
that if our government is there to support you, this plant will be here for
another hundred years.”

“Well, as it turned out,” Mr. Ryan said, “that plant didn’t last another
year. It is locked up and empty to this day.”

As a candidate, Mr. Obama did give an economic policy
speech<http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/in-wisconsin-obama-turns-to-economy/>at
the Janesville plant in February 2008. The decision to close the plant
was made several months later — as can be seen by a June 2008
letter<http://paulryan.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=200270>from
Mr. Ryan urging G.M. to reconsider.

It took some time for the plant to shut down, and some work continued
there<http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/43254027.html?ipad=y>after
Mr. Obama was sworn in as president.

The Ryan campaign said Thursday that the issue was not when the plant
stopped production, but the fact that it has not reopened — and pointed to
accounts of an Obama campaign statement from the fall of 2008 in which he
said, “I will lead an effort to retool plants like the G.M. facility in
Janesville so we can build the
fuel-efficient<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/f/fuel_efficiency/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>
cars
of tomorrow and create good-paying jobs in Wisconsin and all across
America."

While Mr. Obama bailed out the auto industry, saving jobs, and included
money in the stimulus for “green” energy jobs, the Janesville plant did not
benefit from his moves.

*The Apology Tour*

In his floor speech, Mr. Romney repeated his widely debunked charge that
Mr. Obama had gone on an “apology tour” on America’s behalf — an accusation
he feels so strongly about that he laid out his own worldview in a 2010
book he titled “No Apology.”

But independent fact
checkers<http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/sep/22/mitt-romney/mitt-romney-repeats-claim-obama-went-around-world-/>have
called the accusation a
distortion<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/romneys-claim-that-obama-is-an-apologist-for-us-is-based-on-distortions/2011/12/01/gIQAdDpXlO_story.html>,
and it is hard to find evidence that Mr. Obama ever said he was sorry for
the United States. Even in his speeches after winning the Nobel Peace
Prize, Mr. Obama offered a strong defense of American policies, including
the war in Afghanistan, which was growing increasingly unpopular in the
rest of the world.




-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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