Obama Tosses 'Cowpie Of Distortion' Charge At Romney. And It's Just May
Friday, May 25, 2012
We haven't even yet reached the summer before the general election and already the cowpie is hitting the fan.
Actually, it was President Obama who on Thursday rhetorically hit Mitt Romney, the all-but-official Republican presidential nominee. Obama went all barnyard on Romney, accusing the former Massachusetts governor of not only lying about his presidential record but Romney's as well. It was, according to those following the president's re-election campaign, his toughest attack yet on Romney.
Obama was at a campaign event at the Iowa state fair grounds in Des Moines. As NPR's Don Gonyea reported on Morning Edition Friday:
DON: "President Obama seemed to enjoy being back out on the stump and needling his opponent."
Here's what Obama told the crowd of supporters:
OBAMA: "I know Gov. Romney came to Des Moines last week. Warned about a prairie fire of debt. That's what he said, prairie fire. But he left out some facts. His speech was like a cowpie of distortion. I don't know whose record he twisted the most, mine or his.
"Now listen, it is true the debt and deficit are serious problems and the depth of the recession added to the debt. A lot more folks were looking for unemployment insurance. A lot fewer folks were paying taxes because they weren't making money. So that added to the debt. Our efforts to prevent it from becoming a Depression, helping the auto industry, making sure that not as many teachers were laid off, all those things added to the debt.
"But what my opponent didn't tell you is that federal spending since I took office, has risen at the slowest pace of any president in almost 60 years. By the way, that generally happens. What happens is the Republicans run up the tab and then, we're sitting there, and they've left the restaurant, then they point and say 'Why'd you order all those steaks and martinis? ' "
The president appeared to be inspired by a widely read MarketWatch column by journalist Rex Nutting this week that made the claim about federal spending on Obama's watch. That column has been criticized for alleged deficiencies by journalistic fact checker Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post. All of this falls under the category of "fun with numbers."
For the purpose of this post, it's enough to note that the dispute over whether the available data support the charge that president Obama has been on a spending binge is now fully engaged.
In her Friday morning email to reporters, Andrea Saul, a spokeswoman for the Romney campaign, responded to the president cowpie charge thus:
"Yesterday, in a desperate and transparent attempt to try to distract from his record of failure, President Obama launched even more negative attacks. This time he attacked Gov. Romney for – of all things – having 'the nerve to go around saying that they're somehow going to bring down the deficit.'
"Clearly, President Obama is suffering from a reality deficit on this issue – it's as if he's forgotten that he's been president for nearly four years and has a record to defend.
"A president who broke his promise to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term has no standing when it comes to fiscal responsibility. By the end of this year, President Obama will have presided over a record-shattering four consecutive trillion-dollar deficits and added an historic amount to our national debt. Our children will be footing the bill for his failed policies years from now."
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Source: NPR
Comments [4]
@listener
Obama,
Has no shame, he places himself above all others, Like an entitlement product of the 60's, his first teacher was a hippie drug using commune
existing freak, and went down hill from there.
Have we gone from the "car in the ditch" chestnut to "steaks and martinis" on the teleprompter?
It seems the "cowpies" are being recycled by the speechwriters.
If Obama supporters had any sense they would be insulted by all of this condescension.
Have they been patronized and lied to so much by this man that they are starting to like it?
At a nearby Wisconsin Farm their Manure Spreader is called The Obama.
I have heard more untrue statements from this Administration.
Debt $ 15 ++ TRILLION, Obama has already started crying for a higher Debt Ceiling, more like a whimper he doesn't want the voters to know that he already maxed out one more CREDIT CARD, I have heard Joe Biden complain they you inherited one heck of a mess, that is true, but did you have to make it worse. Obama you promised Thousands of shovel ready jobs, where are they?
You killed the Canada to Texas Oil Pipe Line, America needed those jobs
I know they were not Union jobs Most Americans are not Union.
The ACTUAL UNEMPLOYMENT IS 22,315,921, the official unemployed 12,528,779
I know that is only about 10 MILLION more without work.
Obama you had your chance and wasted it, you blew it.
KNOWLEDGE OF ECONOMICS, ZERO, KNOWLEDGE OF BUSINESS, ZERO,
KNOWLEDGE OF NATIONAL SECURITY, ZERO.
WE NEED TO CUT THE SIZE AND SCOPE OF GOVERNMENT, TO A LEVEL WE CAN AFFORD
STOP SUBSIDIZING ALL GREEN ENERGY, WE CAN NOT BABY SIT IT FOREVER.
REDUCE THE DEBT LOAD, STOP THE INSANELY RECKLESS WASTEFUL SPENDING.
Obama you have created an Unstable Government,with continual threats of new taxes, to what level, as high as Europe? The Total Unknown Cost associated with OBAMA CARE directly and indirectly are unmeasurable.
We Know the Democrats can run without a budget for years, however
an Owner, Operator, Manager, and Investors need Business Plans and Budgets
they are essential to the daily, monthly, annual, and long term.
Taxes and Obama Care alone are enormous in relation to margins of expansions and start up costs.
Step Down get out of the way and let a man in to do the job.
Fact check of Obama's speech reflects the truth about the situation. He is merely highlighting the distortion in the GOP's statements.
You have to remember that the GOP just wants to throw the black man out, by using his middle name (Hussain) to portray him as a Muslim and hence an outsider, by questioning his birth in the US to question his eligibility, by putting the blame on him after blocking in Congress his measures to boost the economy, etc.
Obama is a black man, the product of an interracial marriage (which was illegal only a few decades ago), with intellectual abilities far beyond the GOP's top candidates. The man has done the best despite all the hurdles the Congress threw in front of him.
Balancing the deficit and getting rid of debt is what you do in an economy boom time, not in an economic recession. The GOP cut taxes and went to war over the 8 years, turning a surplus into a deficit and bankrupting the country. The GOP is preying on those who do not understand or do not remember the mess Obama inherited with the entire global economy on the verge of ending.
It took fantastic statesmanship to wind down the wars and ensure that the needs of the underprivileged in the US weren't run over by the rich / religious right wing Republican ideology.
I understand that the rich and the religious right wingers benefit from the Republican ideology.
The rest who support the GOP are chicken and cattle voting in favor of keeping the slaughter house open.
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