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WorldTraveller

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    Live feed RNC

    in Politics, Polls, and Pundits

    Posted

    From the IBD

     

    If media "fact checkers" are just impartial guardians of the truth, how come they got their own facts wrong about Paul Ryan's speech, and did so in a way that helped President Obama's re-election effort?

    Case in point was the rush of "fact check" stories claiming Ryan misled when he talked about a shuttered auto plant in his home state.

    Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler posted a piece — "Ryan misleads on GM plant closing in hometown" — saying Ryan "appeared to suggest" that Obama was responsible for the closure of a GM plant in Janesville, Wis.

     

    "That's not true," Kessler said. "The plant was closed in December 2008, before Obama was sworn in."

     

    What's not true are Kessler's "facts." Ryan didn't suggest Obama was responsible for shuttering the plant. Instead, he correctly noted that Obama promised during the campaign that the troubled plant "will be here for another hundred years" if his policies were enacted.

    Also, the plant didn't close in December 2008. It was still producing cars until April 2009.

     

    An AP "fact check" also claimed that "the plant halted production in December 2008" even though the AP itself reported in April 2009 that the plant was only then "closing for good."

     

    CNN's John King made the same claim about that plant closure. But when CNN looked more carefully at the evidence, it — to its credit — concluded that what Ryan said was "true."

    Media fact-checkers also complained about Ryan's charge that Obama is cutting $716 billion from Medicare to fund ObamaCare. Not true, they said. Medicare's growth is just being slowed.

    But Obama achieves that slower growth by making real cuts in provider payments. And in any case, the media always and everywhere call a reduction in the rate of federal spending growth a "cut." So why suddenly charge Ryan with being misleading for using that same term?

    In any case, Obama himself admitted that he's doing what Ryan says. In a November 2009 interview with ABC News, reporter Jake Tapper said to Obama that "one-third of the funding comes from cuts to Medicare," to which Obama's response was: "Right."

    The rest of Ryan's alleged factual errors aren't errors at all; it's just that the media didn't like how he said it. But since when is it a fact-checker's job to decide how a politician should construct his arguments?

     

    http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/083012-624188-so-called-fact-checks-disguise-media-liberal-agenda.htm?src=HPLNews

     

    MSNBC tried to ding Gov Walker regarding the GM statement from Ryan, and Walker took them to school.

     

     

     

     

    Take Ryan’s criticism of Obama’s ignoring Simpson-Bowles. This is a fact. That Ryan voted for it and then put together the only comprehensive budget using some elements of Simpson-Bowles (a premium-support Medicare plan, block-granting Medicaid) doesn’t make his remarks about Obama a lie. A true statement — Obama ignored Simpson-Bowles — is not a lie because there is another true statement — Ryan voted no and came up with his own plan. This is a standard of “lying” that has never been applied to the president, by the way.

    Then there is the “lie” that Obama took $716 billion out of Medicare. That is also a fact. That Ryan, who has now signed onto Romney’s plan which puts the money back, previously took those cuts to put back into the Medicare trust fund does not make the statement false. Obama can defend the cuts and say it wasn’t so bad or say that sticking the money into Obamacare was justified, but Ryan did relate what Obama did.

    Then there is the accusation that Ryan “lied” about the Janesville GM plant. Let’s recall exactly what he said: “‘I believe that if our government is there to support you … this plant will be here for another hundred years.’ That’s what [Obama] said in 2008. Well, as it turned out, 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 quoted Obama accurately.

     

    Ryan never said the plant was closed by Obama; he said Obama promised to revive the plant and couldn’t deliver. That is a fact, not a ”lie.” Well, it’s not a lie by Ryan; and I’ll not call Obama’s promise to keep the plant open a “lie.” Obama just didn’t deliver. The Romney-Ryan campaign points to a story in the <a data-xslt="_http" href="http://www.jsonline.com/business/130171578.html" target="_blank">Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel verifying that a decision was made in 2011, well after Obama’s Janesville appearance, to keep the plant on standby. (“Since they were shut down in 2009, both the Janesville and Tennessee plants have been on standby status, meaning they were not producing vehicles, but they were not completely shut down.”)

    The stings on these issues cut so deeply that I suppose that the Obama team and its media allies are crazed to turn facts into lies and aspirations into distortions. Take Ryan’s statement that he’ll keep GDP below 20 percent. What Ryan critics say is “misleading” is in fact a policy difference. Ryan’s budget does bring spending to about 20 percent of GDP, with an increase in defense spending. It’s fine to say that’s a bad choice; but it’s not misleading.

    It is likewise not misleading to say: “None of us have to settle for the best this administration offers — a dull, adventureless journey from one entitlement to the next, a government-planned life, a country where everything is free but us.” That is an accurate description of Obama’s own “Life of Julia” Web site, which depicted exactly that. If anyone blew it, it was the Obama team in putting out a caricature of the liberal welfare state.

    I understand the frustration of Obama’s camp and its supporters. Moreover, I think much of the media accusations were offered in haste in an effort to get out the instant reaction without the media doing their full homework. It is a revealing moment, for the press and the Obama camp. For members of the Obama team, it means they are losing the race, and they know it.

     

     

     

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/ryan-freaks-out-obamaland/2012/08/30/be97852e-f2ac-11e1-adc6-87dfa8eff430_blog.html

    University of Colorado Has Been Getting It Right

    in Politics, Polls, and Pundits

    Posted

    He's gotta win Florida. And again, the "fact check" is working to their advantage, it remains a story. The welfare and Medicare issues are polling really well for them. They will continue to hammer these points home. It's amazing how they caught the Obama campaign flat footed on the Medicare issue. Who would of thought that conservatives would be tied to winning on Medicare? It's pretty extraordinary :lol:

    University of Colorado Has Been Getting It Right

    in Politics, Polls, and Pundits

    Posted

    Not at all, first off, what he said was true, secondly, they are delighted that this is remaining to be a story. They were interviewing the insiders and they expressed lots of enthusiasm that they couldnkeep the debate going,mwhich is why they sent Ryan on interviews. I saw his interviews and he answered all of them the way you would expec he would.

     

    With clarity.

     

    The Medicare argument is a huge winner .

     

    The welfare argument, another winner.

     

    The GM one,new will see

    Live feed RNC

    in Politics, Polls, and Pundits

    Posted

    I don't think those undecided voters will care whatsoever about eastwood. They may feel that he looked old, but people like him and will cut him some slack, except the hard core partisans of course. Again, my guess is that Romney structurally improved his likability ratings a little.

    Live feed RNC

    in Politics, Polls, and Pundits

    Posted

    I don't believe anyone really expects Romney to wow anyone with a speech. What those 5-10% of undecided voters that were tuning in were thinking is " do I think he's competent enough to get the job done?". And my guess is that there are quite a few independents that will be willing to take a chance on him.

     

    In regards to Eastwood , I love the guy, looked old and semi confused at times and my guess is that the most vitriolic sleazy of the left will attack the man. Good luck in that being something that will play well with independents.

    SEAL writes book on Bin Laden shooting

    in Politics, Polls, and Pundits

    Posted

    The official also said this: “Through most of the 40 minutes during which U.S. special operators were on the compound, they were engaged in a firefight and successive clearing of the — it was very deliberate. But for most of the period there, there was a firefight.”

    The official also echoed a White House narrative that bin Laden had used at least one of his wives as a “shield,” suggesting that he had hidden behind one of them as he “resisted” the SEAL special operators who raided his compound.

     

    However, according to “No Easy Day,” bin Laden was unarmed and was shot when he poked his head out of his door, according to The Associated Press. Bissonnette also wrote that he and his teammates mocked the official story line about a “40 minute firefight” at the compound.

    “The raid was being reported like a bad action movie,” he writes. “At first, it was funny because it was so wrong.”

     

    Condi's speech

    in Politics, Polls, and Pundits

    Posted

    TAMPA, Fla. — Democrats are acknowledging GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan gave an effective performance Wednesday even as they launch an all out assault on his honesty.

    “He played the role of vice presidential attack dog. I think he did it very well,” said President Obama’s deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter on Thursday.

    But Cutter also criticized Ryan, saying his "lies" and "vitriol" are not what the American people deserve.

    “He can deliver a plan that will be bad for America and do it with a smile,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who has sparred with Ryan for years in the House Budget Committee.

     

    “I believe Paul Ryan’s family’s story is compelling. It’s a wonderful story … I think all of us were touched by it and we should be,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said.

     

     

    http://thehill.com/conventions-2012/gop-convention-tampa/246703-dems-acknowledge-ryan-gave-an-effective-speech

     

    That is about as close as praise as you will ever hear from the other side.

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