Lies My Presidents Told Me
Tuesday, September 9th, 2008Considering the ever-growing list of lies from the McCain-Palin campaign about Palin’s past (i.e. she sold the jet on eBay, she opposed the bridge to nowhere, Obama will increase taxes), I thought I’d reflect on big, well-known lies of Presidents past and present.
| Bill Clinton | George Dubya Bush |
| I did not have sex with that woman | Iraq has weapons of mass destruction |
| Iraq is tied to the terrorist bombings of 9/11 | |
| We do not torture | |
| No one could have predicted that the New Orleans levees would break | |
| Social Security will be bankrupt by 2042 |
During the last election, my father once explained that he was not voting for Dubya because of his religious teachings. This flies in the face of what many conservative Mormons believed. My father explained that his church leaders encouraged him to be an informed voter and to choose a candidate who exemplifies those values and morals that Mormons find to be important. My father looked at both candidates and said, “well, between Kerry and Bush, only one of them is a known and proven liar.”
McCain has lied repeatedly about Palin’s positions and background. Palin has lied about her background. Both have lied about Obama’s record. (Check your facts) While there are certainly Democrats who have lied, the “worst” lie they make stick about Barack Obama is that he dropped public funding for his campaign to take donation-driven funding instead. Yeah, I know factcheck.org has a fair number of inaccuracies or misleading statements from Obama as well, but I’m not sure I’d pass a factcheck.org screening. Regardless, I’d love to see a general drop in the amount of lying and misdirection coming from the White House.
Great post. I’m sick and tired of the whole thing already…
It’s pretty obvious to me who the better man is, but a dismaying number of others feel differently. Perhaps we’ll dork it up yet again. Crap.
** The Handmaid’s Tale is the GOP storyline **
Lieberman, McCain and Palin are small human beings, intellectually and morally. But like G. W. Bush, they are all the more dangerous for their consistent lack of imagination and absence of humane values.
McCain’s calculated cynicism in selecting ultra-right Palin reveals his lack of judgment and his capricious nature. He’s no “maverick”. He’s mentally unstable.
Palin’s religious delusions are ideological madness. Her fundie xianity is a toxic ersatz for policy, domestic and foreign.
She is but one aspect of McCain’s death wish for America. As chief suppressor of homeland deviance, Palin becomes dictator of morals and values, while McCain plays dictator of preemptive warfare — without perpetual destruction the empire will collapse.
McCain capitulated to the death impulse of dominionists who now control his party. They want to destroy the Constitution and create a theocratic state.
They also aim to speed a supposed vengeful return of a mythological world savior by inciting a nuclear Armageddon in the Middle East as a welcome-home party.
That’s the Lieberman connection. He’s not a mere flack; he’s vital to a new holocaust. As “good will” ambassador to Israel’s ultra-conservatives, he’ll do his damnedest to direct God’s holy sword of Israel towards a long planned strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
McCain is Bush redux for nuclear war by proxy. The plan already strains at its “fail-safe” points on US aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf.
Now, the choice is stark.
Stop them. Keep McCain’s finger off the nuclear trigger. Keep Lieberman from inflaming Israel’s right-wing. Keep Palin from becoming a domionist rising star.
Obama offers more than hope. He may be able to save the Republic and the peace of the world. And, you thought Margaret Atwood wrote fiction.
Yeah, Social Security is going to be bankrupt in 2043, not 2042. That claim just seems like a different animal than all the other stated lies. I’d like to get the source on what you’re basing your lying vs. non-lies about social security. I’m just curious. Maybe you have a time machine. And anyway, Medicare is going to throw us into financial turmoil well before social security.
Tax the future! Oh wait, i’m still young, damnit! On a very similar issue, see today’s op-ed by George Will in the Post.
Also, if you’d like to send emails to anyone in the future, check out futureme.org. It’s pretty amazing.
Editor:: You can start with factcheck.org? http://www.factcheck.org/social-security/bushs_state_of_the_union_social_security.html
Even if the date were correct, all that would happen in 2042 would be that the trust fund used to pay out benefits to workers would be exhausted, but even then current workers taxes would continue to cover 73 percent of promised benefits to retirees. More importantly, that 2042 projection by the increasingly politicized Social Security Administration was just a conservative projection made a few years ago based upon unrealistically low estimates of future economic growth. It has already been pushed back by several years’ good economic performance, and in fact, the Congressional Budget Office and most independent economists say that the trust fund should enable the system to cover all benefits through at least 2052 and perhaps on out through 2080 and beyond.