Paul Ryan pledged Wednesday that if he and his running mate Mitt
Romney were elected president, they would usher in an ethic of
responsibility.
The Wisconsin congressman and repugican vice presidential candidate repeatedly
chided President Barack Obama for blaming the jobs and housing crises
on his predecessor, saying that his habit of "forever shifting blame to
the last administration, is getting old. The man assumed office almost
four years ago -– isn’t it about time he assumed responsibility?"
Ryan then noted that Obama, while campaigning for president, promised
that a GM plant in Wisconsin would not shut down. "That plant didn’t
last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day. And that’s how
it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was promised is
nowhere in sight," Ryan said.
Except Obama didn't promise that. And the plant closed in December 2008 -- while the shrub was pretending to be president.
It was just one of several striking and demonstrably misleading elements
of Ryan's much-anticipated acceptance speech. And it comes just days
after Romney pollster Neil Newhouse warned, defending the campaign's
demonstrably false ads claiming Obama removed work requirements from
welfare, "We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by
fact-checkers."
Ryan, for his part, slammed the president for not supporting a deficit
commission report without mentioning that he himself had voted against
it, helping to kill it.
He also made a cornerstone of his argument the claim that Obama
"funneled" $716 billion out of Medicare to pay for Obamacare. But he
didn't mention that his own budget plan relies on those very same
savings.
Ryan also put responsibility for Standard & Poor's downgrade of U.S.
government debt at Obama's doorstep. But he didn't mention that S&P
itself, in explaining its downgrade, referred to the debt ceiling
standoff. That process of raising the debt ceiling was only politicized
in the last Congress, driven by House repugicans, led in the charge by
Paul Ryan.
The credit rater also said it worried that repugicans would never agree
to tax increases. “We have changed our assumption on [revenue] because
the majority of repugicans in Congress continue to resist any measure
that would raise revenues,” S&P wrote.
Jodie Layton, a convention goer from Utah watching the Ryan speech, said
she was blown away by the vice presidential candidate. But she said she
was surprised to hear that after his speech about taking
responsibility, he'd pinned a Bush-era plant closing on Obama.
"It closed in December 2008?" she asked, making sure she heard a
HuffPost reporter's question right. After a long pause, she said, "It's
happening a lot on both sides. It's to be expected."
Ryan has referenced the GM plant before, and his attack was debunked by
the Detroit News, which called it inaccurate. "In fact, Obama made no
such promise and the plant halted production in December 2008, when the shrub was squatting in the Oval office," Detroit News reporter David
Sherpardson wrote earlier this month. "Obama did speak at the plant in
February 2008, and suggested that a government partnership with
automakers could keep the plant open, but made no promises as Ryan
suggested."
After the speech, CNN's political commentators focused mostly on Ryan's
misstatements, demonstrating the degree to which they were evident.
Top Obama adviser David Axelrod jumped on the GM factory claim. "Again,
Ryan blames Obama for a GM plant that closed under the shrub. But then, they
did say they wouldn't 'let fact checkers get in the way.'"
Ryan, however, appears to have made the calculation that the misleading
won't hurt him with voters. He might be right. CNN's David Gergen, while
acknowledging some "misstatements" in Ryan's address, suggested that
pundits focus elsewhere. "But let's not forget that this was a speech
about big ideas," he told his audience.
Colin
Steer has been wondering for almost 30 years why his sofa dipped at one
corner of his living room. After he retired, he decided to tackle the
problem as a home improvement project. That is when he discovered something
very unusual:
The
American Civil War ended in 1865, but as of last September, the
Department of Veterans Affairs still pays out two pensions from that
conflict. Privacy rules prevent the release of the names or reasons for
the pensions, but it's likely that the recipients are the disabled
elderly children of veterans:
